and nine or ten inches broad. They are covered with groups of 

 stout spines from one-half inch to one and a half inches long, which 

 point backward on the stem. Throughout the grazing regions of 

 Texas, where this prickly pear grows, it forms one of the most 

 highly valued fodder plants. It is sometimes fed on the range, but 

 the more common, most economical, and safest method of feeding 

 is to prepare the stems by the removal of the spines. They are 

 singed off by holding the joints a moment in a blaze, or the stems 

 are chopped up in a feed cutter without removing the spines, or 

 they are boiled to soften them. This cactus is chiefly utilised in 

 dry seasons, when there is a shortage of grass on the ranges, the 

 succulent stems containing a large amount of water, and enough 

 starch and gum to sustain life. The best way is, however, to feed 

 with hay or cotton-seed meal. Many thousand head of cattle are 

 marketed every year which have been fattened entirely upon prickly 

 pear and cotton seed. A ration of five to seven pounds of the 

 cotton seed, and fifty to sixty pounds of prickly pear per head is one 

 usually given. The stems vary from one to six, or sometimes ten to 

 twelve feet high. They grow in such abundance, and are propagated 

 so easily, that there is little clanger of their ever being entirely 

 exterminated. If fed alone, without proper admixture of other 

 foods, prickly pear causes laxity, and when fed to working stock a 

 tendency to bloat. 



Mr. W. L. Boyce, of Warraba, Lochinvar, New South Wales, 

 sends the following account of his experiment with prickly-pear 

 ensilage to the New South Wales Agricultural Gazette. It might be 

 mentioned that a sample of this product was brought under 'the 

 notice of the Agricultural and Dairy Conferences, and was favor- 

 ably commented upon : In my article in the Gazette of April last, 

 under the above heading, I mentioned that I had included twenty 

 loads of prickly pears in a stack of ensilage with maize and sorghum. 

 I now have the pleasure of forwarding you a sample, and reporting 

 unqualified success. The cattle like the pears quite as much as the 

 other constituents of the ensilage, and prefer these pears to the 

 steamed pears, which I am still giving them. The ensilage was 

 made in a stack in the open and pressed with home-made appliances 

 and covered with iron. Owing to the drought, the stack is only a 

 small one, which makes my present triumph the greater. The bas< 

 of the stack is 19 ft. by 16 ft. 6 in. and only 3 ft. high in its com- 

 d state. I estimate that the pears amount to one-third of the 

 whole stack. In building the stack I put alternate layers of pears 

 and maize or sorghum, four loads of pears in one layer, but never 

 allowed the pears to be nearer than a foot to the edge. At present 

 I am feeding the cows on this ensilage, steamed pears and barley, 

 all on the same day ; there is a! <1 picking of green herbage, 



yet everything is eaten up clean. The milk test is at present four 

 per cent, of butter fat, which is amongst the highest at my creamery. 

 Now, as this ration has a good proportion of prickly pears, the 



