200 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [vill. 



of each of said states upon his executing an obligation 

 on behalf of his state that the sum so paid shall be 

 faithfully applied in connection with any sum which 

 may be raised for that purpose in his state for the 

 destruction of said cactus." 



The expenditure of this money seems to rest with 

 the governors of the various states, but the bill is 

 significantly silent as to the means to be employed in 

 dislodging this inveterate enemy. The first expenditure 

 from this fund, it would seem, should be to clean all state 

 lands of the pest, — which the state should be bound to 

 do, anyhow, — and to enforce the laws concerning the 

 cleaning of roadsides ; and if the remainder of the fund 

 could be expended in a vigorous crusade for the better- 

 ment of the agriculture of the given regions, in discour- 

 aging the breaking up of more land than can be well 

 cultivated, and in the establishment of rotations, the 

 appropriation will have been well made. But beyond 

 this I do not see how the government can go, — certainly 

 not to the point of taking each farm under its surveil- 

 lance and setting laborers to putting at rights what the 

 owner of the land is himself, in his own welfare, bound 

 to repair, and for the existence of which he may be said, 

 constructively, to have been to blame. 



The fact is, this plague is one of those curses which 

 comes upon a new country in consequence of the sudden 

 overturning of established conditions, and the substitu- 

 tion therefor of a very imperfect and one-sided system 

 of land occupancy. It is like the plague of rabbits in 

 Australia, or of cardoons on the pampas. It comes as 

 a vigorous reminder of the weak points in the newly 

 established agricultural system, and demands either that 

 the system be overturned or that the inhabitants move. 



