ON THE SPINELESS CACTUS 



sufficiently valuable with which to continue the 

 work, the experiment may be considered success- 

 ful thus far. 



It is tedious to wait another term of years 

 before going to the next hybridizing experiment 

 that will give a still better crop of seedlings from 

 which to make new selections. But of course 

 numberless experiments with other plants are 

 being carried out in the interval, and so the time 

 does not seem so long while it is passing, as it 

 seems in retrospect. 



Let it suffice that after fifteen years of effort, 

 involving the collection of materials from all over 

 the globe, the hybridizing in the aggregate of 

 thousands of individuals, and successive selections 

 among literal millions of seedlings, I was at last 

 rewarded by the production not merely of one but 

 of numerous varieties of hybrid Opuntias that 

 grow to enormous size, producing an unbelievable 

 quantity of succulent forage; the slabs of which 

 are as free from spines or spicules as a water- 

 melon; and that produce enormous quantities of 

 delicious fruit. 



Some inkling, perhaps, of the difficulties of the 

 experiments through which this result was 

 achieved have been revealed in the preceding 

 pages. 



Something of the economic importance of the 



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