7S CACTACEOUS PLANTS. 



The estates where the Cochineal Cactus is grown are termed Nopa- 

 leries, and the usual method o£ cultivation is to have the plants in rows, 

 kept to the height of 4 or 5 feet. In Mexico, what is termed the sowing- 

 takes place in August or September — that is, the placing of the female 

 insects upon the plants to produce their young. They are placed on with 

 a piece of rag or the soft leaves of some plant, and if necessary this is- 

 secured by means of a thorn from one of the Opuntias, O. Dillenii being 

 employed for that purpose in TenerifEe. In three or four months from 

 the sowing the collection of the cochineal commences, women being 

 employed in this work removing the insects with a blunt knife or 

 squirrel's taU, which it may be readily imagined is an extremely tedious 

 task, when it is stated that about 70,000 of the insects are required to 

 make a pound. The insects are then killed by immersion in boiling 

 water and afterwards dried in the sun, that being the state in which they 

 are usually imported to this country. The insects are killed by being 

 heated in an oven. There are, however, two kinds named — the Grana 

 fina and the Grana sylvestra, the former being much larger and superior 

 in every way to the latter. So great a difEerence is there, that the Bast 

 India Company are reported to have offered a reward of £6000 for the- 

 introduction of the Grana fina into India, where the other was only then 

 known. In the Kew Museum may be seen samples of what are termed 

 the black and white Cochineals from Oaxaca in Mexico, and a small 

 inferior sort named Granilla from Vera Cruz and Honduras. The white- 

 Cochineal is also known commercially as Silver Grain, and consists of 

 the oven-dried insects, the black being the insects killed by immersion in 

 water. 



The cochineal trade in TenerifEe has been incidentally mentioned, and 

 in connection with the subject the following letter recently addressed to- 

 the London Times is of especial interest : — " The old proverb that ' What 

 is one man's meat is another man's poison ' was never better exemplified 

 than in the cochineal trade, which has been nearly ruined since the dis- 

 covery of aniline dyes. Until very recently this trade was the mainstay 

 of the island of TenerifEe, the cochineal depending upon the cultivation 

 of the Cactus plant, which, since the supersession of the trade by aniline,, 

 is no longer the remunerative business that it formerly was. Cochineal 

 consists of several kinds and qualities, the first and second qualities being 

 called black aconchaia, the others being madres hucnos and plateada. 

 The export trade is principally in the latter kinds, the first being less 

 abundant and having to be more carefully picked and sorted. The 

 madreg buenos is seldom exported, but is principally used for propagating 

 the cochineal insect by sprinkling them on the thick fleshy leaves of the 

 plant, which flourishes equally well in indifferent and rocky soil and. 



