THE THORNLESS EDIBLE CACTUS 
touch of a great poet who finds the prosy 
story of a Hamlet or a Lear and leaves it a 
masterpiece. 
Out of some twenty genera of cacti, recog- 
nized by naturalists, only five occur in the 
United States, but these are among the most 
varied of all in their species, so that the one 
thousand known varieties of cactus are nearly 
all restricted to America. It is upon one of 
these five, common to the United States, the 
Opuntia, that Mr. Burbank has worked as a 
basis. It is of the variety having flat, thick 
leaves, though sometimes inclined to become 
cylindrical. It is a native of Mexico and South 
America. In their natural state their flowers 
are very striking, some of them red, others 
purple, others yellow. One of the species of 
the Opuntia is cultivated in Mexico as a host 
for the cochineal insect. The insect thrives 
upon its leaves, is killed at the proper time 
and dried, and from it is produced the brilliant 
carmine color so useful in commerce. The 
juice of the fruit is sometimes used as a 
water-color for painting and for coloring con- 
fectionery. Along the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean are several species of the Opuntia, the 
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