NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



and this is, no doubt, what took place in the 

 above experiment." 



Attention is called in the bulletin to the 

 use of the prickly pear in Mexico where the 

 thorns are singed away before feeding to cat- 

 tle, though the interesting fact is developed 

 that, to quote from the bulletin, "the extent 

 of cattle-feeding upon this kind of food is not 

 so great in Mexico as one would suppose, 

 from the abundance of the material and the 

 great extent of time during which the practice 

 has been in vogue. The fact is, that the aver- 

 age Mexican peon cannot afford to feed to 

 stock what he himself can use so profitably in 

 other ways. The prickly pear is to him pri- 

 marily an article of human food, and its place 

 cannot be taken by any other plant. . . . 

 Over a large part of the Republic, although 

 the prickly pears are much used for forage, 

 their principal use is as an article of human 

 food." 



While this is a new departure in this coun- 

 try in the line of animal feeding, and while 

 much remains to be worked out, enough has 

 been established to show the large economic 

 importance of the cactus as a forage food. 



388 



