Cape To own, 5th April 1888. 
Cónüning what I have to say to experience in the districts of Somer- 
set and Graaff-Reinet, there nevertheless exist, in many other r places, 
areas over which the prickly pear plant has spread during the ek 
50 years so as to become a serious difficulty. The courses of stre 
and flats between their eurvatures, have in many cases been aopla 
run, and such places are generally abandoned: in despair. Thus 
O years. The thicket on the site of the railway station 
at , Cookhuis Drift, though ai so large, was even more den ma and 
Ido not think the ordinary means at the disposal of any farmer will 
be adequate to the extirpation of such concentrated masses of this plant. 
own i 
rface of a sheep-farm, things are not so hopeless Many 
enterprising men have, in the districts named, spent from 1002. ‘to 2007. 
ne som to clear their property, ard find advantage in the outlay. 
i am informed, are apt to get under the lee of a thicket of Opuntia 
in oe hee) weather, and, besides the mischief aecruing (mostly to 
from irrepressible nibbling of the needle-armed stem-joints, ud 
t to receive in their eyes the spicules knocked off and carried 
wind,in which case violent inflammation, suppuration, and en 
blindness may result. 
y tenacious of life are the stem- p vag oe mere hewing down is 
irpati e three stem-joints cut 
eminently capable of ‘rooting at any I 
can be formed. dt is this tenacity of life that has _ 
with ve you 
rpated every Opustia on their : e 
ant have rid macer of the pest by simply throwing it, 
on as into the river Viene it Oe cen to “ come down.” 
ways of etiatn Tho. 6l ae ebay and 
method, to my knowledge, is to uproot and Mod the Opuntia 
short lengths, to pile the pieces in iia rectangular ee about 
reme , a 5 feet to deu 
nd tained “with stones 
* is heroic poised is, however, powerless to Ape the — 
| ue deori por in texture. I — seen a multitude ; 
