DRY, FARMING CONGRESS. 



181 



Prof. Griffiths would himself have given to you. He had a paper that 

 was very carefully prepared and illustrated by many stereopticon views. 

 On account of the serious illness of his wife at the last moment he was 

 unable to attend, and therefore had to re-write this short outline of his 

 paper which I shall read to you, 



PRICKLY PEAR AS A DRY LAND CROP. 



(David Griffiths.) 



The vigorous prosecution of the prickly pear question was not be- 

 gun by the Department of Agriculture until about four years ago. Since 

 that time investigations have been organised in several of the south- 

 western state, but the major portion of the work up to date has been 

 conducted in the pear region at San Antonio, Texas. What I shall say 

 to you today, therefore, will relate to those experiments, and has ap- 

 plication to that stretch of territory extending from the gulf to Del Rio 

 and from Austin to Brownsville, comprising fifty to seventj^-five thou- 

 sand square miles. The application to other regions will not be made 

 by me at this time. It is necessar3^ first, to secure more data on these 

 regions before we can speak positively of the value of this crop in other 

 sections. 



The people of Texas have known for fifty years how to utilize the 

 native crop of prickly pear, which is very prolific in many sections, but 

 it was necessary, when our investigations were begun, to determine, first, 

 the value of the plant as food for stock from a scientific standpoint by 

 chemical and digestion tests, as well as by actual feeding under con- 

 trolled conditions. Second, it was most essential to determine the rate 

 of growth of the plant, both under natural conditions and under cultiva- 

 tion. 



The first investigations were conducted with a native crop three years 

 ago. A carload of steers were fed under controlled conditions for the 

 Department by Mr. T. A. Coleman at Encinal. Without going into the 

 details, let it suffice for me to say that prickly pear was fed as a roughage 

 (as it should always be fed) with cotton seed meal. The experiment 

 justified such practices by ranchers of the section inasmuch as the in- 

 crease in weight of animals costs only 3 1-2 cents per pound. 



In a similar experiment at San Antonio with milk cows prickly pear 

 as a roughage was alternated with sorghum hay in conjunction with a 

 constant concentrate ration consisting of cotton seed meal and rice bran. 

 Here we found that all the cows would eat of prickly pear produced a 

 little better results than all they would eat of sorghum hay. Here 1 1-3 

 pounds of butter was made at a cost of 13 1-2 cents per day. 



These experiments show conclusively that the prickly pear can be 

 used in that region profitably in beef and butter production. 



In the early history of pear feeding, which dates back to the Civil 

 war, the plants were prepared for food by being singed with brush. 

 This practice is still in vogue with many small ranchers, and the same 

 custom prevails among the few people who feed cane cactus in south- 



