June, 1909.] 



Edible Products. 



prickly-pear in Mexico. In that country 

 the use of the prickly-pear is much moi'e 

 vaiiedthau in the United States. All the 

 species are fed to stock indiscriminately. 

 Whatever is available and can be spared 

 is singed and fed to cattle. The extent 

 of cattle-feeding upon this kind of food 

 is uot, however, so great in Mexico as 

 one would suppose from the abund- 

 ance of the material and the great ex- 

 tent of time during which the practice 

 has been in vogue. The fact is, it is 

 stated, that the average peon cannot 

 afford to feed to stock what he himself 

 can use so profitably in other ways. 

 The prickly- pear is to the peon, pri- 

 marily, an article of human food, and 

 its place cannot be taken by any other 

 plant. The fruit, as well as the young 

 joints, are eaten by man in Mexico, and 

 the dried stems and .joints are used for 

 fuel. The fuel which it makes is, of 

 covirse, exceedingly poor, but it serves 

 the purpose in that land, where this 

 commodity is exceedingly scarce. The 

 feeding of cacti to stock is, therefore, a 

 secondary consideration. On some of 

 the large haciendas, especially those 

 devoted to maguey culture, the feeding 

 of pear to working oxen during the 

 grassless season is a regular practice, 

 but then only wild forms are used. 

 Over a large part of the Republic, 

 therefore, although a large use is made 

 of them for forage, their principal use 

 is as an article of human food. 



Texas. 



The latest information from the United 

 States is contained in a paper read 

 before the Second Session of the Trans- 

 Missouri Dry Farming Congress, held 

 in Salt Lake City, Utah, in which it 

 is pointed out that the vigorous pro- 

 secution of the prickly-pear question 

 was not begun by the Department of 

 Agriculture until about four years ago. 

 Since that time investigations have 

 been organised in several of the south- 

 western States ; but the major portion 

 of the work up to date has been con- 

 ducted in the pear region at San Antonio, 

 Texas. What follows, therefore, will 

 relate to those experiments, and has 

 application to that stretch of territory 

 extending from the Gulf to Del Rio, 

 and from Austin to Brownsville, com- 

 prising 50,000 to 75,000 square miles. The 

 application to other regions was not 

 made, as it would be necessary, 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 utilise the native 

 crop of prickly-pear, which is very 

 prolific in many sections ; but it was 

 necessary, when the 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 controlled conditions ; 

 second, it was most essential to deter- 

 mine the rate of growth of the plant, 

 both under natural conditions and under 

 cultivation. 



The Value for Stock.— The first in- 

 vestigations were conducted with a 

 native crop three years ago. A carload 

 of steers were fed under controlled condi- 

 tions for the Department by Mr. T. A. 

 Coleman at Bncinal. Without going 

 into the details, let it suffice for it to be 

 said 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 increase 

 in weight of animals cost only Sh cents 

 (lfd.) per lb. 



In a similar experiment at San Antonio 

 with milk cows, prickly-pear as a rough- 

 age was alternated with sorghum hay in 

 conjunction with a constant concentrate 

 ration, consisting of cotton-seed meal and 

 rice bran. Here it was found that all 

 the cows that would eat of prickly-pear 

 produced a little better results than all 

 that would eat of sorghum hay. Here 

 H lb, of butter, it is stated, was made at 

 a cost of 13| cents (6|d.) per day. 



The experiments show conclusively 

 that the prickly-pear can be used in 

 that region profitably in beef and butter 

 production. 



Preparing for Food. — In the early 

 history of pear-feeding, which dates back 

 to the Civil War, the plants were pre- 

 pared 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-eastern 

 Colorado. Early in the 80's a machine 

 was invented by a Dr. Carruthers for 

 chopping the pear so that it could be fed 

 without injury. The original machine 

 has subsequently been improved, so that 

 it is claimed now by the manufacturers, 

 and also by the feeders, that eight men 

 and four teams, with pear handy, can 

 feed 1,500 head of cattle. The most useful 

 pear machine, however, is the gasoline 

 torch, which is a modified plumber's 

 torch. By the use of this instrument one 

 man can feed 400 cattle without diffi- 

 culty. This is used simply to singe off 

 the thorns, which burn very readily. 

 The plants are singed where they grow, 

 and the cattle are then turned on to 

 graze on them without further prepar- 

 ation or handling. 



