PEAK AS A HOG FEED. 29 



be considerable. With cheap labor, however, even this method is 

 profitable in average years. This sjuring, cattle were fed on grass for 

 two months after the pear feeding, but in an average year they are 

 sold after four weeks' ran on grass. The reason for the longer period 

 this year was the prolonged drought of the spring season, which made 

 pear feeding much less profitable than usually is the case. 



It is Mr. Wolcott's practice to ship off grass or some other than the 

 pear and meal ration, on account of the large shrinkage which the stock 

 suffers after this kind of feed. If it were possible to furnish a partial 

 ration of hulls to supplant a portion of the pear, he thinks that feeding 

 would be very much more satisfactory; but it is to get rid of the 

 expense of the hulls that the pear is resorted to. 



In all cases in southeastern Colorado, as in Texas, only a partial 

 ration of cactus has been fed. In some cases the remainder of the feed 

 has been supplied in the form of corn chop, and in others cattle have 

 had the run of poor pastures, as is almost universal in Texas. Mr. 

 E. M. Bages, of Trinidad, Colo., during the past winter fed his 40 

 head of cattle 1,000 pounds (estimated) of cactus per day. He states 

 that the pastures were so short that all the cottonwood leaves (Populus 

 sp.) which had fallen during the past winter were cleaned up. They, 

 however, got some grass as well as greasewood (Sarcohahcs vermicu- 

 latus) and shad-scale {Atriplex canescens) browse. His practice was to 

 gather one load of about 2,000 pounds of cactus on alternate days. 

 The spines were singed off over an open fire of dead poplar wood. 

 The stock were in poor condition when the ranch was visited, about 

 the middle of April, but it is ver}^ questionable wdiether they would 

 ■have been able to live at all without this additional feed. 



Mr. J. M. John, of. Trinidad, Colo., who is the only person in this 

 country known to have steamed any of the cactus plants for cattle, 

 reports that he had good success one winter in feeding daily to each 

 animal 30 pounds of steamed cactus and 4 pounds of corn chop, 

 together with a small ration of hay. A lot of poor cows was made 

 into beef between the first of January and the middle of April upon a 

 somewhat larger ration than the above. These data, while not so 

 definite as one could wish, are suggestive and form a splendid basis for 

 future work. 



PEAR AS A HOG FEED. 



While several reports have come to us through the Agricultural 

 Gazette of New South Wales regarding the feeding of prickly pear to 

 hogs, there appears to have been but little attention paid to it for this 

 purpose in this country. The only place known to us where pear has 

 been fed successfully to hogs is at the asjdum in San Antonio, Tex. 

 The feeding here is done in such a way that the data, while valuable, 

 give very little idea of the amount consumed by each animal. The 



