The Spineless Cactus 
For hundreds, probably thousands of years, the great, rapid growing, 
desert thorny cactus (Opuntias and others) have furnished food for stock 
and fruit for man, especially in Southern Europe, Northern Africa and Mex- 
ico, where the fruit, though rather seedy and difficult or almost dangerous 
to handle, is very highly prized, more so perhaps than any other fruit except 
the orange and banana. 
The whole plant furnishes nutritious food in abundance, yet great pain 
and often death was the penalty for using them. 
Fourteen years ago the first scientific experiments for their improvement 
were instituted on my farms. Eight years later when these costly experi- 
ments were crowned with success beyond the imagination of anybody, the 
United States Department of Agriculture became interested and some ten 
thousand dollars or more was authorized for a search For "thornless" ones. 
All countries where they grew were literally scoured with the hope of 
finding one of great agricultural and horticultural value like those already 
produced on my farms — the result was a failure. 
There is and never was a spineless cactus in existence except those pro- 
duced by my own efforts, which will produce at the rate of 180,230 pounds 
of forage and 198,637 pounds of large, beautiful, delicious fruit per acre the 
third year from rooted cuttings, as my new ones have done here. 
Beware of the so-called "spineless" cactus sent out by the Department 
of Agriculture; they are not spineless and are not safe to handle or to feed 
to stock. The fruit is insignificant, seed}', and poor when compared with 
the improved varieties, not up to the "Burbank Standard," though claimed 
to be "just as good as Burbank's." 
New cactus catalogue next June, which is the proper time for planting. 
No cactus of agricultural or horticultural value will grow except in semi- 
tropical climates. 
"His (Burbank's) occasional catalogues of 'New Creations' are models of concise 
and dispassionate writing." * * * 
"He turns out more new fruits than words, which isn't altogether a bad thing to 
do for a man whose work and joy it is to do precisely that."— Independent, N. Y. & 
"Of all the men who have practiced the fine arts, Mr. Burbank has the keenest eye 
and the best memory. Therefore, he is the greatest artist, and in the years to come will 
he remembered and regarded as the greatest of artists." — President David Starr Jordan, 
Stanford University. 
"The judgment as to what will likely he good and what bad is the very core of 
plant-breeding. In this judgment Burbank excels. Xot to many men is given this gift 
of prophecy. Burbank calls it intuition. Tic cannot explain it any more" than another 
man can explain why he is a good judge of character in human beings, bong experi- 
ence and close observation have directed and crystallized this faculty of his, until it is 
probably as unerring as such faculties can be." — Prof. L. H. Bailey, Cornell University. 
