238 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
are commonly employed as hedge plants, and have 
every facility to spread themselves when the land is 
out of cultivation. Many species are, however, 
quite handsome in form and color, and where gar- 
dening is in vogue in climates adapted to them they 
may often be formed into very fetching and pictur- 
resque groups. The fruit of several is edible, which 
is about the only resemblance they bear to figs. 
The genus was founded by Tournefort and changed 
to cactus by Linnaeus. 
Trenton, N. J. James MacPherson. 
acanthus (Missouriensis) and O. fragilis extend 
north to British Columbia and other parts of North- 
western America. The remainder are widely dif- 
fused in the Southwestern United States and in the 
COMMERCIAL TREES. 
I. OPUNTIA VULGARIS. 2 . 
3. OPUNTIA MICRODASYS. 4. 
5. OPUNTIA BASILARIS. 
OPUNTIA EMORYI. 
OPUNTIA FRAGILIS. 
tropical parts of America. O. amycloea is natural- 
ized on Mount Vesuvius and other places in Medi- 
terranean countries. So also is O. vulgaris. In- 
deed, several forms seem to have naturalized so 
freely that they grow up in the tropical fallow 
fields ol the old world as freely as burdocks. They 
Mr. J. O. Barrett, Secretary of the Minnesota State 
Forestry Association, in discussing tree culture from a 
business standpoint, says: 
“By experimentation the early settlers learned that 
only non-commercial trees could be successfully raised 
on the open prairie. It may never be safe to reject these 
pioneers entirely as shelter belts for the commercial 
sorts which are less hardy in the start. With 
their protection, prairie forestry is sufficiently 
developed now to warrant the introduction of the 
pines, white and red oaks, canoe white birch, wal- 
nuts, hickories, hard maples, basswoods, rock elms, 
the better ashes and some others. It has already 
been demonstrated in the southern half of the 
state, that walnut orcharding is a paying success. 
In Europe are plantations of commercial trees 
that largely support the government. The little 
country of Bavaria, for instance, owning 3,000,000 
acres of forests, receives from them a net profit 
annually of $4,500,000. Minnesota, or any other state 
of equal area, can do a well, only practically system- 
atize the enterprise. In Massachusetts, and like suc- 
cess in other New England states, an eight acre lot 
of poor land, sown to pine seeds in r8so, the trees 
cut in 1891, yielded $ 2,000 from the box boards at the 
mill. 
“At this rate 100,000 acres, conditions similar, would, 
in 40 years growth of the seedlings, yield $25,000,000; 
and 10,000 square miles, 6,400,000 acres, poorest land, 
located at the headlands of our principal streams, as 
forest reserves, would yield $1,600,000,000, to say nothing 
of water economy and healthful influences, and benefits 
to the general agriculture. According to good authori- 
ties, the increment value of wood growth after the trees 
have developed to about half their maturity, is five 
cents per tree. Dating the-e ratios, and allowing each 
acre to have, average, only 100 trees, the increase in 
value per year of the 10,000 square miles would be 
$3 1 ,000,000. 
“Calling the net but half this sum, it is obvious that, 
with right management, the profit from the cut would 
liberally support all our state public institutions. Is it not 
worth the while, then, for the state to encourage the 
raising of pines and other commercial trees on lands 
useless for other purposes than such tree culture? 
“Let the prairie farmers, too, consider their chances. 
The demand for timber is constantly increasing. If they 
would begin the commercial enterprise with simply one 
acre, and every year plant a new one, so that the value 
would be continuous after the first cutting by selection 
and keeping the forest intact, the income would far ex- 
ceed the profit of all their other crops.” 
EPIPHYLLUM TRUNCATUM. 
