~ ifti. ' • .*; r'-.' V]''. 
as to become a serious menace to agriculture, and 6,000 square miles 
more of the state are more or less invaded. 
Reliable estimates from the counties infested although some¬ 
what incomplete, as some localities where damage occurred were not 
reported at the prevailing low prices of farm products, woidd indi¬ 
cate a direct crop loss of more than one million.dollars for the vear 
1S93 alone. The south half of the counties through which the 
Northern I’acific Railroad passes have sustained no material loss to 
the crop of 1S93. The counties of Dickey, Sargent and LaMoure 
ha\ e suffered most; while southwestern Richlanil, southwestern 
Ransom, central McIntosh, and southern Logan are next in line of 
loss. The cro|5 loss in Dickey county, estimated by the county com¬ 
missioners, is placed at thirty per cent; Sargent count}' is estimated 
at twenty per cent; LaMoure, twenty per cent; McIntosh, twenty 
per cent; while Richland county reports about 30,000 acres infested 
with cacti, with a crop loss on this land of fifteen per cent. Much 
of the land in the worst cacti tlistricts was not plowed last fall 
because of the mechanical obstruction to machinery presented by 
the weeds. 
Lrom these estimates, which are undoubtedlv very conserva¬ 
tive, it will be seen that the damage to the crop of 1S93 was 
enormous ; and unless the coming season is more fa\ orable to the 
rapid growth of the wheat plant than the past, the damage will be 
even greater for if>94. 
From information recei\'ed from different parts of the State, 
the plant seems to be spreading with great and dangerous rapidity. 
The rale of invasion of new territory in the open prairie is from 
twent} -live to thirt}- miles per \ ear to the north, south and east, and 
less ra]5iil to the west b\' reason of our moderate and infrequent 
eastern wiiuls. Streams with high banks, fences and timber arrest 
the rolling plants, and to some extent check their rapid spread. 
The means adopted for subduing and exterminating the cactus 
are \ arious, and about as numerous as the individuals clevising them. 
It will suffice to mention only those which ha\ e proven, or are 
likel} to ))ro\'e, successful. Where plants are few atid isolaletl, 
careful jndling before maturity is effectual;. but where thev com- 
pletel}' cover the ground, excluding every other plant, as they have 
done in many localities, such a method is impracticable. In such 
fields burning when dry, either in spring or fall, if well executed, is 
\ery effectual. .Spring burning is best if the weather is favorable 
and the ground is dry at the surface, as this destroys all seed blown 
on the land during the winter. Hut often the spring is wet, and in 
the vicinity of plowed fields dirt will be blown into the cacti mixed 
with snow, which when melted leav es a covering of mud over the 
seeds which have been scattered over the ground, and when the field 
is burned the seeds are so protected that they are n{)t destroyed by 
the heat. This also happens if the ground is very moist in the 
6 
