1910. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1150 
CACTUS AS A FORAGE CROP. 
How It Is Planted and How Fed. 
While the prickly pear has been used for feed for 
hundreds of years, and has been the subject of scien¬ 
tific and practical investigation by the Department of 
Agriculture for the last five, yet there are many de¬ 
tails to be worked out, as regards cultivation and feed¬ 
ing as well as selection of varieties. In this article I 
shall endeavor to make clear what we know or think 
we know, and show some ideals we are hoping and 
working for. The subject is one of intense interest, 
one that grows more interesting every season, as new 
possibilities open up. Speaking for myself, I feel that 
I have learned more about it in the last year than in 
all my life before, and my faith in it as the great 
forage crop for dairy cattle in the semi-arid regions 
is firmer than ever before. We are feeding 100 milch 
cows and a large number of dry stock 
arid calves on the pear. They get no 
other roughage at all, except that oc¬ 
casionally they may get a little grass or 
weeds, not enough to make any differ¬ 
ence. Last Spring we had some rains 
that gave us what we thought was very 
fair grazing, so we tried to cut down ex¬ 
penses by feeding pear at night and 
turning the cows out on the grass dur¬ 
ing the day. We tried this several times, 
but invariably the yield of milk was 25 
or 30 gallons short, so we found it was 
necessary to give the cows all the pear 
they could eat, day and night. 
We have a lot of pear in cultivation 
as well as growing wild in the pasture. 
However, there is not enough of it for 
our herd, so we have to buy it from 
our neighbors. Some of them are glad 
to haul it five or six miles and deliver 
it in our feed lot at $1.25 per ton. We 
used to buy all we needed at $1 per ton, 
but have fed most of the pear that was 
close to us. The pear is thrown from 
the wagons in windrows. We then take 
a gasoline pear burner, which is a modi¬ 
fication of the plumber’s torch, and singe 
off the thorns. The cattle eat the ter¬ 
minal joints readily, but the thick stumps 
are too hard for them. If we had hogs 
they could attend to the stumps in fine 
style. It is an interesting sight to see 
a husky hog put one foot on a thick pear 
stump and get a good grip on it with 
his teeth. Something has to give way, 
and it is usually the stump. We have 
tried running the stumps through the sil¬ 
age cutter. That makes good feed, but 
as compared with the terminal joints it 
is rather expensive, on account of the 
labor required to gather them up, cut 
them, and shovel into troughs. So at 
present we have a Mexican go out in the 
lot with a wagon and pick up all the 
joints that are too thick for the cows to 
eat. He then hauls them out to the 
field and plants them in furrows, end to 
end. We plow the furrows six to eight 
feet apart. We do not cover the joints 
after planting, as we expect that to be 
done by rains and cultivation. If it does 
not rain for a few weeks after planting 
it does not matter much, as the pear 
will,wait till the moisture comes. We 
place the stumps end to end in the rows, 
as we want the plants to be crowded 
close together, to save gasoline and time 
when singeing. 
Now let us do a little theorizing. The 
Department of Agriculture, as you per¬ 
haps know, is interested in what you 
might call a pasture shrub or bush that 
can be grazed off. Now, can we treat prickly pear 
that way? Say we have a field of it and by judicious 
handling we develop the plants so that the limbs arc 
three or four feet long, and so thick that the cows 
cannot eat them down. That gives us a framework- 
on which we ought to grow as much pear in one sea¬ 
son as an average plant would in two or three. What 
worries me is whether an areola will produce more 
than one joint. If not, our framework may not last 
long enough to pay. 
The more we work with the pear, the more I be¬ 
come convinced that we have not found the most eco¬ 
nomical way of handling it. Assuming that we have 
abundance of pear in cultivation, it is not certain 
that it would pay to feed the cattle where it grows. 
That is an ideal plan in mild weather. But when it 
is muddy, or when we have a wet, cold norther I 
would expect the stock to be set back sufficiently to 
make it desirable for us to adopt a plan of feeding 
that the changes of climate would not affect. We are 
now building a lean-to on our barn. When complete 
we will have two feeding floors, with four rows of 
stanchions. On one - floor we propose to feed the 
grain while the cows are being milked. Then, when 
they are turned out, they can step around to the other 
side and get a good supply of chopped pear. We 
propose cutting all of the pear and running it down 
the floor on a carrier. We will keep it piled up day 
and night so no cow will have any excuse to go 
hungry. By this method we shall be independent of 
the weather, as we can pile up enough pear by the 
cutter to run several weeks. The feed will be clean, 
there will be no waste. We can tell at a glance if 
there is sufficient feed on hand. There will be more 
labor than under our present system, but I would ex¬ 
pect the cows to eat so much more that it would 
pay. Aside from the feeding problem, the building 
of the lean-to is necessary to provide shelter for the 
stock on the few really cold nights we have here. 
Now some one is going to say, “Why do you not 
feed the chopped pear as we feed silage; give a cow 
40 or 50 pounds twice a day, and let her clean it up?” 
Well, it seems to be a different proposition somehow. 
We find it very poor policy in the first place to put 
the slightest limit on the amount of pear our cows 
get. The more they can eat the better they thrive and 
the more milk they give. There is nothing that sets 
them hack more than shortage of pear. If we hap¬ 
pen to be short of milk, the cause is almost invariably 
traced to the pear. With the grain feed it is different. 
We have to put a limit on that, or we have a sick 
cow. By using two floors we can save much labor, as 
it is easier to shift the cows than to clean up the 
floor. Of course it will be necessary to remove all 
old pear before it ferments. Chopped pear will not 
keep very long, although it keeps so well before being 
cut up. I attribute that to the fact that the skin of 
the pear is airtight. It will not give out moisture, 
neither will it absorb moisture through the skin, even 
though shriveled from the drought. And so we go 
on from day to day, learning more about prickly pear 
Texas. wm. Sinclair. 
R. N.-Y.—The pictures, Figs. 498 and 499 show 
two periods in the life of the cactus. Fig _ 498 gives a 
good idea of the way it is planted, as described above 
by Mr. Sinclair. In Fig. 499 a row of sleek and con¬ 
tented cows are making a meal of cactus, and looking 
quite as happy as if provided with northern corn 
silage. 
VALUE OF A CORN HARVESTER. 
On page 917 J. Henry Rines gives his experience 
with corn harvester, and I thought I 
would answer that article, but procras¬ 
tinated. Then J. P. IC, of Bath, N. Y., 
my own county, wrote an article printed 
on page 9S5 which seemed to include 
my sentiments. When I read more 
about corn harvesters on page 1094 from 
D. P. B. and A. H. D. I felt like say¬ 
ing my say r . If I raised five acres of 
corn especially for silo I would not be 
without a corn harvester under any cir¬ 
cumstances. In this locality silos are 
quite numerous, and in several cases, in¬ 
cluding our own, two farmers own one 
er. Our adjoining neighbor and I 
each have two silos and own a corn har¬ 
vester, having had it about five years. 
Before that we cut by hand, and now 
our work is done one-halt easier than 
before, and with much less expense. I 
can cut from five to seven acres per clay 
with three r ood horses in any kind of 
corn and have cut corn twice the height 
of my horses’ heads with our. machine-; 
in fact would rather cut tall corn than 
short, though have cut that which was 
not more than three feet high. Our 
land is free from stones, and I always 
cut within two or three inches of the 
ground. 
We consider it a great advantage to 
have silage corn in.bundles just the right 
size to handle easily, and field corn 
can be drawn to barn and husked there, 
or can be drawn off the field and field 
sown to wheat if desired, which cannot 
be done if cut by hand. I personally 
would rather do almost any other work 
than cut corn by hand, and in this age 
of high-priced labor we must economize 
with machinery and horses to do the 
work our forefathers did by hand. Some 
will object to the ears which are broken 
off with the corn binder, but we al¬ 
ways gather them in a wagon box after 
the field is cleared, and feed them to 
the hogs, husk and all. We have never 
had our machine off the two farms to 
cut for neighbors but once, and never 
intend’to do so again, and it will cut 
our 10 to 15 acres each a great many 
years. We also have an engine, 10 
horse-power, steam, and a silage cutter 
owned jointly between us, and with our 
two silos each would not give up our 
outfit for a great deal if we could n. t 
buy another. A. H. D. lives in a coun¬ 
try where they are about 40 years be¬ 
hind the progressive farmers of the old 
Empire State anyway. w. a. t. 
Bindley, N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—This discussion of corn cut¬ 
ting is especially interesting in showin •; 
the various viewpoints resulting from local conditions. 
Mr. Sinclair’s cactus talks give us another side oi 
farm practice. _ 
noc.SK ins are considered a delicacy in Mexico. A few 
years ago an Ohio manufacturer was caught making 
bogus “maple sugar’’ out of brown sugar, acid and heg 
skins. 
The Lowberry is a new English bramble fruit, de¬ 
scribed as a cross between blackberry and Loganberry. It 
is described as a gigantic elongated blackberry, jet black 
when ripe, hardy and vigorous. 
Throughout the Northwest are large deposits of lignite 
—a form of coal midway in development between peat and 
bituminous coal. It has not given good returns as fuel 
in ordinary stoves or furnaces. It is needed, as other 
forms of coal are scarce and high priced. Experiments 
have shown that with special forms of burners and fur¬ 
naces this lignite can be used with economy. This will 
prove very useful to people in the Dakotas, where there is 
little timber and where the mines of bituminous and an¬ 
thracite coal are far away. 
PLANTING CACTUS IN TEXAS. Fic. 498. 
CONTENTED COWS ON CACTUS FORAGE. Frc.. 499. 
A CONNECTICUT FARM PEDDLER’S OUTFIT. Fig. 500. 
