THE FODDER PLANT FOR ARID REGIONS. 
23 
In addition to the above disadvantages the 
cactus stalk is often considered as of no food value or 
of very little since its proportion of water is 93 per 
cent. But in spite of this great proportion of 
water, the stalk can still be of service in the feeding 
of stock. Different analyses* have shown that 
it has some nutritive value and also that there 
are numerous proofs of good results obtained by 
the mixture of cactus stalks and other food mix¬ 
tures. 
Mr. Ch. Riviere (Ch. Riviere, The Thornless 
Cactus. Review of Colonial Agriculture 1899, p. 
136) reports that Mr. Couput recommended a 
method employed in Algiers for more than fifty 
years which consists in feeding beef cattle, milch 
cows, goats, etc., with thornless cactus and chopped 
straw mixed in equal parts. lie points out that 
150 lbs. of cactus stalks added to 45 lbs. of ground 
Carob beans slightly fermented and 25 lbs. of 
grain or oil cake make a good fattening and ap¬ 
petizing food for the larger cattle, especially for 
milch cows. 
A stock raiser of Texas has also shown that for 
the fattening of young steers he used, with good 
results, 60 lbs. of cactus and 6 lbs. of cotton seed 
meal per head each day. 
M. Grandeauf in a clever article already cited 
believes that nothing could be easier than to com¬ 
pose a food mixture, equal at least to good wild 
prairie grass and much superior to the richest 
grain straw, by adding to the cactus the leaves or 
twigs of the native vegetation which abounds on 
the uncultivated lands of the the North of the 
Province of Tunis. He announces that mixed in 
equal weights with cactus stalks, the leaves of the 
strawberry tree, the twigs of the mastic tree and 
the branches of cytisus form a food superior to 
prairie grass. And lie adds that several years ago, 
during the scarcity of fodder, M. Lang, overseer 
of the Great Dormain in Corsica introduced very 
successfully into the rations of his cattle a mixture 
of leaves of the strawberry tree (arbousier) and 
cactus stalks. He states that the cattle and horses 
ate it greedily. Lie has called attention to the 
favorable results of using the leaves of the straw¬ 
berry tree as a fattener, which is not surprising- 
considering their heavy component of starchy 
matter. 
In view of the small amount of nutritive matter 
in the cactus, it has been asked if it were not better 
to use the fruits in preference to the stalks. It 
is admittedly very difficult to obtain a crop of 
stalks and also of fruit the same year and to utilize 
them at the season when forage is most scarce. 
A priori, M. Grandeau, is inclined to sacrifice the 
fruit to obtain the stalks for stock food; on the 
one hand because of the stalks’ richness in water 
*Manual of Algerian Agriculture, p. 219, reprinted in jour¬ 
nal d’Agriculture Tropicale, 1902, p. 331, Riviere et Lecq. 
fGrandeau “The Cactus without Thorns,” in Nos. 15-20 
of Le Temps, September, 1903. 
which makes it a valuable food during the dry 
season. On the other hand because it seems 
better adapted for the coarse mixtures suited to 
the bovine species. 
On the contrary, M. Bourde* is convinced that 
the use of the fruit is of more advantage than the 
stalks. In the analysis of Wolf, the Indian Fig is 
given the following composition: 
Dry material - 21.60 per cent 
Woody material__3.70 per cent 
Protein __ -_ 0.59 per cent 
Fatty matter__ 1.80 per cent 
Sugar -14.00 per cent 
It should therelore be a very good forage plant 
of a nutritive value inferior to that of the potato or 
the Jerusalem artichoke but superior to that of the 
carrot or the beet. An analysis made in the 
Chemical Laboratory of the Department of Agri¬ 
culture and Commerce of Tunis, has given results 
different from those of Wolf and according to 
which the nutritive value of the Prickly Pear 
would be appreciably less than that stated by 
Wolf. It may be inferred from this disparity of 
analysis that the different varieties of cactus have 
different compositions. There is room therefore to 
make a careful choice among the varieties. 
M . Bourde, after his study of the cactus, was 
the originator of an inquiry to find a variety of 
cactus which would produce regularly the yield 
of fruit, sometimes cited, of 20,000 kilogrammes to 
the acre, and which would retain the nutritive 
value indicated by Wolf. Such a research deserves 
the most careful consideration. For the results 
it may bring may contribute greatly to the solution 
of the difficult problem of feeding stock in regions 
where urolonged dry seasons prevail, a problem 
of which the importance to most of our colonies 
is known to everyone. 
In place of limiting the Droblem of the employ¬ 
ment of the cactus as a stock food to the consider¬ 
ation of the thornless varieties alone, it would 
perhaps be better to extend the research to cover 
the following points: 
1. Are there any regions where the thorned 
cactus is used practically in feeding stock? The 
same question as to cactus without thorns. 
In the case of the use of the thorned cactus, has 
anyone ever succeeded in completely overcoming 
the various difficulties arising from the presence 
of the thorns? 
2. Have any differences in hardiness been ob¬ 
served between the varieties with thorns and those 
without thorns? Also have differences in yield 
of the stalks and the fruits been observed? Are 
there differences in nutritive value between the 
stalks and the fruits of the different varieties? 
(In each case to define the differences.) 
3. What is the method of handling the cactus 
(stalks or fruits or both) which gives the best 
"'Paul Bourde “Proposed Inquiry upon the Cactus as a 
Stock Food.” ltevue de Tunis, 1894, p. 54. 
