i Oocr:, 1897.i] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 293 
The above rather heterogeneous considerations are not heaped here together 
without some ultimate end in view. Before signalising the presence amongst us 
of a new enemy, the writer wanted to show that we are fully prepared to meet 
him. He might inflict on us wounds and losses; still he is doomed as soun ag 
we direct against him the means at our disposal. 
But is it really an enemy? ‘That is the question. 
It is usually known under the name of “ prickly pear.” Jussien calls it 
Cactus opuntia ; de Candolle, Nopal. To the French it is known under the 
somewhat pompous name of Fieuier d’Inde. Medicinally, its fruits are said to 
be diuretic, whilst the fleshy part of its flat stems (raquettes) is used to 
mature tumors. Applied on corns, it softens them so that they peel off easily 
when they are subsequently soaked in hot water. The prickly pear came here 
with the best of credentials. It is printed—black on white—that some nations 
—the Mexicans, for instance--rear their cattle on it; that others, the Sicilians, 
sustain even human life on its fruits. The great “ Dictionary of Botany” of 
Mavut and Decaisne says that it is to the Mediterranean nations what the 
banana is to the intertropical populations! Itisalso recommended as forming 
impenetrable hedges. This last point is the cause of our troubles. As is well 
known, some people like their neighbours best when they are ata certain 
distance, and separated from them by substantial fences or hedges. Thus it 
is that some thirty years ago an inhabitant of Drayton imported some prickly 
pear plants from the south, and formed with them a hedge round his property. 
The plant gave entire’ satisfaction, and became very popular all over the 
Downs, and far away in the West, everyone wanted a hedge of prickly pears. 
This latter seems to have found here a most congenial soil and climate. It is 
easily propagated from roots, from cuttings, and from seeds. The smallest 
piece of stem left on the ground is sure to take root there. The seeds have 
also the singular property of passing through the digestive organs of animals 
without losing their germinative power. , Marsupials and birds have thus become 
the most active agents for its dissemination. It has spread rapidly all over the 
Downs. Dalby, Jondaryan, and the country on both sides of the Condamine 
River are already infested. In some places it is so thick that no man or horse 
can pass through it ; not even a snake would venture there, as a bushman said. 
It has now reached as far West as the Maranoa River, the voleanie soils of the 
hills and the immense loamy plains proving a most congenial feeding-ground 
for it. It thrives in wet, and delights in droughts. Should we really find 
some practical means of utilising it for some payable purposes, it would prove 
to be an invaluable acquisition, for no plant has as yet showed such a perfect 
adaptability to our soils and climate. 
_ It has been suggested that we should feed our cattle and pigs on it. For 
that purpose the plants are passed through a fire which destroys their thorns 
and hairy stings, or, still better, they are steamed in large boilers mostly made 
of iron malt-tanks. 
Tt has also been proposed— 
To turn the fruits into jams and jellies ; 
To ferment the fruits, and to distillate from them a sort of brandy; 
To utilise the plant for rearing on it the cochineal, and manutacture 
from it the well-known carmine dye, &c.* 
It is not improbable that the whole plant could be turned also into a kind 
of artificial manure by a process now employed in some of the most advanced 
cantons of Switzerland, and thus described in the scientific part of the 
Bibliotheque Universelle : 
Take 200 or 300 kilogrammes of weeds; let them wither for a few days 
under a shed, turning them over occasionally. When an active fermentation 
* The cochineal insect lives on a different species of cactus—the Cactus cochinellifer, intro- 
duced from Mexico by Thierry de Meronville to the French culony of San Domingo in 1677; and 
in 1827 by M. Berthelot, director of the Botanical Gardens at Orotava, into the Canary Islands, 
where it thrives on the Opuntia ficus indica. The cochineal insect was placed on the proper 
plant in the Botanical Gardens some thirty years ago by Mr. W, Hill.—Ed. Q.4.J. 
