Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1883-02-22
The RazOr.Back Cactus.

We ought to be able to get off some-
thing very sharp about the prickly pear,
for there is a great deal about the
prickly pear that is really sharp, VIZ:
the thorns; but thus far we have not
succeeded, although we have made sew
eral earnest efforts. Unfortunately, the
prickly pear is subject you can not
drop all at once after you once pick it
up, so here we go again.
The prickly pear belongs to the slab
sided, razor back breed of cactus. It
can be found in Texas on the Rio
Grande, where there is strip of terri
tory sixty miles long and about twenty
miles wide on which nothing else grows
but prickly pears, and so thick are the
clumps that the traveller can not leave
the road, which is hedged in by this
razor-back cactus. When a Western
Texas man, who has seen prickly pears
every day of his life, afterward hap
pens to travel in Europe and is shown,
as a great curiosity, one sickly little
prickly pear plant in a flower pot, it
makes him laugh away down in his
boots.
In order to flourish luxuriantly, the
prickly pear asks for semi-trOpical
climate and a poor soil. The more
tropical the climate and the poorer the
soil, the bigger and higher the plant
grows, and the more thorns it has to the
square inch. Over in Mexico, where
the soil is poorer than an amateur con-
cert, the prickly pear grows six feet
high, and the leaves are as big as those
of an extension table, while in Texas it
only grows of convenient length to sit
down on.
There are some purposes the prickly
| pear is good for, and there are others
for which it is good for nothing. The
! fruit, which is about the size and shape
Of an infant pear, is of a rich purple
color 1t looks as if it might taste de-
lcious, but moderately fastidious hog
would elevate his nose at it, such sick
ening flavor has it got. The prickly pear
| plant is covered from head to foot with
long keen needles of assorted sizes, that
for sharpness and meanness may well
cause the blush of shame and envy TO
mantle the cheek of wasp. Never sit
down on the prickly pear bush to rest
yourself. Take our word for it. We
tried it once, accidentally. 1t was many
! years ago, but the memory of it haunts
us still, when we sit down.
A prickly pear bush is a good place
to nose around if you want to be bitten
by a rattlesnake, which heightened
reptile usually has his private residence
at the root of a clump of prickly pears.
If you want to find out how painful it is
to have a thankless child, just fool
around a prickly pear bush near The
Rio Grande. You will know right of
how sharp a serpent's tooth is, and, as
Shakespeare says that it is sharper than
a serpent's tooth to have a thankless
child, pretty fair estimate of the
sharpness of a thankless child can be
found.
But the prickly pear is otherwise use
full to man and beast. It can be fed to
advantage and to cattle in an emergency
after first burning off the thorns. AS {
poultice for sores and wounds the
prickly pear is unrivaled. A live hedge
can be made of clumps of prickly pears
that will keep out even an Office-seeker
There should be hedge of that kinC
around the Gubernatorial mansion
Texas SiftingS.