The copper era., 1908-07-16
ThOrnIess Cactus a Real Marvel.

ThOrnIeSS Cactus Real Marvel.
When Luther Burbank first an
nounced to the world that he had
produced a new fodder plant which
would revolutionize stock raising and
create a new era in agriculture, an
interested world-believing thorough
ly in Burbank and his work-listened
for a moment, praised the Wizard
for the thousandth time, and then
forgot. But only for a day. The
wonders of the Burbank thornless
cactus had not been half told and
the intelligent press of the country
dailies, weeklies and monthly maya
livestock up the story with accus-
toned zeal and enterprise and are
still telling it today.
No wonder the improved thornless
cactus is dubbed Burbank's greatest
triumph. This new creation in plant
stock raiser than any production of
the past century. A fodder which
will grow without irrigation and
which fourishes like the green bay
tree when given a modicum of water,
which will yield four to eight times
as much in feeding value per acre as
alfalfa, which is superior to alfalfa
in many respects and which may be
cut green the year around may well
excite the deepest and most abiding
interest among the practical ranch
ers of the great west.
A vegetable that bears fruit, it is.
A plant that is relished by every
animal from canary bird to an ele-
plant. A feed superior in some or
all respects to any now in use. An
excellent substitute for sorghum hay
for dairy stock. A wholesome food
for man. These are but few of the
virtues of the Burbank thornless
cactus that have come to be generally
known and recognized.
But the unfolding marvels of the
Burbank cactus are unending. The
experiments which have been con-
Quoted by the Thornless Cactus
Farming company, which secured
from Luther Burbank the exclusive
right to propagate and distribute
these plants, and tests made by gov
eminent experts have established
many hither to unknown truths about
the cactus. One of the most start
ling of these is that the improved,
thornless, Burbank plant not only
grows much faster than the wild
cactus but it produces many times
more rapidly. The wild cactus often
puts out many new leaves each sea-
son but these new leaves do not bud
and reproduce the same season. The
Burbank cactus reproduces a new
generation every six weeks. Nothing
like this is known in the animal or
vegetable Kingdoms!
To make this point plain: On the
Thornless Cactus Farming company's
farm at Indio California, in the sun
baked Coachella valley, the Leaf or
slab thrust into the ground buds and
reproduces new leaves with buds on
them in six weeksI A single slab
frequently produces twelve to twenty
young green leaves in two months to
ten weeks. This is such an astound-
ing rate of reproduction that the
scores of visitors to the Indio nur-
sery every week go away amazed and
delighted.
Another wonderful thing about the
Burbank thornless cactus is the per-
tinacity with which it clings to lite
and the Indifference it displays to
the buffetings of fate. A young
green slab thrown out on the desert
soil at Indio, exposed to the fierce
rays of the tropical sun, without a
drop of moisture save what it could
seize from the air, was-after six
weeks of such neglect-thrust a few
inches into the ground. 1t imme-
diately grew green again budded and
reproduced! Plants accidentally
blown over, mutilated or uprooted.
showed no concern nor injury, what
ever, no arrest of growth nor de-
terioration in quality. One slab was
cut up into strips and the strips
planted separately. Each section of
this leaf went right aheao growing
and prospecting. Several hundred of
the leaves were set out in the sun
baked soil and left alone for ten
weeks without a drop of water.
They all budded and reproduced lust
the samel
EzzzEssEzIEE n :.