Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-09-19
THE new USE FOR CACTUS
JUICE OF COMMERCIAL VALUE
= AS VEGETABLE CoLoRING.
One Result Of the Carnegie Institute
for the Study Of American
Desert Plants.

Tucson Letter in Chicago Inter Ocean
Two miles from Tucson on the top of a
hill the Carnegie Institution has set up a
sort of botanical workshop, the business
Of which is to make study of desert
plants. The object of the investigation is
to find out how such plants manage to get
along with almost no water.
This is a kind of knowledge that will be
very valuable when applied. SO far as may
be practicable, in the raising of ordinary
is deficient But, incidentally, efforts are
plants of the desert, especially for certain
cacti. which, it is believed, can be made
to yield marketable products.
There is, for example, one kind OF
prickly pear (growfng wild in Arizona and
New Mexico) the fruit of which has juice
of a brilliant red color. This fruit is al
ready utilized to considerable extent for
preserves. But it is thought that the juice
might have important commercial value
as a vegetable coloring, its hue, when the
fluid is concentrated, being as rich as that
of cochineal
Cactus Fruits.
Of such cactus fruits there are good
many kinds, produced by corresponding
distinct species of plants related more or
less nearly to the common prickly pear
All of them are known in Mexico, in a
general way, as "tunas,'' but, according
to variety, they bear different names. such
as "cardona," "amarilla," blanca "palo
athena ''fafayuca" and ''ranchera.
These indeed. are only few of many.
Such cacti in Mexico are cultivated sim.
ply by planting cuttings in the ground
keep out animals. They rarely receive any
further attention. beyond gathering the
annual crop. The fruits, however, are
utilized for a number of different pur-
poses, some Of them being eaten raw,
while others are employed in the manu-
facture of tuna honey and tuna
cheese which are marketable products.
To make tuna honey. the juice of the
fruits is boiled in kettles until it reaches
the consistency of molasses, and then is
poured into wooden troughs to cool, after
which it is stored in bottles and earthe.
jugs. Being Ghanks to the boiling) a ster.
lie product, tightly sealed and rich in SUI
gar, it will keep Indefinitely. OF course, il
the same consistency as liquid honey and
might appropriately be called cactus mo-
laSSeS
Cardona as Food.
Ono of the most highly priced fruits OF
this kind Is the cardona. DIR. David Crit
fifths of the government plant bureau
says that he himself once ate 200 car
donas in day. This was to find out
whether they were wholesome Even such
a quantity did not disagree with him, blu,
1t should be realized that the pulp of the
cardona, which is the only part eaten, is
nearly all water. The fruit. in fact, fire.
quently serves the natives as both food
and drink in the arid regions of the
southwest.
Sometimes a fermented drink is made
from the pulp. For this purpose it is
boiled for two or three hours, strained and
set away to cool. The longer it stands
the more Intoxicating it is. Or. If pre-
ferred, the boiling is continued until the
liquid is reduced to the consistency of q
paste. which is sold in the Mexican mar
ketS as q Sweetmeat.