Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-01-16
A SPARTAN PLANT.
How Cactus Works Salvation of
Herds on Arid Ranges.

Cloudless sky, blue shadows and a
white-hot sun; the range grass burned to
eXcelsor-like stubs: miles away a drying
waterhole with a group of gaunt, hungry
steers filling themselves madly with the
tepid water, there perhaps to die by star
walton in preference to slow torture by
thirst-for every living creature in the
arid lands breads thirst-this is drought
on the western and southwestern arid
ranges. Then blessed is that range that
abounds in cacti.
The utilization of certain species of
cacti as food for man and beast dates
back for centuries. perhaps. yet it has
been only during recent years that this
country has recognized the full import
of the generally despised plant. Our
neighbors across the Rio Grande have
long known the value of cacti: Mexico is
perhaps the most important prickly pear
country in the world. There one finds
men and women on the market corners
squatting over baskets of prickly pear
and cholla fruits, selling them for human
consumption Mexicos national emblem
represents an eagle perched atop prick
~ pear and holding a writhing RATHER in
its beak.
In the early days severe droughts in the
cattle lands meant only the shifting of
the herds to better ranges. Now all this
is changed, What with the occupation of
all available ranges to the point of over
crowdng the cattleman must of necessity
look to some emergency plant to carry
the stock over hard seasons, for at its
best stockraising in the arid and semi
arid western and southwestern ranges
has been nothing short of hazard, a
prolonged drought wiping out the profits
accruing from a previous favorable sea-
son.
The cattleman in the past has often re-
sorted to such eXpedients as cutting off
the green branches of mesquite, mistle-
toe and the like, that are inaccessible to
the herds for grazing, in order to main
tain their very existence when the range
goes dry. As far inland as the post-oak
uplands of Texas the writer has seen cat
tie rush madly to feled tree to devour
the Spanish moss in its branches. More
over, during such seasons cattle of neces-
sity range miles from the waterhoes for
their grazing. The consumption of ener-
gy and the fatigue resulting from return
trips for water more than offset what
little benefit they may have derived from
their desutory grazing. And in such eX-
treme cases the herus almost invariably
drink to excess.
70 have available, then, plant which,
in addition to furnishing a certain
amount of nutritive matter. contains suf-
ticient water to allay thirst is one of the
greatest boons to the eattleman And the
cactus is this very plant. The common
prickly pears and their cousins, the chol-
las, are today playing the leading role in
carrying range cattle safely over perious
of prolonged drought. Mexican herders
of the Southwest often cut off the spines
of the plants with their machetes; it is
no uncommon sight to see the cattle de-
vouring pads, spines and ALL suffering the
pain in order to wet their parcneo
threats, for the prickly pear contains be-
tween rs and so per cent, water
The present-day cattleman of the South
west, however, singes off the sharp spines
with a gasoline torch, or perhaps he cuts
the cacti pads in the native chaparral.
hauls them into piles and burns the
spnes with brush fires. Since the value