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Page 24
The plant consists of an aggregation of thick, flat, oval leaves,
which are joined together by narrow bands of woody fiber and
covered with bundles of fine, sharp needles. Its pulp is
nutritious and cattle like the young leaves, but will not eat
them after they become old and hard unless driven to do so by the
pangs of hunger. In Texas the plant is gathered in large
quantities and ground into a fine pulp by machinery which is then
mixed with cotton-seed meal and fed to cattle. The mixture makes
a valuable fattening ration and is used for finishing beef steers
for the market.
The cholla, or cane cactus, is also a species of Opuntia, but its
stem or leaf is long and round instead of short and flat. It is
thickly covered with long, fine, silvery-white needles that
glisten in the sun. Its stem is hollow and filled with a white
pith like the elder. After the prickly bark is stripped off the
punk can be picked out through the fenestra with a penknife,
which occupation affords pleasant pastime for a leisure hour.
When thus furbished up the unsightly club becomes an elegant
walking stick.
The cholla is not a pleasant companion as all persons know who
have had any experience with it. Its needles are not only very
sharp, but also finely barbed, and they penetrate and cling fast
like a burr the moment that they are touched. Cowboys profess to
believe that the plant has some kind of sense as they say that it
jumps and takes hold of its victim before it is touched. This
action, however, is only true in the seeming, as its long
transparent needles, being invisible, are touched before they are
seen. When they catch hold of a moving object, be it horse or
cowboy, an impulse is imparted to the plant that makes it seem to
jump. It is an uncanny movement and is something more than an
ocular illusion, as the victim is ready to testify.
These desert plants do not ordinarily furnish forage for live
stock, but in a season of drought when other feed is scarce and
cattle are starving they will risk having their mouths pricked by
thorns in order to get something to eat and will browse on
mescal, yucca and cactus and find some nourishment in the unusual
diet, enough, at least, to keep them from dying. The plants
mentioned are not nearly as plentiful now as they once were.
Because of the prolonged droughts that prevail in the range
country and the overstocking of the range these plants are in
danger of being exterminated and, if the conditions do not soon
change, of becoming extinct.
The saguaro, or giant cactus, is one of nature's rare and curious
productions. It is a large, round, fluted column that is from
one to two feet thick and sometimes sixty feet high. The trunk
is nearly of an even thickness from top to bottom but, if there
is any difference, it is a trifle thicker in the middle. It
usually stands alone as a single perpendicular column, but is
also found bunched in groups. If it has any branches they are
apt to start at right angles from about the middle of the tree
and curve upward, paralleling the trunk, which form gives it the
appearance of a mammoth candelabrum.
The single saguaro pillar bears a striking resemblance to a
Corinthian column. As everything in art is an attempt to imitate
something in nature, is it possible that Grecian architecture
borrowed its notable pattern from the Gila valley?
Southern Arizona is the natural home and exclusive habitat of
this most singular and interesting plant and is, perhaps, the
only thing growing anywhere that could have suggested the design.
Wherever it grows, it is a conspicuous object on the landscape
and has been appropriately named "The Sentinel of the Desert."
Its mammoth body is supported by a skeleton of wooden ribs, which
are held in position by a mesh of tough fibers that is filled
with a green pulp. Rows of thorns extend its entire length which
are resinous and, if ignited, burn with a bright flame. They are
sometimes set on fire and have been used by the Apaches for
making signals. The cactus tree, like the eastern forest tree,
is often found bored full of round, holes that are made by the
Gila woodpecker. When the tree dies its pulp dries up and blows
away and there remains standing only a spectral figure composed
of white slats and fiber that looks ghostly in the distance.
Its fruit is delicious and has the flavor of the fig and
strawberry combined. It is dislodged by the greedy birds which
feed on it and by arrows shot from bows in the hands of the
Indians. The natives esteem the fruit as a great delicacy, and
use it both fresh and dried and in the form of a treacle or
preserve.
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