Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1916 — Mexican Cactus, at Once a Pest and a Joy, Is One of Most Curious of All Plants. [ARTICLE]

Mexican Cactus, at Once a Pest and a Joy, Is One of Most Curious of All Plants.

Of all the curious plants in the world’s vast array of vegetation, there is none around which center so many different beliefs, so many conflicting opinions and so many degrees of appreciation as the cactus of Mexico, whose names are legion and whose varieties number into the thousands. This peculiar plant is at once considered a pest and a joy, for it is the bane of the traveler, the eyesore to the ranchman and the treasure of the peon, to whom it is a source of livelihood, a food and drink. Mexico is particularly rich in its range of cactus plants. Owing to its climatic and soil conditions it has countless varieties of all sizes and shapes and all colors of flowers and fruits. The peon is concerned chiefly with the species of the cactus or prickly pear .that is edible, and this he cultivates and harvests In precisely the same fashion today as his ancient Aztec forbears did before Cortez marched his conquering hosts across Montezuma’s domains and set up the standard of Spain upon the royal palace to proclaim his conquest.