Cache
kash, a French word meaning a lurking hole. To cache provisions is to hollow out a hole in the ground with greater or less care in which to conceal them until needed. The ground is, of course, leveled off and all traces of digging concealed carefully, while the location of the cache is fixed in mind by some tree, stone, or natural object. This device is often employed by travelers and hunters. The half civilized Indian villagers used to cache their corn to prevent its being devoured by visiting hordes. Arctic explorers speak of caching a part of their provisions under stones or chunks of ice for use on the return trip.
Cactus (plural cacti), a group of peculiar plants. Aside from a few African species of doubtful relationship, the entire family of one thousand well known forms is strictly American. They extend from the western plains, through Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies, to the southern part of South America; one species is found even in Alaska, but Mexico and our states along the Mexican border are the center of the cactus region. Cacti are more readily recognized than described. They grow in many shapes. The different kinds vary in height from that of a thimble to the giant cactus, sixty feet high. They have a fibrous, woody center of considerable strength, surrounded by soft, juicy flesh, the whole inclosed by a membrane, through which evaporation goes on with extreme slowness. A cactus is planned to stand for months under a hot sun without losing the moisture of its fleshy stalks. Some species have flattened stalks; some kinds are globular, like a melon; some kinds are cylindrical, like a sack of grain. Some stems are upright; some kinds sprawl over the ground; some branch again and again, throwing out lobe after lobe, and others branch scarcely at all; but in every case the cactus is built with a view to keep what water it has and to expose very little surface to the hot air and sun. An elm tree aims to throw out leaves and expose as much surface to the air as possible. The cactus, living in a different country, where an ordinary tree would lose all its water and wilt in an hour, has shaped itself on the opposite plan. The skin of most cacti is covered with bunches of sharp spines, possibly reduced leaves, the use of which is not understood, but which inflict painful wounds if handled carelessly.
The melon cactus is something like a watermelon on end; the lower end rooted, the upper end surrounded in season by a circle of beautiful flowers. The giant cactus raises a large stem, surmounted by huge vertical branches, as bare of leaves as a huge telegraph pole.
Some kinds of cacti have become accustomed to bloom only for a few hours, and that at night, when it is a trifle cooler than in the daytime. The night-blooming cereus is often kept as a house plant. Lovers of flowers, who have seen one open, have felt that they were present at the performance of a floral mystery. The flowers of cacti generally are attractive.
The greatest service these plants render is no doubt the crumbling of lava and other rock by their roots. In this way they prepare soil for other plants, and in time convert bare rock into a vegetation-producing area. The most useful member of the family, a much branched genus, has been introduced in Mediterranean countries under the name of "the prickly pear," "Indian fig," etc. A branch placed in a crevice of pure lava will manage to make its hold good. On Mt. Vesuvius, as soon as the lava from an irruption has cooled, short branches of prickly pear cactus are placed in crevices about twenty feet apart over a large area. As soon as these have taken root and grown somewhat, the courageous genista, or Spanish broom, takes root, and soon the red-brown lava becomes a glorious bower of green leaves and yellow flowers, and the soil is prepared to receive other less hardy vegetation. At the present time (1909) some form of plant life extends nearly to the foot of the lavacone of 1904.
This prickly pear is raised in Italy and Sicily for food. The flowers are usually yellow. The lobes are called the fruit. The fruit resembles a fig or a pear, and is about the size of a hen's egg. It is rather soft and mucilaginous, but pleasant to the taste. Herdsmen slice up the plants for their goats. In Mexico the dried plants are used for fuel. Prickly pears cut from the cactus hedge, "fish of the fence," they call them, form a considerable article of diet and are offered for sale in the city market.
One of the species of cactus, the Opuntia, is cultivated in Mexico as a host for the cochineal insect. The insect feeds upon the lobes, is killed at the proper time and dried, and from it is produced the brilliant carmine color so useful to commerce. A coloring matter for confectionery and a water-color for painting is gotten from the juice of the fruit of this same species.
Of late years various species of cacti have attracted attention as possible food for cattle. It has been noticed that cattle on the range have been fond of eating the spineless varieties; in fact they quite exterminate these species from their range. Travelers on the plains have found the store of water in cacti stems not unwelcome.
The Arizona Experiment Station has tried the experiment of singeing off the spines from some of the prickly varieties, thus rendering it possible for the cattle to eat them. It has been found that a man with a gasoline burner can singe the spines from about five tons of cactus per day; this by burning about ten gallons of gasoline. This amount of green, succulent food is enough for a herd of 400 cattle. The Agricultural Experiment Station of New Mexico has also experimented in singeing cacti for herds on the range, and also in running the singed stems through a root cutter. Cows seem glad to devour about fifty pounds a day. With the addition of a little grain and a handful of hay, they do well on this food. It is thought to be about equal to sugar beets in feeding value.
It is thought that the spineless varieties may be planted for forage. Luther Burbank is trying to induce spiny species to grow without spines. He claims to have made considerable headway already. If the plans under way succeed, plantations of young cacti, fenced in to protect them from stock, may one day become as common in the arid region of the southwest as fields of Indian corn now are in the corn belt.
See Cochineal; Arizona; New Mexico; Burbank; Cereus