Show THORNY PLANTS ARE fruit of prickly pear made use of in mexico as food sotol long dien bien fed to cattle eastern people on coming to the arld arid or semiarid ld southwest often comment on the fact act and nono none too favorably at times that bilat such buch a largo large part of the native vegetation abounds in thorns they see tho thorns in many cases but not beyond they do not stop to consider that it such verp tation had not been protected by spines or in somo some other effective roan man tier ncr it would no doubt have ceased to exist centuries ago and that th effects of erosion due to tho the oven even more sparse vegetation would have been much more marked than at present many of those these old thorny drought resisting plants are also very useful nt at times and it la Is safe to say eay that they will be used more extensively lit in tho the future the fruit of tho the prickly pear Is used to some extent in mexico as a food in times of unusual unusual drought the spines aro are often burned from tho the leaves of this plant and a stock food thus secured to say nothing of tho the plant breeding operations that havo have been carried on by burbank and others othere in the development of a sp ingless cactus A recent use found for boar bear grass another one of these thorny specimens la Is for the making of paper and carloads of this material aro are now being baled and shipped from certain points in the state sotol has long been used as a stock food when needed and now tho the yucca la Is being made mada into silage on one of at the cattle ranches not to mention the thorny old mesquite the roots and stems of which have furnished so much fuel tho the blossoms a great deal of high grade honey and the beans beana and leaves largo quantities of forage for cattle and horses it has indeed been well for the I 1 nast ast as well na as for the west that nature during the past ages has protected many of tier her valuable plants in this part of the country with plenty of thorns otherwise meat and other commodities would no doubt be scarcer than they are new agricultural collego college bulletin |