PRICKLY PEAR.
[To sus EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SI R ,—I have read with much interest an article in the Spectator of January 31st, " A Vegetable Terror." This is written from the South-Western district of the Cape Province of South Africa, the centre of the ostrich-breeding country. Here we have also great quantities of prickly pears, which have alwass been regarded as an unmitigated pest, until the present terribie nineteen months' drought from which we have suffered. All the stock in the district would have died had it not been for the prickly pears, which the farmers gladly bought, at f roni 15s. to -21 a wagon-load, and carted away to their farms often twenty to thirty miles distant. The procedure is to toast the leaves first over an open fire to destroy the spines, ant then pass them through a chaff-cutter. By this IIIPG113 thousands of ostriches and cattle were saved.—I am, Sir, &e.,
N ENGLISHMAN IN A FR IC1.
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