THE PRICKLY-PEAR COCHINEAL (ITS UTILIZATION FOR DESTROYING CACTUS IN SOUTH INDIA)

Abstract

The Prickly-Pear. The prickly-pear-the familiar thorny hedge of fields in most parts of our province, is a Mexican cactus introduced about two or three centuries ago into India in an endeavour to cultivate the valuable cochineal insect of commerce. Owing to want of technical know- ledge, however, the wrong species of cacti were. imported; and the conse quence was that the true cochineal insect could not be grown, while the prickly-pear plants could establish themselves and flourish by reason of the ease with which they could take root. The pears have now spread through- out the land, planted, in the first instance, as a live fence in cultivated fields, and later on, escaping into uncultivated land and pastures. Though serving as a cheap and efficient hedge-plant, experience has shown that, unless periodically cut back, the cactus can become an unmitig- ated nuisance, especially around village sites, giving shelter to various reptiles and vermin and making the surroundings not only ugly but also insanitary. In a great many places, therefore, in the Madras Presidency there has been a keen demand for cheap and efficient methods for its destruction. 2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.A04988

Pages

14 - 15

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords