appears to be altogether absent, and they have the appearance of a mass
of fleshy matter, like a vegetable marrow. This succulent mass is
protected by a tough skin, often of leather-like firmness, and almost
without the little perforations called breathing and evaporating pores,
which in other plants are very numerous. This enables the Cactuses to
sustain without suffering the full ardour of the burning sun and
parched-up nature of the soil peculiar to the countries where they are
native. Nature has endowed Cactuses with a skin similar to what she
clothes many succulent fruits with, such as the Apple, Plum, Peach, &c.,
to which the sun's powerful rays are necessary for their growth and
ripening.

The spiny coat of the majority of Cactuses is no doubt intended to serve
as a protection from the wild animals inhabiting with them the sterile
plains of America, and to whom the cool watery flesh of the Cactus would
otherwise fall a prey. Indeed, these spines are not sufficient to
prevent some animals from obtaining the watery insides of these plants,
for we read that mules and wild horses kick them open and greedily
devour their succulent flesh. It has also been suggested that the spines
are intended to serve the plants as a sort of shade from the powerful
sunshine, as they often spread over and interlace about the stems.




CHAPTER III.

CULTIVATION.