William Hamilton Gibson says it
"encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from which he
must emerge at the roof as dusty as a miller," only to enter
another blossom and leave some pollen on its numerous stigmas.
But the cochineal, not the bee, is forever associated with cacti
in the popular mind. Indeed, several species are extensively
grown on plantations, known as Nopaleries, which furnish food to
countless trillions of these tiny insects. Like its relative the
aphis of rose bushes (see wild roses), the cochineal fastens
itself to a cactus plant by its sucking tube, to live on the
juices. The males are winged, and only the female, which yields
the valuable dye, sticks tight to the plant. Three crops of
insects a year are harvested on a Mexican plantation. After three
months' sucking, the females are brushed off, dried in ovens, and
sold for about two thousand dollars a ton. The annual yield of
Mexico amounting to many thousands of tons, it is no wonder the
cactus plant, which furnishes so valuable an industry, should
appear on the coat-of-arms of the Mexican republic.
Pages:
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752