Want your house safe? Grow lots of cactus
-
A group of farmers in Henan Province, central China, plant cacti on their yard walls and land ridges, which have effectively kept their homesteads safe for the past 60 years, local paper reported.
The 46 households in Panzhuang, a mountain-enclosed village outside Zhumadian City, plant cacti almost everywhere as a method to prevent thievery.
"We all like them; they act as our police officers and security guards," the villagers explained. According to them, no incidents involving theft have occurred since 1951, when a local yam dealer named Xu Dao brought the plant home from the banks of the Yangtze River. "It was blooming with a yellow flower at that time," locals recalled.
"Xu told us it was a cactus. He planted one cactus on his wall, and before long, the wall was filled with them," said 83-year-old Tao Xinglin. Other locals followed Xu’s example, gradually creating the cacti outlook of the village today.
The village now also sees large areas of cacti blossoming across the nearby river banks and hills. Forestry experts in Zhumadian said Panzhuang holds the record in cactus planting for the area located between the Yellow River and Yangtze River in China.
Nevertheless, while acknowledging the role of the cacti in guarding the village houses, experts also noted that six decades of natural reproduction has resulted in excessive amounts of the species in the area. Local authorities are currently planning to have neighboring villages re-plant some of the cacti.
-
Either the cactus is working or there isn't anything to steal at all...