THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 3 



was doubtless known to the aborigines from the earhest times. 

 Probably the region was inhabited by the cliff dwellers or 

 their contemporaries and these were followed later, by the 

 Hopi Indians, and still later by the Navajos. Nearly four 

 hundred years ago, the first Spanish explorers found the Hopi 

 here and he still clings to the locality with ways very little 

 changed through his contact with the Whites. The Hopi are 

 pueblo indians and their village, Moenkopi, is located on a 

 slope overlooking a Wash by the same name, about three miles 

 from Tuba. The Navajo is more a lover of solitude and his 

 hut of mud and brush, scarcely superior in finish to that of the 

 muskrat, is found here and there in the driest and most deso- 

 late spots. 



The first white settlers entered the region about 1878. 

 They were Mormons, and with their usual industry they began 

 planting orchards and shade trees, constructing irrigating 

 ditches and reservoirs and establishing a successful agricul- 

 ture. Twenty-five years later their holdings were taken over 

 l)y the United States Government and the place has since been 

 the center of the Western Navajo Indian Agency. Evidences 

 of Mormon occupation about many moist places no longer 

 cultivated are still to be seen and the irrigating system now in 

 use follows in general, the lines laid down by them. Tuba 

 City, so called, to distinguish it from a town of similar name 

 in the southern part of the State, consists of about a dozen 

 houses of adobe and stone, clustering about the hospital, school 

 and administration buildings of the Agency. 



Less than a hundred acres are cultivated in the oasis prop- 

 er, but a much larger acreage is cropped in the Moenkopi 

 Wash a few miles further south, and the area is apparently 

 capable of still greater extension. There is always running 

 water in the W^ash, the chief supply coming, as in the oasis, 

 from numerous springs and seeps. A large part of this runs 



