18 



THE MESQUITE BEAN, 



The niesquite beau [Prosoiris juUiiora) lias a very wide natural distri- 

 butiou from Texas to Argentina, it is oue of the characteristic trees 

 of the lo ver Souorau zoue, an area where the conditions as to rainfall 

 and climate range from arid to semiarid — that is, the rainfall varies 

 froui less thau 10 to about 25 inches per annum. With the exceptiou 

 of the coastal idain immediately bordering the Gulf, all of the best 

 grazing lands lie within this zone. In habit of growth the mesquite 

 bean resembles a peacli tree with rather scattering foliage. It nor- 

 mally i)roduces from one to three crops of beans every year. The pods 

 are filled with a sweetish palp, which causes them to be much sought 

 after when ripe by cattle and horses, and stockmen consider them as 

 fattening as grain. The production of pods is governed largely by the 

 season. In a year when the rains are uniformly distributed through 

 the growing season the yield will be light. 



Stockmen say that if there is a sirring drought followed by abundant 

 summer rains, and then again an autumn drought, the mesquite trees 

 Avill either make two crops of ripe beans or will shed the first crop 

 before fully ripe and throw out a second lot of fiowers in midsummer. 

 This, of course, depends on the stage of growth which the beans have 

 attained when the midsummer rains come. The beans are produced iu 

 greatest abundance during the dry years, and are then very valuable 

 forage. The sweet pods are greedily eaten by cattle, and prove almost 

 as fattening as barley or other grain. The yield varies from a few 

 bushels to often 75 or 100 bushels of ripe pods from the trees on an 

 acre of land. The seeds are hard and indigestible, and remain iu the 

 dung when the pods are eaten by cattle. They then seem to be even 

 more sure of germination than when the pod is left to rot on the 

 ground. By this means alone this tree is spreading rapidly each year 

 over new territory, the seeds being scattered far and wide by all classes 

 of animals that feed on the i)ods. In the early days, when the central 

 prairies were sparsely settled, they Avere burned over each year, and 

 the young seedlings of this aud other trees were killed to the ground. 

 Twenty years ago it was hard to find a mesciuite bean on the open 

 prairies that was larger than a small shrub. The only places where 

 they occurred of any size were in the valleys and the '' timber islands" — 

 small scattered groves at interv^als on the prairies, usually about some 

 swale or along a ravine or a rocky knoll. Since the more complete 

 settlement of the country, fires are not allowetl to sweep the ])rairies, 

 on account of the possible loss of cr()])s and improvements. There is 

 nothing to check the growth of the mes(iuite bean, and they have 

 grown to the size of small trees, at the same time largely augmenting 

 in iiumbei'. 



A mesquite grove has two distinct advantages, viewed from the 

 standpoint of the stockman, it supplies cover during "northers" aud 



