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JSdesquite in Semi- Arid Regions 



The American forests do not contain a more uncouth tree than 

 mes(|uite when it stands bare of leaves on some sun-baked bluff over- 

 looking the Rio Grande. When its foliage returns in early spring, 

 the graceful, pale green compound leaves hide the ungainly trunk 

 and branches, and what before was a personification of desolation 

 becomes a thing of beauty. No tree \uidergoes a greater change when 

 it passes from its leaflets to its clothed condition. When its branches 

 are bare, the crooked, sprawling trunk looks like a half-dead worm- 

 eaten, moss grown peach tree in an old pa.sture field in October. 

 Six months later it is as graceful as the Australian pepper tree. 



There are two species of mesquite in the United States, one com- 

 monly called the serewbean (Prosupis odorata), the other is variously 

 called mesquite, algoraba, honey locust, or ironwood. The ordinary 

 observer would note the principal difference between these two 

 species in their fruit. Both bear pods, but those of the serewbean 

 ara twisterl like a corkscrew. The ranges of both species lie 

 largely in the same regions; that is, from a line drawn from Okla- 

 homa to the mouth of the Rio Grande, thence westward and southwest- 

 ward to the Pacific acean, crossing arid and semi-arid regions, as well 

 as some well-watered valley. In the present article, no distinction 

 need be made between the two species of mesquite, though in some 

 respects there is considerable difference. 



The range of mesquite westward of Texas is about the same now 

 as it always was, so far as history shows. Man 's influence there 

 has apparently neither increased nor diminished the range. But that 

 is not the situation in Texas, and in that state the tree's habit is an 

 interesting theme of study. With the white man's coming, say from 

 fifty to seventj'-five years ago, mesquite began to spread into vacant 

 areas. In some places it has advanced forty or fifty miles into 

 prairies and among hills where it formerly grew sparingly or not at 

 ;i!l. Its new lease of life began when the Indians were driven out 

 and civilized man took jiossession. 



' The (a use is not far to seek. The Indians were incendiaries and 

 burned the grassy hills and plains every year or two. Seedling 

 mes(|uites and those springing up as sprouts were killed by fire, 

 and the line of forest could not advance into the grass areas. The 

 white men put a stop to this destructive burning, and mesquite 

 began to advance into open spaces. Cattle, which fed on the pods, 

 assisted in spreading seeds. 



The principal primeval forests of mesquite in Texas were in the 

 Valley of the lower Rio Grande. There was mesquite in many other 

 places, even on the high table lands, called "the staked plains," in 

 the northwestern part of the state, but the largest trees and finest 

 stands were in the southern region, jiarticularly in Cameron, Hidalgo, 

 Starr and Webb counties. 



A few of the largest trunks in those primeval forests are three feet 

 in diameter, but a person in walking through those forests would see 

 a thousand trees less than a foot through for every one above three 

 feet. The northern, eastern and western forests of the United States 

 have no plentiful tree with trunk gnarled, deformed and misshappen 

 enough to be compared with mesquite. It is doubtful if any man 

 €ver saw a large, straight pole of mesquite ten feet long. Those 

 cut for fence posts are generally so crooked that boards cannot be 

 nailed on. The few sawlogs cut are usually from four to six feet 

 long. 



. The wooii 's extreme hardness makes it difficult to work. High- 

 class furniture is made of it, but not in large quantities. A few 

 dealers in San Antonio, Texas, and elsewhere, handle mesquite furni- 

 ture, but generally have it made by hand in cabinet shops, because 

 the wood is so hard that factories do not care to work it. The 

 furniture made of it bears some resemblance to mahogany, but there 

 is no danger of mistaking one wood for the other. Mesquite is a 

 little lighter in color and has a glow suggesting polished cherry. 

 The chief figures are due to annual rings, and they are not pro- 

 nounced. In San Antonio mesquite furniture sells at a higher price 

 than plain mahogany. It may properly be classed as the highest 

 priced furniture wood of the United States. At the same time it 



should not be supposed that it would ever be of much importance 

 because niillable trunks are too scarce and the wood is too hard. 



One of mesquite 's important uses is as rollers for house moving. 

 It is not difficult to procure blocks of proper length and diameter, and 

 these are shaped on the lathe. They are said to outlast every other 

 wood that has ever been tried for such rollers in that region. Crush- 

 ing weight sufficient to raise splinters on the hardest maple roller 

 does not roughen one of mesquite. The wood is brittle, however, 

 and a heavy blou may break a mes((uite roller when one of maple 

 will stand it. 



Fence posts constitute a large use for mesquite in Texas. Boring 

 insects soon riddle the thin, white sapwood, but their activities stop 

 short when the heartwood is encountered. No beetle's jiroboscis was 

 ever yet hard enough to make any impression on the heartwood of 

 this tree. Neither can the insinuating threails of decay-producing 

 fungus work their way in further than the sapwood. Consequently, 

 a row of mesquite fence posts, if cut from trunks of considerable 

 size, will last, in the language of the southern Texans, "from ever- 

 lasting unto everlasting. ' ' They say that no man has yet lived long 

 enough to witness the setting and decay of a mesquite fence post 



They once paved a section of a San Antonio street with mesquite 

 paving blocks. They stood while everything about them wore out. 

 Even stone flags, subjected to similar wear, grouml to dust and blew 

 away under the wheels of traffic, but the mesquite blocks merely 

 grew slick and polished, and years after the stone pavements were 

 gone the wooden stiiVis might be seen protru<ling from the ground, 

 looking for all the world like the black teeth of some prehistoric 

 mastodon. 



A mesquite beam was taken from the old fort, known as the 

 Alamo, at San Antonio, in 1912 after it had stood 195 years of 

 service, and decay had not touched it. 



The largest use of mesquite has always been as fuel. That held 

 true in early Indian times as well as at present. The Indians had few 

 other uses, but the cliff dwellings in New Mexico contain a few 

 mesquite beams that may be a thousand years old for all anyone 

 knows to the contrary, and the Field Museum in Chicago has Indian 

 bows and dishes made of this wood. Fuel, however, was and is the 

 main article. In the lower Rio Grande valley, where rain is ample, 

 the mesquite grows above ground like other trees, but in more arid 

 regions westward the tree seems to turn upside down and the bulk of 

 it is under the ground. Occasionally fifty times as much is beneath 

 the surface as above. It is popularly supjiosed that the trunk grows 

 underground, but generally such is not the ca.se. That beneath the 

 surface is enormously ileveloped root. It is nature's method of 

 providing a strong reservoir for water to keep the tree alive during 

 long months of drought. The ines(|uite, in that respect, is a sort of 

 vegetable camel that stores drinking water when there is plenty of it, 

 and can then stand a long period of desert. 



The roots of mesquite may descend forty or fifty feet- to reach 

 water. Well diggers take advantage of that knowleilge. Where 

 mesquite grows vigorously, water may be reached by digging. 



The adage of the dry southwest, "dig for wood," has to do with 

 mesquite roots. In some localities there is no wood but this, and 

 campers and stockmen dig out roots as large as passable sawlogs. 

 Oxen are employed and the roots are gaffed with hooks and pulled 

 out until plentiful supplies are obtained where nothing was visible 

 before. A scrubby stem not more than six feet high may have it 

 root, resembling a sweet jiotato, fifteen fe»t long and as large as a 

 stovepipe. 



Americans fatten cattle and Siorses on mesquite beans, but the 

 Indians and Mexicans have many ways to convert them into food 

 for themselves. They grind the beans for bread, make vinegar and 

 beer of the fermented .iuice, manufacture mucilage and gum of the 

 same material, and by working it in a little different way m.ike candy 

 and gum drops. The parched poil.'< are a substitute for coffee, ropi-s 

 and baskets are made of the bark, and dyes of pleasing colors are 

 used to decorate leather, dishes and cloth. 



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