SOME USEFUL NATIVE PLANTS OF NEW MEXICO. 
[With 13 plates.] 
By Paut C. STanp.ey. 
When the Spanish conquistadores journeyed northward from the 
mountains and plains of Mexico into what is now the United States, 
their initial expeditions led them along the narrow valley of the Rio 
Grande. Near the banks of this stream, or sometimes at some dis- 
tance from its waters, they found pueblos or Indian villages whose 
inhabitants supported themselves principally by agriculture. The 
surrounding regions were peopled by nomadic tribes who derived 
their sustenance from the untilled resources of an apparently unpro- 
ductive land. 
A not uncommon belief among people who have never visited the 
far Southwest—that part of the United States consisting of New 
Mexico, Arizona, western Texas, and the adjacent lands—is that it 
is a vast-desert. By a desert is generally understood a region where 
the water supply is scanty or lacking and the vegetation sparse. 
That such a condition is characteristic of large portions of New 
Mexico must be acknowledged. Not asmall proportion of that State 
consists of sandy plains with but a thin mantle of vegetation, or of 
barren rocky hills and great malpais—areas invested with compara- 
tively recent lava flows. But there remains a considerable area com- 
posed of fertile river valleys artificially watered by the streams which 
flow through them, and a still larger region of high mountains cov- 
ered with heavy forests and luxuriant herbage. Among the thickly 
scattered ranges rise many high peaks upon which snow remains 
through nearly the entire year. 
In the most arid desert regions plant life is abundant, even if incon- 
spicuous, and the variety of species to be found there is greater than 
one would infer from the number of individual plants. Many among 
these have proved useful to man and were of the greatest importance 
in the economy of the early inhabitants. Existence must have been 
one continuous struggle among the aborigines, situated in a country 
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