560 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



one to three feet in diameter; a small one from one foot down to an inch 

 or two. A person would need to hunt from center to circumference of 

 Texas to find many mesquite trunks that would make a straight sawlog 

 twelve feet long. The tree is generally one of the most crooked, de- 

 formed and unpromising in the whole country ; and its habit of dividing 

 into forks near the ground, like a peach tree, makes it still more difficult 

 to make use of. In fact, in winter when mesquite trees are bare of 

 leaves the appearance of a forest reminds the observer of an old, neglect- 

 ed, diseased, moss-grown peach orchard in the eastern states; but in 

 summer the leaves conceal much of the trunk scaliness and deformity, 

 and there is something positively restful and attractive in the prospect 

 of a wide range of these trees, covering hills and prairies. The leaves are 

 compound like the acacias, and are delicate and graceful. 



The spread of mesquite in the last fifty or seventy-five years has 

 been attributed to the checking of grass fires which Indians once set 

 yearly to keep the prairies open. The dispersion of the trees is facili- 

 tated by the scattering of seeds by cattle which feed on the pods. It is 

 a tree hard to kill. Roots send up sprouts year after year during long 

 periods. Sometimes, but not often in Texas, when adverse circum- 

 stances become so severe that the mesquite tree can no longer survive 

 above the surface, it grows beneath the ground, sending only a few 

 sprouts up for air. "Dig for wood" is a term applied to trees of that 

 kind, when fuel is dragged out with mattocks, grab hooks, and oxen. 



The roots of the mesquite penetrate farther beneath the surface 

 for water than any other known tree in this country. Depths of fifty 

 or sixty feet are occasionally reached. Well diggers on the frontiers 

 learned to go to the mesquite for water. Large trunks never develop 

 unless their roots are abundantly supplied with moisture. Railroad 

 engineers on the "Staked Plains" of northwestern Texas turned that 

 knowledge to account in boring wells. 



Though mesquite is seldom or never mentioned in the lumber 

 business, it is and has been one of the most important trees of the region. 

 Its fuel value is very great. It has cooked more food, warmed more 

 buildings, burned more bricks, than any other wood in Texas. The 

 tannic acid hi it injures boilers and it is not much used for steam pur- 

 poses. It is very high in ash. A cord of mesquite wood when burned 

 leaves from ninety to one hundred pounds of ashes. This exceeds five 

 fold the ashes left when white oak is burned. 



Mesquite is a high-grade furniture material, though it is difficult to 

 work because of its exceeding hardness. Ordinary wood-working tools 

 and machinery will not stand it. Suites of nine pieces are sold in some 

 southwestern cities at $200 or $300. The merchants find difficulty in 



