AMERICAN FOREST TREES 561 



getting mesquite furniture made. Factories do not want to handle it, 

 though the articles sell higher than mahogany. Large, heavy tables, 

 deeply carved, are sold in some of the cities, but all seem to be made to 

 order and largely by hand. The appearance of the polished and finished 

 wood is a little lighter in color than mahogany. It is not uniform in 

 color, but shades from tone to tone in the same piece. A little of the 

 lighter colored sapwood is worked in with pleasing effect. Some of the 

 tones resemble black walnut, and some suggest the luster of polished 

 cherry. 



Mesquite is brittle. Pieces of large size may be broken by a few 

 blows with an ax. It has about half the strength of white oak, and is 

 very low in elasticity. The wood has been used for two hundred years 

 possibly for thousands of years as beams and sills for adobe houses; 

 but it is not required to carry much weight. Spaniards employed it in 

 building their churches and forts within its range. A timber taken from 

 the Alamo, at San Antonio, Texas, in 1912, was said to have served 

 more than 190 years with no sign of decay. Fence posts survive the 

 men who set them. Paving blocks outlast sandstone subjected to the 

 same use. Railroads in southern Texas employ this wood for crossties, 

 but it is so hard that holes must be bored for the spikes. 



Mesquite baskets are made by hand of splits the size of knitting 

 needles, some of white sapwood, others of dark heartwood. Such 

 baskets, large enough to contain five quarts, sell in the curio shops at 

 San Antonio for $1.25 each. Some wagon makers insist that mesquite 

 is in the same class with Osage orange for wagon felloes in hot, dry 

 regions; but it does not appear that much of it is so used. The brittle- 

 ness of the wood is against it, in use as felloes, except for vehicles of the 

 heaviest sort where large pieces are demanded. 



Among the uses of mesquite, by-products are an important con- 

 sideration. The pods are food for farm stock. Before the first railroad 

 reached San Antonio mesquite pods were a regular market commodity. 

 The Mexicans know how to make bread and brew beer from the fruit; 

 tan leather with the resin; dye leather, cloth, and crockery with the 

 tree's sap; make ropes and baskets of the bark. Parched pods are a 

 substitute for coffee ; bees store honey from the bloom which remains two 

 months on the trees; riled water is purified with a decoction of mesquite 

 chips; vinegar is made from the fermented juice of the legumes; tomales 

 of mesquite bean meal, pepper, chicken, and cornshucks; mucilage from 

 the gum; and candy and gum drops from the dried sap. 



One of the most promising uses for this wood is in turnery. Short 

 lengths can be utilized to advantage. The artistic color fits it for the 

 manufacture of lodge gavels, curtain rings, goblets, plaques, trays, and 



