A MEXICAN LAND OF CANAAN 



315 



and makes its home in caves among 

 rocky cliffs. Here deposits of guano ac- 

 cumulate, small fortunes being some- 

 times realized from the sale of one cave's 

 deposits. 



To locate a bat cave these guano-hun- 

 ters work much as do the backwoods 

 bee tree hunters in Missouri. They seek 

 out a likely cliff, wait till dusk, and watch 

 for bats. Soon, by close observation, 

 they can locate the cave entrance from 

 which the bats emerge. This bat is small, 

 with flat head and broad ears, and gives 

 off a musky odor. 



That bright-red dye in the paper on 

 your library wall probably came from 

 away down in Sinaloa. But you would 

 hardly have recognized it had you been 

 at the receiving station in Culiacan the 

 day the mule train got in from the hills, 

 each animal carrying his 300-pound load 

 of short, brown logs. It is in this form 

 that the dyewood is shipped to the States, 

 where it is ground and boiled. About 15 

 per cent of its original weight is soluble 

 in water and represents dye matter and 

 tannin. 



Uncle Sam also colors much of his 

 army khaki cloth by the use of Mexican 

 fustic dyewood, which likewise comes 

 from Sinaloa. The Yankee buyers in 

 Mexico bargain for the wood delivered 

 at the railway, where they take only the 

 hearts of the logs, with the bark and sap- 

 wood chopped off. 



There are extensive forests of this 

 hard, heavy, dense wood in Sinaloa, and 

 the railway company prefers it for mak- 

 ing ties. Because of the tannin in it, the 

 bugs, white ants, and other insect pests 

 do not eat it ; its durability in the ground 

 is remarkable. One small railway line 

 put in fustic wood ties 35 years ago, and 

 they are still sound. This tree belongs to 

 the mulberry family. 



A FARM LESSON FROM MEXICO 



Not long ago one of our farm lecturers 

 at Columbia University was telling of 

 some new wrinkles in farming that he 

 had picked up on a trip through Mexico. 



"One of these," he said, "was a variant 

 of our recently adopted system of green 

 manuring that I first saw practiced on a 

 Mexican bean ranch. The bean vines 

 were cut off with hoes just under the 



surface and the roots allowed to remain 

 there to rot till the next planting time. 



"The Mexican had never heard of put- 

 ting nitrogen into his soil and was merely 

 following the formula he had learned 

 from his Spanish and Indian ancestors, 

 but he was doing effectively just what 

 thousands of American farmers have 

 learned in the last generation to do — in- 

 crease fertility by growing nitrogen-gath- 

 ering legumes. But he did not stop there. 

 All the bean vines, hulls, weeds, and field 

 trash were raked into piles and were soon 

 as dry as tinder. Each of these piles was 

 buried with earth to a depth of perhaps 

 six inches, so that the whole field was 

 covered with mounds from two to four 

 feet high. 



"In due time an opening a foot in diam- 

 eter was dug at the base of each mound, 

 and the dry vegetation inside set afire. 

 Then the hole was closed till barely 

 enough air could enter to keep the fire 

 smouldering, but not blazing, and the 

 smoke filtered through the loose earth 

 above till the whole field had the appear- 

 ance of a nest of miniature volcanoes. 



"After a few days all the combustible 

 material had burned out of the mounds 

 and they were broken down and scat- 

 tered. From the Mexican rancher I 

 learned that the practice had always been 

 followed by good farmers in Spanish 

 America and that it had been brought 

 from Spain in the earliest times." 



MORE TRANSPORTATION IS NEEDED 



Until recent years this coast zone was 

 utterly cut off from the rest of the world 

 except by sea. Even now no railway, and 

 not even a passable wagon road, runs east 

 and west across northern Mexico. In 

 fact, few rich, civilized regions anywhere 

 have so few miles of railway, in propor- 

 tion to their area and importance, as this 

 West Coast of Mexico. 



The north and south traffic is served 

 by only one road, that of the Southern 

 Pacific of Mexico (owned by the Ameri- 

 can company of the same name), whose 

 railhead in 19 10 had been pushed as far 

 as the picturesque old city of Tepic. 

 Here, at the beginning of the Madero 

 revolution, construction work was sus- 

 pended. 



Eventually this line will be built 



