*)6 The West American Scientist. 



it was a sight never to be forgotten. The balmy breeze quickly 

 lulled our party to sleep on that January night as we reposed 

 beneath the stars beside those old stone walls. 



Coyote Wells was the next of the series of stage stations on 

 the old Fort Yuma route, and there our party pitched its tents 

 the following night. Only a pile of adobe shows the site of 

 the old station-house, and a solitary mesquite tree is the only in- 

 dication of water in the alkali plains surrounding the wells. The 

 place receives its name from the fact that the water is so near the 

 surface that the coyote wolf could dig in the clay soil and quench 

 his thirst. The water is strongly impregnated with alkali; and 

 when it gets low during the summer is not a desirable beverage. 

 For nearly six weeks our party made use of this water, and many 

 a night the odors from the well were wafted into my tent and 

 lulled me to sleep. Marion D. Haydon and his son, Samuel, win- 

 tered about 500 head of cattle at Coyote Wells and at their ad- 

 joining camp at Dos Cabesas. The surrounding plains are 

 sparsely covered with several varieties of brush, on which both 

 cattle and horses browse with avidity. Foremost among these 

 shrubs may be mentioned thefrpnseria bush, with its burr-like 

 seed, which is very nutritious. This grows in large oval masses 

 a foot to three feet high, and usually in clumps several feet in di- 

 ameter. The horses and mules in our party would snatch a -bite 

 of this whenever opportunity presented. 



The deer weed is another promising forage plant for the arid 

 regions of the West, the value of which I learned from Mr. Hay- 

 don, who has had an experience of fifteen years' residence on the 

 desert and in the adjacent mountains. The deer weed is botan- 

 ically known as Hosackia glcbia and belongs to the same family 

 as the alfalfa and clover. It is a saffruticent perennial, one to 

 four feet in height, forming large, bushy plants, which, when cov- 

 ered with its numerous small yellow flowers is conspicuously brill- 

 iant and beautiful. It receives its name from the reputed tond- 

 ness that the deer exhibits for its nutritious branches. The plant 

 is found throughout San Diego county blooming) simultaneously 

 in the dry streets of San Diego and on the burning plains of the 

 desert, always choosing the dryest situations and usually the 

 poorest soils, though it attains great size on our * 'red" lands. 

 Mr. Haydon has cut and fed this for hay for three or four 

 years with excellent results, and it is closely cropped by the stock 

 on his range on the desert. The gietta grass is the only true 

 grass that I have yet seen on the arid plains of the Colorado 

 Desert in quantity to render it of any economic value. Hilaria 

 rigida (its botanical name) is a stout, brittle grass, growing two 

 to three feet in height, in large scattering bunches over a large 

 portion of these sandy plains. It seems to only grow in the 

 sandy soils along the arroyas at the base of these mountains, and 

 was not observed on the rich alluvial soil along the New River. 

 It can be readily cut in great quantities with a grubbing hoe, and 



