250 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



Island of Corsica. They become a valuable concentrated forage for cav- 

 alry horses, and are utilized in great quantities for that purpose. Many 

 tons of them are also shipped to Great Britain, where they are used in 

 the preparation of certain brands of stock food. There seems to be little 

 doubt that they may be grown in a profitable way and utilized in a simi- 

 lar manner over a very considerable area of our warmer southwestern 

 country. The fact of their affinity with the well-known mesquite and 

 screw bean, which have been such valuable stock foods, and also consumed 

 as food by the Indians in the arid regions, would lead us to hope for an 

 important development in the Carob growing industry. 



Cultivation of Native Drouth Resistant Plants. 



Nor should it be supposed that the arboricultural investigations are 

 confined alone to imported plajits. The arid regions of the United 

 States are not, as many suppose, bare of vegetation, but even in the driest 

 situations many plants are growing, even shrubs and trees, which, except 

 for a few primitive uses that the Indians make of them, are not known 

 to possess much value. A careful study of these, however, is revealing 

 many interesting possibilities, a few of which it may be worth while to 

 mention in this paper. 



The Yucca Plant. 



Frequenters of the higher desert regions are familiar with the 

 stretches of yucca growth, even attaining to the dignity of forests in some 

 instances. Dwellers of the more northern regions, where yucca plants are 

 found, are familiar with them only as producing dry, capsular seed ves- 

 sels, as remote as possible from affording any valuable product. Those 

 familiar with the yucca farther south and extending over into Mexico 

 know that there are two classes of the fruits — the capsular fruited species 

 having the more northern and eastern range, but in the extreme south- 

 west a few species growing which have fruits of the baccate or berry- 

 like nature, crudely resembling the banana. It is only knqwn to a few 

 desert frequenters that with some of these species the types are quite 

 variable, some of the fruits being large and of an edible quality. In Old 

 Mexico a good many of these types are known, varieties occasionally pro- 

 ducing fruits of such desirable quality as to make them well worth culti- 

 vation. These are being sought for by the Department explorers, and 

 the possibilities of their culture in the regions occupied by the ordinary 

 baccate fruited types are being investigated. 



It is toC\ much to predict that we shall have the equivalent of the 

 tropical banjina, which are consumed in such quantities, produced upon 

 these arid yucca bearing deserts, but it is not at all beyond possibility 

 that large quantities of valuable food product may yet be secured from 

 these sources. 



Genus Prunus. 



Another interesting field is found in the new and varied types of the 

 genus Prunus, represented by the wild plums and cherries. Son\e of these 



