﻿THE FERN BULLETIN 



Vol. XVII JANUARY, 1909 No. 1 



THE FERNS OF COCHISE COUNTY, ARIZONA. 



By James H. Ferriss. 



The Southern Pacific in Arizona carries the tourist 

 among a wonderful supply of wonderfully beautiful 

 ferns. However, breathe this not upon their trains. 

 You would be a marked passenger. To be known as a 

 reporter upon a yellow journal would be as mild as you 

 could expect. 



Regardless of speed the train seems to creep through 

 the desert valleys hour after hour the day long. The 

 mountains pass slowly, they are so much farther away 

 than they seem to be. The land is dry, perhaps dusty, 

 and the specimens of vegetation are so far 

 apart that to tourists, except the enthusiastic 

 botanist, the land must seem to have been for- 

 saken and forgotten. To the botanist it is a 

 land of milk and honey. Also chille-con-carne 

 and hot tamales. His sharp eyes will see a few ferns 

 in the passes and if he turns off at Benson to take the 

 Sonora branch there will be good entertainment all the 

 way to the Mexican line. 



The trains of the El Paso & Southwestern from El 

 Paso to Benson hug the mountains closer and the pas- 

 senger can step from the sleeper into a canyon. There- 

 after traveling is largely a matter of taste or expense. 

 Vehicles can be used from canyon to canyon but saddle 

 horses and donkeys will go up the canyons and across 

 the range. The one who can pack his own provisions 



