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the species are tropical or sub-tropical. Within our borders, they grow in the creosote-bush belt of our southwestern desert region. Standley, in The Shrubs and Trees of Mexico, refers all the species of strombocarpa to the genus prosopis."

THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE MESQUITE

Mr. J. J. Thornber, Botanist, Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, Tucson, Arizona, says^[1] he has seen the beans so abundant under the tree "as to cover the ground everywhere for a considerable area as much as one inch or two inches in depth," and that a good-sized tree yields anywhere from fifty to one hundred pounds of beans. A space ten feet square would hold thirteen bushels or more than two hundred and fifty pounds if the beans were two inches deep.

Mr. Robert C. Forbes, Director of this same station, wrote a bulletin (No. 13) urging the use of mesquite as a crop because of the two qualities of good food and value of productivity of the tree.^[2]

Prosopis velutina (Wooten.)
Prosopis juliflora velutina (Wooten) Sarg. Ranges from Arizona to Lower California and Michoacan, Mexico.

Prosopis palmeri S. Wats. Lower California.

Prosopis juliflora (Swartz) DC. West Indies and Central America, including Mexico.

↑ "I will state that the yield of the mesquite tree ranges anywhere from fifty to one hundred pounds per tree of good size. This is in deep rich soil of our valleys with, of course, the rainfall and no irrigation. These trees are anywhere from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter and perhaps fifty years old. Some of them stand as tall as forty feet. They are not a tall-growing tree, but they have very wide-spreading branches so that a single tree may cover a diameter of fifty to seventy feet. Smaller trees will bear less in proportion. Such trees commonly grow anywhere from forty to one hundred feet apart over the ground under native conditions, and I have seen the crop of mesquite beans so abundant under them as to cover the ground everywhere over considerable area as much as one or two inches in depth." (Letter from Mr. J. J. Thornber. Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, October 16, 1913.)
↑ "The mesquite tree in the South is very regularly a bearer and without having any definite information we are of the opinion that the total tonnage from an acre of mesquite trees would be quite large." (Letter from Bradford Knapp, Special Agent in charge, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.. May 23, 1913.)

[1] "I will state that the yield of the mesquite tree ranges anywhere from fifty to one hundred pounds per tree of good size. This is in deep rich soil of our valleys with, of course, the rainfall and no irrigation. These trees are anywhere from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter and perhaps fifty years old. Some of them stand as tall as forty feet. They are not a tall-growing tree, but they have very wide-spreading branches so that a single tree may cover a diameter of fifty to seventy feet. Smaller trees will bear less in proportion. Such trees commonly grow anywhere from forty to one hundred feet apart over the ground under native conditions, and I have seen the crop of mesquite beans so abundant under them as to cover the ground everywhere over considerable area as much as one or two inches in depth." (Letter from Mr. J. J. Thornber. Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, October 16, 1913.)

[2] "The mesquite tree in the South is very regularly a bearer and without having any definite information we are of the opinion that the total tonnage from an acre of mesquite trees would be quite large." (Letter from Bradford Knapp, Special Agent in charge, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.. May 23, 1913.)

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