"In 1917 mesquite beans were gathered and shipped by the carload in Texas.[1]
"The yield of fruit, of course, varies with the type and size of the tree or bush. It has been stated that one acre of land well covered with the trees may produce one hundred bushels of fruit per year.[2][3] Two crops a year have been produced in Arizona[4] and in Texas, the early crop ripening during the first half of July and the second during the first half of September."
As to the value of the beans, Professor Robert C. Forbes (Bulletin 13. Arizona Experiment Station) says that according to analyses the entire beans, weight for weight, compare favorably with alfalfa hay, are of slightly less value than wheat bran, and contain more protein, but less fat and carbohydrate, than shelled corn. It must be remembered, however, that these ingredients are partly contained in the hard kernels.
THE SCREW BEANS
Mesquite has a kind of first cousin in the screw bean[5] (strombocarpa) or tornillo, which is so greatly like it in both
- ↑ "The Mesquite Bean as a War Crop," in New Mexico Farm Courier (1917), Vol. 5, No. 9, pp. 9-10.
- ↑ Bentley, H. L., "A Report Upon the Grasses and Forage Plants of Central Texas." U. S. Department of Agriculture, Division Agrostology Bulletin 10 (1898), p. 36.
- ↑ Smith, Jared G., "Fodder and Forage Plants (exclusive of the grasses)." U. S. Department of Agriculture, Division Agrostology Bulletin 2, rev. (1900), pp. 31, 56.
- ↑ Thornber, J. J., "The Grazing Ranges of Arizona." Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 65 (1910), pp. 270-271, 297.
- ↑ "The tornillo grows extensively at lower levels in the southern part of New Mexico on the flood plains, as a rule. The trees grow from fifteen to twenty feet high. Posts from the larger trees are very durable. The stems and roots make excellent fire wood. The crop of "screw beans" is usually very prolific, though badly infested with bruchids. These beans have a large amount of sugar in the substance surrounding the seeds, and are, for this reason, eagerly eaten by stock. I have no particular data on the productivity, except that last fall one tree fifteen feet high on the campus here yielded one bushel and one-half of the beans measured." (D. E. Merrill, Biologist, Agricultural Experiment Station, New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, State College, New Mexico, letter, September 8, 1916.)
