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 loaded into our wagons, we felt warranted in making our start across the desert."

As the mesquite aided the forty-niners, so it has aided many a prospector, by feeding the beast that bore his equipment, but its chief use has been for animals on the range.

Mesquite beans are especially valuable because they ripen in August at the very time when drought may be expected to reach its worst. The beans are greedily eaten by cattle, horse, and goats. As a rancher put it, "I have mesquite in my pasture and value a crop of beans very highly. I let the stock eat the beans on the trees and a good bean crop means fat stock."

Similar testimony of the importance of the mesquite as range fodder comes from many parts of the Southwest. Some