Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/108

 The wild mesquite is a crop plant of great promise if scientifically used and improved. It covers a wide territory and grows under very adverse conditions and in the unimproved state contains many good productive specimens.

Robert C. Forbes, Director of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, says, "The mesquite tree (prosopis juliflora), known in some localities as the algaroba, honey locust, or honey pod is found, roughly speaking, from the Colorado and Brazos Rivers in Texas, on the east, to the western edge of the Colorado desert in California on the west, and from the northern boundaries of Arizona and New Mexico southward as far as Chile and the Argentine Republic."

The plant endures in all kinds of soil except that which is wet, resists great drought by means of small water consumption and a root system of great depth. Roots fifty and even eighty feet long have been credibly reported.