Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/115

 "In 1917 mesquite beans were gathered and shipped by the carload in Texas.

"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. Two crops a year have been produced in Arizona 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.

Mesquite has a kind of first cousin in the screw bean (strombocarpa) or tornillo, which is so greatly like it in both