La Fiesta de los Vaqueros

JANUARY, 1936 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Candles Immense Forest of Giant Cacti Becomes Sahuaro National Monument

central and northern points is used by Johnson, who supplied funds to trace both U. S. 80 and U. S. 89.

Tucson, because of its ideal winter clititles; John F. Harrison, a homesteader mate and true pioneer hospitality, is the who assisted in determining the ownerMecca of many a winter visitor. Here ship of land, and James B. Converse, a are offered the conveniences of the East cattleman, who relinquished his leases on with the picturesqueness of the West. the land to the university. On March 1, Good schools and churches mark it as a 1933, President Herbert Hoover estabhome city, while handsome hotels and lished the Sahuaro National Monument.

colorful guest ranches offer every pleasThis area contains 99 square miles or Pleasure and comfort. approximately 63,360 acres. Eighty-four Yet no visit to Tucson is complete acres are owned by the Park Service, without one or more trips into the five acres by private individuals and ten Sahuaro National Monument. Ten miles' acres are controlled by the University of travel brings the motorist to the gateArizona.

The monument lies to the south of the Here a serpentine roadway leads into the Santa Catalina Mountains. Within its heart of Sahuaro land, which is as foreign to our everyday world as the dinoRincons with an altitude of 8,500 feet.

saurs and mastodons which roamed this The sahuaro growth extends from the continent millenniums ago. desert floor to an elevation of 4,500 feet, The Sahuaro belt extends from northforming a green fringe around the serern Mexico into southern and central Arizona, but nowhere is there such a dense stand as in that territory east of Tucson the Tanke Verde with the outside world.

which is being preserved by the United As the visitor views all of this from States as a part of the Coronado Nathe myriad knolls that dot the area, he tional Forest. is left bereft of the usual glib adjectives.

The Tucson Natural History Society The word "magnificent" falls short of became interested in this area some fifintent and "beautiful" sounds innane.

Millions of fluted green giants stretch the late General Frank H. Hitchcock, their tall bodies skyward. The simplicity Dr. H. L. Shantz, internationally known of form is surprising yet the subtle difbotanist and president of the University ference in each cactus must be seen to be appreciated.

regents of the University of Arizona; The sahuaros grow from seed and are the Governor of the State; Mrs. Hobart four to six years old before they attain the diameter of a small orange tree. At

age they are still "baby sahuaros" as the

mature trees often attain an age of more than 250 years.

The peculiar sensibilities of these

great giants might well deserve a place

in the Ripley's "Believe It or Not" col-

Column. A knife blade driven into the cor-

tex, which is two to six inches deep can

cause a fermentation which results in

the death of the tree. The exposed flesh

in a large wound will cork over the sur-

face and the tree remains unharmed except for an unsightly scar.

A luxurious phase of desert growth exists in the monument but the heavy

stand of sahuaro columns, with occa-

visional primary arms beginning well be-

yond the reach of man, dwarf the other

desert growth as the pines do the scrub

oak and lesser forest vegetation. Chollas,

ocotillas, bisniegas, prickly pears, mes-

Quietes and palo verdes grow within the

7

shadow of the sahuaro. These lend variety and an added beauty to this im-

mense natural canvas as soft sage greens

blend with brighter hues. All await only

the magic touch of spring to burst into

a profusion of blossom and riotous color.

Nowhere in the United States is spring

more lavish with her gayest paints than

in southern Arizona, where she splashes the whole landscape with magnificent abandon.

Among the most beautiful of her creations are the large, creamy blossoms which bud at the tips of the sahuaro branches. Gradually these halos of flow-ers give way to a no less attractive crown of scarlet fruit, the ripening of which is a signal for extended feasting among the desert birds who tax their capacity with its sweet carmine-colored

pulp and edible black seeds. The Indians,

too, harvest great quantities of this fruit

for immediate use and for drying and

for jams and jellies.

The sahuaros not only supply the des-ert birds with food but also with homes.

The golden flicker and the Gila wood-pecker drill into the soft cactus pulp to

scoop out an impregnable nesting place,

safe from carnivorous animals and reptiles. The pigmy owl takes advantage of

these ready-made homes and, like his

woodpecker friends, rears his young in

the water-cooled recesses of the sahuaro

trunks or older branches.

This monument offers a refuge not

only for birds but for other wild life

(Continued on Page 17)

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY, 1936 Cattle in the New World

CATTLE raising under open-range conditions is one of Arizona's pioneer industries. It began when Italian-born Eusebio Kino came to Mexico in 1661 as a missionary priest. After several years' wandering through northern Old Mexico he found himself, about 1690, along the border of what is now the United States of America. Mexico was then fairly well stocked with domestic livestock, especially cattle, brought there more than a century earlier by the first Spaniards to reach the coast of the New World.

From the first Father Kino worked hard to interest the Indians in agriculture, especially was he determined they should become stockmen, raisers of cattle, sheep and horses, of which they had none. He began his work in what is known now as southern Arizona. With the founding of each new mission among the Indians, Kino brought to it a number of domestic animals. By the year 1700 these Indians possessed considerable livestock of various kinds. Due to Kino's activities, the number of cattle, sheep and horses in southern Arizona had increased to a remarkable number.This was over half a century before the first cattle or livestock of any kind was brought to our Atlantic Coast. The Southwest was indeed the pioneer grazing country of the New World. Old Mexico at that time had large numbers of domestic animals brought to the country by the first Spanish in 1515. The increase in the original plant of cattle was almost miraculous. Father Kino kept a dairy in those days in which he set down a world of matters, trivial at the time but priceless now as a historical record of those early days.

On April 3rd, 1700, Kino wrote as follows: "At San Xavier (nine miles from our present Tucson) we killed six beeves of the three hundred they were sending me." Later in that year he writes: "We gathered up at branding time and sent alive to California about 700 head of beeves and 1,000 head of sheep."

Arizona Was Pioneer In Livestock Industry

By WILL C. BARNES The livestock Kino brought to southern Arizona seems to have prospered amazingly. They became a source of wealth to the Missions as well as an important food supply for the Indians. But unfortunately we know very little about what happened to the livestock business of southern Arizona from about the early part of 1700 up to about 1850. We do know that in the latter half of the 1700s the Apaches began their raids on the mission herds and the herders. They were adept at such work and it was but a few years before they had devastated southern Arizona, broken up the missions, scattered the livestock and killed off many of the natives who attempted to remain in the country. The Apaches surely ran true to form.The first definite information we have is from the military reports of Lieut. Col. St. George Cooke, commander of what was known as the "Mormon Battalion," which marched in 1846-47 across the great plains from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Monterey, California. In southern Arizona they found all the missions in ruins; the fields vacant, the herds of cattle and other stock gone, excepting that here and there they ran across great bands of wild cattle which, escaping from the Apaches attacks, had taken to the distant ranges and became wilder even, than the game animals of the region.

Pancoast, in his published "Dairy of a 49er" describes most interestingly the great numbers of these wild cattle. Our cattlemen of today should read this work to fully appreciate the situation that then existed on the open ranges of southern Arizona.

Following these attacks by the Apaches we know almost nothing about the progress of the cattle business in this state for almost a hundred years. It is all shrouded in mystery.

Apparently the ranges in the state of California were stocked primarily by domestic animals from Arizona. They were driven across the desert country, swimming the Colorado River near Yuma. It was a long, perilous journey both for men and beasts. Surely these VaquerosBut about 1853, following the Gadsden purchase, adventurous individuals located a few cattle here and there on the Arizona ranges and the business can be said to have had its second start about that time, 1853. These new cattlemen came mostly with the idea of furnishing the United States military posts with beef for the soldiers. Generally they located near them so as to get needed military protection from the Apaches. These new cattlemen came to Arizona from the Pacific Coast as well as the Eastern states; bringing with them small bunches of cattle.

The whole of Arizona, or as it was then called, New Mexico, was one glorious area of luxurious grassland. Water was rather scarce but in some ways that was not a bad thing for it prevented overstocking and too many close range neighbors. Those old timers craved room solitude, and plenty of what we now refer to as "the wide open spaces." The first range men were an adventurous lot. In the beginning they faced the ravages of the Apaches. This was bad enough, but later on they had to face crowds of "brand burners," rustlers, stock thieves and general all-round bad men. These swarmed into the territory just about two jumps ahead of sheriffs, Texas Rangers and other peace officers from the country to the east of Arizona as far as the old "Indian Territory" (Oklahoma to you of today).

Texas was then overflowing with cattle. Arizona offered an outlet for a lot of them. Beginning about 1880, great herds of Longhorns came into the terri tory from there, by trail and rail. With them came also a lot of renegade hombres whose records as man killers, corn and horse thieves, furnish the basis for most of the wild west stories one reads today. It took several years of hard work to chase them back to the place from which they came or kill them off Either plan was O. K. with the cattlemen Beginning about 1880, cattle raising in Arizona may be said to have really begun as a business on a businesslike plan. How many cattle. The question is often asked, "How does the number of cattle in 1935 compare with the number bers on our Arizona ranges in the early years, say between 1880 and 1890?" This is not an easy question to answer authoritatively. Due to certain causes but mainly climatic, the numbers of cattle have fluctuated considerably. However but there has always been a constant upward slant to the record until within the last few years.

Beginning with 1881, all we have are the figures given in the annual report to