Desert Harvest

The desert is more fruitful than you think.

These seemingly desolate acres support a wide variety of animal and insect life. Indians have been sustained by the desert harvest long before white men arrived on these shores. Early frontier settlers. after learning the secret of the desert, were sheltered by it and derived comfort from its hospitality.

Desert trees provided fuel for a pioneer mining industry. When the ore plaved out, parts of the desert were denuded and to this day have not recovered from the despoliation.

Thousands of cattle range the broad desert today and although it takes many acres of desert land to support a cow, the desert is an important factor in our cattle industry. The uniformed believes that the desert soil is poor, but that is not so. How very productive has been the desert in the Salt River Valley when the rivers were harnessed and the land made producible by irrigation! Rich enough to grow fence posts, as the oldtimers used to say.

Put water on this land, and you can grow anything. Even with scant rainfall, desert vegetation not only survives but flourishes. Cactus plants will blossom and bear fruit, the mesquite beans will be profuse and nutritive, providing sustenance for desert creatures. Bees and birds are provided with nourishment by many other plants adapted for desert existence.

"DESERT BLOSSOMS" BY HUBERT A. LOWMAN. Photographer Lowman, in explaining this photograph, says: "I had been browsing around on the desert for about ten days, sleeping on the innerspring in the back of my station wagon, and was ready to head back to civilization as soon as I shot my last sheet of film. Then I spied these saguaro blossoms at just the right height from the ground so that I could set my tripod on the car roof. The dents which always result from this kind of an operation make used car buyers invariably suspicious that my car has been rolled over a few times. when the trade-in time comes, but for some reason it keeps on being convenient to use the car roof for that purpose. My camera is a Brand 17 4 x 5 view, the film Ektachrome. In order to have general focus from the nearest flower out to infinity I stopped down to 132, and exposed one full second, focussed at about 5 feet. The small lens aperture produced good focus From 3 feet, the distance to the lower flower cluster, on out to the distant mountains. A slight forward tilt of the front of the view camera helped achieve the extreme depth of focus with a 5/4 inch lens. The scene is in the Saguaro National Monument."

Yucca fiber makes serviceable soap, sudsy and cleansing. The skeleton structure of chollas and saguaros can be made into artistic furniture, as durable as it is attractive. The ocotillo in this western country is used for fences, one of the few fences that can take root and grow. Several kinds of cactus plants have been harvested for the manufacture of cactus candy, a toothsome delicacy. There are several desert plants harvested by Indians for the making of intoxicants, but use of such beverages by the uninitiated is not recommended. Some other desert plants are definitely narcotic in nature, causing the user to have visions and dreams in technicolor. Hopis and other tribes find in many plants in their land definite medicinal properties.

The saguaro is generous in its gifts to desert people. Its picturesqueness is taken for granted, but it also provides a substantial part of the diet of desert Indians, particularly the Papagos.

The flowering and ripening of the saguaro is described by Reg Manning in his delightful book, "What Kinda Cactus Izzat?" in this manner: "During the cool desert nights of May the tip of every saguaro branch is covered with wax-white flowers. Shaped like the end of a bugle, they open up to about the size of a teacup. Best time to see them is in the cool of early morning, as they close through the heat of the day.

"Saguaro flowers are succeeded by purple fruit. It ripens in mid-summer, and splits open to reveal the bright red fruit-pulp. At this stage it is often mistaken for red blossoms. The ripe fruit is a favorite food of all desert birds. The Indians have harvested it for centuries, using dead saguaro ribs to reach it. They eat the fruit raw; preserved; or dried, like figs. They also crush the black seeds into a nutritious flour. Good, too!