Mesquite

Appears as an astonishingly tall, umbrageous, and thrifty growth. For, where you would not think that any sort of tree could exist, in such arid soil, such flaming heat, the Mesquite, when it comes to leaf, is a blessing on the earth that bears it. Spring comes to the Mesquite first as a sudden rush of green to the twigs whose arthritic fingers seem to limber now; at this time the twigs are palatable browse to deer and cattle. Then the leaf buds burst and the foliage, at first an ethereal green, spreads over the thorny crown like a halo; swiftly each bosque catches the green fire, as the twice-compound leaves expand their ferny, frondose grace.

Spring comes to the Mesquite first as a sudden rush of green to the twigs whose arthritic fingers seem to limber now; at this time the twigs are palatable browse to deer and cattle. Then the leaf buds burst and the foliage, at first an ethereal green, spreads over the thorny crown like a halo; swiftly each bosque catches the green fire, as the twice-compound leaves expand their ferny, frondose grace.

In spring, too, flowers appear for the first time-for there are two blooming seasons: April, after the winter rains, and again in June and July, continuing intermittently till fall. The flowers, really in the Mimosa family but looking like yellow catkins, do not make the magnificent display of such desert trees as the Palo Verde and the Ironwood, but they are delightfully fragrant, gently perfuming all the stern desert's airs. Bees come to them by the millions, especially in the honey-raising districts of west Texas. Mesquite honey is clear amber in color, and of good if not the highest quality.

In the lives of many Southwest Indian tribes, Mesquite was the most important of all trees. The Papago house was commonly built of it. Four to nine forked Mesquite posts made the pillars, and through the forks were laid light poles or horizontal stringers of Mesquite. Next, light slender rods of Saguaro were laid from pole to pole as a roofing. Then around the central core slender Mesquite poles were set in a circle, as siding, but standing about four feet from the posts. The tips were then bent over and tied to the horizontals with strips of soapweed (Yucca glauca) fiber. Thus was formed the skeleton of the dome-shaped hogan. Then the ribs or siding of Mesquite were bound to each other with withes of the ocotilllo bush, to make a sort of lath.

"Kickball" was a Papago game, played with spheres Of Mesquite wood, though how even an Indian toe could stand up to it is a matter for amazement. Paddles of Mesquite-one for the bottom, like a butter paddle, one for the sides, like a cleaver-were used to shape pottery. Cradle boards of Mesquite roots in the form of an elongated arch, shaped papooses. A snag of sharpened Mesquite was used as a plow, from the coming of the Spanish to the coming of steel shares. But it is the fruits-locust-like pods-that make this tree a blessing. Every Southwestern Indian tribe within its range made ample use of the pods, which could be eaten out of hand, or boiled, or stored in the ground, or even fermented to make a mild alcoholic drink. The hand-some mottled seeds have always been of the highest importance as an Indian food from our deserts all the way to South America, serving for flour for cakes and mush. As feed for horses, Mesquite pods were considered so valuable in the days when the United States Cavalry was out after Apaches, that the Army paid 3 cents a pound in New Mexico for Mesquite beans. From the first introduction of livestock into the Southwest, the algaroba, as the Spanish-speaking pioneers called it, was of recognized importance as browse. Not that the foliage is often touched, but the pods which contain 25 to 30% grape sugar, are more than palatable to stock-they are devoured. Cattle reach as high for them as they can, or horn them down rather than risk tender muzzles among the thorns. Bulls sometimes batter off whole branches for their dehorned cows. Goats climb lightly into the Mesquite boughs, venturing far out to devour pods, leaves, and twigs. Perhaps they even digestthe thorns! At any rate it takes a goat but a short time to browse the toughest, driest, wiriest Mesquite to death. Over much of its range, Mesquite is but a shrub, the underground stems sending up many small shoots and these frequently branched right at the point where they leave the ground. But this is a species which readily passes The ill-defined border between tree and shrub, and throughout its vast range Mesquite is also arboreous, commonly 15 to 20 feet in height, often much more. "Old Geronimo" is a gigantic Mesquite on the grounds of the Santa Cruz Valley School, near Tumacacori, Arizona, with a trunk 14 feet and 11½ inches in circumference, that seems to judge from its pollarded condition-to have furnished firewood and fence posts for over 200 years. On the same grounds stands another Mesquite 40 feet in height. The biological survey of Death Valley, made by the Department of Agriculture in 1891, found between Bennett Wells and Mesquite a specimen about 30 feet high, with a spread of branches 75 by 90 feet-quite a pool of shade for the hottest and most ill-reputed spot in all the annals of the desert!

The "Jail Tree," at the corner of Tegner and Center Streets, in Wickenburg, Arizona, is an historic Mesquite to which badmen and suspects were chained, in lieu of any calaboose in the early days. To serve a sentence under its shade was perhaps more merciful than being locked in any jail the hell-razing frontiers would have provided.

Like the swallows in the Southwest, the Mesquite has a way of associating itself with ruins, such as the Tumacacori Mission near Nogales, Arizona, and Fort Richardson near Jacksboro, Texas. One of the most moving spots in Arizona is Fort Lowell, built of adobe in 1873 and then far outside the pueblo of Tucson with its temptations. Fine streets divided the company buildings, set with Mesquite and Mulberry trees; there were green lawns, and the deep verandahs, vine-clad and olla-hung, formed outdoor living rooms. Then there were balls and dress parades; visitors were lavishly entertained, and splendid cavalry mounts waited in the stables. Today all but a little is a crumbling ruin. For with the end of the Apache wars in 1886 the fort was abandoned and with every succeeding year fierce sun and rain and wind have done their work. Gone are the lawns, the flowers, the Mulberries, and the adobe arches are fallen. But everywhere the triumphant Mesquite invades, like the jungle tree it is, thrusting up through the very floors, rooting in crannies of the walls, aiding the teeth of the elements in the process of dissolution.

The good points of Mesquite are almost endless. It exudes a gum that was well known to the Indians, who chewed it, used it for wounds and sores as gum Arabic is employed in the Old World, mended pottery with it, and obtained from it a black dye. As early as 1871, more than 12,000 pounds of the gum were gathered in one Texas county alone and sent East for use in the preparation of gumdrops and mucilage. Several hundred pounds are exported annually to Australia, for what purpose is not known. The bark is useful in tanning and dyeing. The wood, almost as hard and beautifully colored as Mahogany and taking a high polish, would be precious cabinet wood if only the trees grew larger, the trunks taller and straighter. Even so it has served for years as a highly valuable fence post and corral stockade material, cheap to cut, and lasting in contact with the soil for years. The Navajo bow was made of the tough wood, and Mes-quite beams were placed in that aboriginal apartment building, the Casa Grande, near Coolidge, Arizona. The Texas pioneers used Mesquite almost exclusively for the hubs and spokes of wagon wheels.

Though trunks and branches are used for fuel, the favorite part is the underground stems, erroneously called Roots. These are still excavated for fuel wood where labor is cheap enough, and in the old days of exploration, survey parties were dependent on Mesquite "root" for warmth and cooking. It burns with an intense heat, but very slowly and down to a long-lasting bed of coals, so that blacksmiths always preferred it to any other wood. Listen to the laconic praise that comes blowing out of the diaries of desert travelers: "Grama-grass good and abundant. There is here a sufficient quantity of mezquite to answer our purposes for cooking." "Mezquite root dry and good." "The mezquite wood is plenty and can be obtained without much labor." "The mezquite is green and grows in the utmost profusion; indeed one is cheated into the belief that he is passing through an orchard. This is the only growing timber we have seen since we left the pinery." "The Clear Fork traverses a very zigzag course, a beautiful and fertile valley, about three miles in width... covered by forests of mezquite."

Water and grass and Mesquite, Mesquite, grass and water-over and over, they are theme of the early South-west travelers' prayers and thanks, till we feel as though we could still see the campfires of these courageous pioneer parties, and smell again the sweet incense of the burning Mesquite "root"-an odor as haunting as that of Pinyon.

Finally, the Mesquite is valuable because its great root system holds the banks of the dry stream-courses and the washes of the Southwestern streams down which, after summer thunderstorms, rush flash floods of water. And the root system of the Mesquite is a wondrous and a fearsome thing. Its branches may penetrate 50 or 60 feet to tap the deep veins of ground water that underlie much of our deserts. But they also come right up under the soil surface, to catch every possible drop of the light winter rains, and they spread laterally in a great circle. So the Mesquite is prepared to adapt itself to the benefits of the most passing shower, and yet survive the most prolonged periods of drought.

With all these wonderful qualities, Mesquite is yet the most feared and hated tree that grows, a menace that is every year extending its ravages, spreading desolation where once was wealth. In fifty years it has crossed Texas from the west and south, where it was always native, to southeastern Colorado and right over Oklahoma to south-western Kansas-one of the most spectacular biological phenomena of this country. It is now beginning to become naturalized in Louisiana and Missouri and will probably not be stopped by anything except the isotherm of prolonged freezing. Carried to the Philippines in the days of the Manila treasure galleons, Mesquite is now firmly established there and, more recently, in the Hawaiian archipelago where it flourishes up to 60 feet in height. It has invaded the Bahamas from the West Indies, and is on the loose in South Africa, Australia, India, and Persia, where it was doubtless at first introduced only as a prom-ising cultivated tree, but soon found itself able to elbow its way into the native plant cover and displace it.

"THE LACY MESQUITE" BY JOSEF MUENCH. 4x5 Linhof camera, daylight Ektachrome; f.16 at 1/10th second; Schneider lens; early April with sky slightly overcast. Everywhere, it seems, in the desert is some variety of the hardy mesquite. Known for its nourishing bean, it is in spring dress of little yellow catkins that wins it a place among the flowering plants.

How could all this come about, when the tree had for ages been a well-behaved species sticking closely to streams, washes, bottom-lands, arroyos and desert wells and springs? It seems that the cattle, devouring the fruits, void the seeds, often undigested and quite viable, on the upland range grasses. However, the Mesquite seedlings could not compete in the closed community of the range grasses but for the factor-reluctantly admitted or hotly denied by most stockmen-of over-grazing. In short, the rangelands were already broken down, ecologically, before the Mesquite began its jungle march. True, once established on grass land, Mesquite becomes co-villain in the plot by shading out the grass, and competing for the soil moisture. So the vicious circle is closed. As a result, in the last few decades, Texas has lost 37,000,000 acres to noxious brush of which Mesquite is the chief factor. Along U.S. Highway 281, between Mineral Wells and Wichita Falls, the Texans-many of Norwegian, Polish, German, and Austrian descent-wage a constant warfare against the greedy trees that are always encroaching on their farms and ranches. Where the highway passes Gap Mountain, it is constantly being menaced by the thorny trees.

In Arizona in 1906 scientists could state that they saw no indications of danger from the increase in Mes-

OPPOSITE PAGE

quite; by 1936 the stockmen, so scornful of government interference, were begging their government for aid.

The Mesquite jungles, stockmen found, were so extensive that cattle had to be hunted through them for days. The thorns are an agony to the cowboy and his horse.

Many methods of control were attempted. The first and most obvious one was to cut the Mesquites down. But since most of the stems are underground, this amounted to nothing better than lopping off off t the branches above ground. und. And, because Mesquite crown-sprouts, where one stem had been before, there were now twenty in its place. If you didn't cut it down, then the Mesquite increased by seeds. Gasoline blow-torches were used, but though the flame did wound the tree, a wounded Mesquite is something like a wounded tiger-if not so quick in its reactions. Next, poison injected through the wounds was tried. But even that didn't suffice.

In the end it was found best in Arizona to cut the tree down to the stump, then poison the stump with sodium arsenate applied from an engineer's oil can fitted with a small pump operated by the thumb. The cost of the poison and that kind of labor is low; more, the felled trunks sold for enough as fence posts or fuel to pay off the cost of cutting and poisoning. And land cleared of Mesquite yields still further profit. For instance, it has been found that native uncleared Mesquite brush near Kingsville, Texas, will carry only one cow to every 25 to 30 acres, while cleared brushland will carry two.

Stockmen generally believe, however, that it will always be well to allow Mesquite to occupy some of their bottom-lands. The value of the tree for fence posts and fuel, the browse and shade it affords to livestock, are worth more than the same type of land would be if it were all range grass. So Mesquite is something more than a tree; it is almost an elemental force, comparable to firetoo valuable to extinguish completely and too dangerous to trust unwatched.

A Southwestern Century

Herbert Eugene Bolton. Berkeley, University of California Press. [1948] $7.50.

First published in 1919, this is a photo-offset reprint in one volume of another of Bolton's great pioneer works on the history of the farthest Southwest, the Jesuit endeavor to missionize southern Arizona and Sonora, that vast area known as Pimería Alta. It was Bolton who discovered Father Kino's manuscript in the Mexican archives and who did the immense research in field and library to make its translation fully meaningful. One should read also his biography of the great Jesuit founder of Mission San Xavier del Bac called Padre on Horseback.

ERNEST KNEE

SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO. New York, Hastings House. [1942] 101 pp. $2.50.

Photographs only, simply captioned, of the City of the Holy Faith, ancient spiritual center of the Southwest, including the nearby villages of Cordova, Truchas, Trampas, Tesuque, and Galisteo. Brown earth, green cottonwoods, garlands of red peppers and vari-colored corn, under an immense cloudcapped blueness called sky, perfumed with piñon smoke and peopled with simple folk-this is the ambiance of northern New Mexico evoked by these pictures.

JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH (1893)

THE DESERT YEAR. Decorations by Rudolf Freund. New York, William Sloane Associates. [1952] 270 pp. $3.75.

It was a happy day for readers about the Southwest when Professor Krutch left Broadway for Pima County, Arizona. His philosophical mind and sharp eye brought to bear on the natural history of the Lower Sonoran zone produced this book of essays and a subsequent one called The Voice of the Desert, proving anew the adage that there's no Southwesterner as ardent as a converted one.

DAVID LAVENDER (1910)

BENT'S FORT, Garden City, Doubleday and Company. [1954] 450 pp. $5.00.

At the junction of Purgatory Creek and the Arkansas River in southeastern Colorado, on the route to Raton Pass through the Sangre de Cristos to Taos and Santa Fé, the Bents founded their trading fort in 1833, center of the fur trade and vortex of the tides which were swirling toward the conquest of New Mexico. The rich drama of the epoch has been fully realized by the author in this readable history.

D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930)

MORNINGS IN MEXICO. London, William Heinemann Ltd. [1950] 157 pp. 7 shillings, 6 pence.

Three of the essays in this volume, first published in 1927, are about Indian ceremonial dances in New Mexico and Arizona, and are good examples of the author's sharp observation, mystical philosophy, and powerful style. Lawrence first came to New Mexico in 1921, upon the invitation of Mabel Dodge Luhan, acquired from her a small ranch on the shoulder of Lobo Mountain, north of Taos, where his ashes are now enshrined, together with those of Frieda, his wife, who outlived him twenty-six years.

J. GREGG LAYNE (1885-1952)

WESTERN WAYFARING; ROUTES OF EXPLORATION AND TRADE IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST, with an introduction by Phil Townsend Hanna and maps by Lowell Butler. Los Angeles, Automobile Club of Southern California. [1954] 63 pp. $4.50.

First published in Westways magazine, these twenty-eight maps and accompanying historical texts cover the principal routes of exploration and trade in the Southwest, beginning with Pike's 1806 expedition and concluding with the completion of the first Transcontinental railroad in 1869. Brought together in book form, designed by Ward Ritchie, they constitute an authoritative reference source. There is an index which adds to the book's use-fulness.TOM LEA: A PORTFOLIO OF SIX PAINTINGS, with an introduction by J. Frank Dobie. Austin, University of Texas Press. [1953] $15.00.

TOM LEA (1907)

First a painter, then a novelist, and always a powerful portrayer of the Southwest, Tom Lea of El Paso del Norte is here given memorable treatment by his mentor Dobie of Austin and Cherry Springs, whose introduction is a masterpiece in miniature.

HANIEL LONG (1888-1956)

Piñon COUNTRY. New York, Duell, Sloan & Pearce. [1941] 327 PP.

The second volume to appear in the American Folkways series (the first was Edwin Corle's Desert Country), this work by a wise and gentle man is marked by affection and subtle understanding. Piñon country is the Upper Sonoran life zone of northern New Mexico and Arizona, which was home to Haniel Long during the last thirty years of his life. He chronicles its history, its people, and special characteristics with luminous insight.

MABEL DODGE LUHAN (1879)

TAOS AND ITS ARTISTS. New York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce. [1947] 168 pp. $3.75Presents biographical and critical material and photographic portraits of members of the Taos art colony through half a century, together with reproductions of their paintings, skillfully edited by the town's most forceful personality. Mrs. Luhan's Winter in Taos is a characteristie book of sketches about the pueblo and its people.

CARL LUMHOLTZ (1851-1922)

NEW TRAILS IN MEXICO; AN ACCOUNT OF ONE YEAR'S EXPLORATION IN NORTH-WESTERN SONORA, MEXICO, AND SOUTH-WESTERN ARIZONA 1909-10... With numerous illustrations including two color plates and two maps. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons. [1912] 411 pp.

The Norwegian geographer and anthropologist writes here an engaging personal narrative of the Papaguería whose sacred peak is Baboquivari. It is a work to rank with Smeaton Chase's California Desert Trails and Dobie's Tongues of the Monte.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS (1859-1928)

MESA, CAÑON AND PUEBLO, OUR WONDERLAND OF THE SOUTHWEST, ITS MARVELS OF NATURE, ITS PAGEANT OF THE EARTH BUILDING, ITS STRANGE PEOPLES, ITS CENTURIED ROMANCE, New York, Century Company. [1925) 517 PP Of all the author's prolific writings about the region he was the first to christen "The Southwest," this is the best in scope, balance, and vigor. New England-born, Harvard-schooled, newspapertrained, Lummis was one of the most egocentric and strident boosters the Southwest has ever known, founder of the Southwest Museum, collector of regional history, champion of the oppressed, half egomaniac, half philanthropist-superlatives fall short when applied to this bantam rooster of a man. His works will be read when his personality has been forgotten, such are the enduring ways of good books.

JOSEPH G. MCCOY (1837-1915)

HISTORIC SKETCHES OF THE CATTLE TRADE OF THE WEST AND SOUTHWEST; edited by Ralph P. Bieber. Glendale, Arthur H. Clark Company. [1940] 435 pp.

In 1867 McCoy established a market for cattle at Abilene, Kansas, terminus of the Chisholm Trail, over which millions of head were driven up from Texas. Outspoken and salty, this is the first of the range histories, and the only one ever written by a participant. Published originally in 1867, it has been reprinted several times, most recently by Long's in 1951 ($8.50), but this edition, with an excellent introduction and notes by Bieber, is the best of all.

SUSAN SHELBY MAGOFFIN (1827-1855)

DOWN THE SANTA FÉ TRAIL AND INTO MEXICO, THE DIARY OF SUSAN SHELBY MAGOFFIN, 1846-1847, edited by Stella M. Drumm. New Haven, Yale University Press. [1926] 294 pp.

Basic source on "the year of decision," tenderly and shrewdly written by a girl on her honeymoon. It was her brother-in-law, Colonel James Magoffin, who induced Armijo to surrender Santa Fé bloodlessly to the Americans.

MABEL MAJOR (1894SOUTHWEST HERITAGE, A LITERARY HISTORY WITH BIBLIOGRAPHY [by] Mabel Major, Rebecca W. Smith and T. M. Pearce. Rev. ed. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press. [1948] 199 pp. $2.00.

An excellent survey of the many kinds of writing that have come out of man's relationship with his environment in the Southwest, from Spanish times to date of publication.

WILLIAM LEWIS MANLY (b.1820) DEATH VALLEY IN '49; with an introduction by Carl I. Wheat. Centennial ed. Los Angeles, Borden Publishing Company. [1949] 523 pp.

First published in 1894, Manly's narrative, written in his old age a generation after the stirring events occurred, miraculously recaptured the drama of this first tragic misadventure with one of the most celebrated of all Southwestern desert valleys. This is an offset reprint, illustrated from modern photographs, introduced by the authority on overland topography.

ALICE MARRIOTT (1910MARIA, THE POTTER OF SAN ILDEFONSO, with drawings by Margaret Lefranc. Norman, University of Oklaltoma Press. [1948] 294 pp. $3.75.

This book is about a creative woman of strong character who has become world-famous as a ceramicist. It is by an ethnologist who writes like a novelist, without sacrifice of truthfulness, in the same memorable vein as her earlier The Ten Grandmothers, a book about the Kiowa Indians of Oklahoma.

ALICE MARRIOTT (1910) THESE ARE THE PEOPLE: SOME NOTES ON THE SOUTHWESTERN INDIANS. Santa Fé, Laboratory of Anthropology. [1949] 67 pp. $3.00.

There is no better introduction and guide to the subject than this glowing little volume, beautifully conceived and written, and designed by Merle Armitage.

JOSEPH MILLER, ed. THE ARIZONA STORY, compiled and edited from original newspaper sources. With drawings by Ross Santee. New York, Hastings House. [1952] 345 pp. $5.50.

From the files of Arizona newspapers housed in the State Library at Phoenix, where he works, the compiler mined these rousing stories of the rough old times, following the volume with Arizona, the Last Frontier in 1956. No source pans richer, as many a modern historical novelist well knows.

BALDWIN MÖLLHAUSEN (1825-1905) DIARY OF A JOURNEY FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE COASTS OF THE PACIFIC WITH A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT EXPEDITION. With an introduction by Alexander von Humboldt. Translated by Mrs. Percy Sinnett. London, Longman. [1858] 2 vols.

Möllhausen was the artist-naturalist with the Whipple and later with the Ives expeditions, both in the 1850's, and could both write and draw. This work is illustrated with chromolithographs and woodcuts, and presents vivid views of the Southwest. Möllhausen went on to write some forty-five works about the Far West, which earned him the title of the German Fenimore Cooper.

GUSTAV ERIK ADOLF NORDENSKIÖLD (1868-1895) THE CLIFF DWELLERS OF THE MESA VERDE, SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO; THEIR POTTERY AND IMPLEMENTS; translated by D. Lloyd Morgan. Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt and Söner. [1893] 174 pp.

One of the classics of Southwestern archaeology this noble folio, issued in both English and Swedish editions, was the work of the young Swedish baron who was drawn to the Mesa Verde by news of the Wetherills' discovery of the cliff dwellings. The collection of artifacts which he excavated and herein described was intended for the Royal Museum in Stockholm, but according to one source, it remained in storage until recently, when it found its way to a museum in Helsinki. Today the Mesa Verde is one of the finest of the national parks and museums.

JACK O'CONNOR (1902) HUNTING IN THE SOUTHWEST; with illustrations by T. J. Harter. New York, Alfred A. Knopf. [1945] 279 pp.

"In this book I have tried to communicate some of the feeling I have about the creatures of the Southwest, as well as some of the information I have gathered. It is frankly a book for the sportsman, for the man who likes to go afield in the fall to harvest with gun and rifle his little share of the annual crop of game, but those interests are not confined wholly to the hunting season. It is a book by a hunter for the man who likes to know more about the game he hunts, or would like to hunt-what it looks like, what it eats, what sort of country it lives in, what its habits are, how it is standing the impact of civilization, and how it best may be hunted."

WALTER C. O'KANE (1877) THE HOPIS: PORTRAIT OF A DESERT PEOPLE; with photos in color by the author. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press. [1953] 267 pp. $6.00.

Inhabitants of the three arid mesas in northern Arizona, the Hopis are probably the least changed of all Indians, for the reason that the white men did not covet their barren lands. This sympathetic study of the oldest generation of living Hopis, those then in their 80's and 90's, is further made memorable by the twentyfour portrait photographs which prove the truth of the poet Jeffers' lines The heads of strong old age are beautiful Beyond all grace of youth. They have strange quiet, Integrity, health, soundness, to the full They've dealt with life and been attempered by it.

MORRIS EDWARD OPLER (1907) AN APACHE LIFE-WAY; THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS OF THE CHIRICAHUA INDIANS. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. [1941] 500 pp. $7.50.

A sympathetic and moving ethnological study of the what and why of being an Apache Indian of the three bands which once dominated the four corners of Arizona-New Mexico-Sonora-Chihuahua and were led by Mangus Colorado, Victorio, Cochise, and Geronimo, and are now reduced to a few hundred inhabitants of the Mescalero Reservation.

WATERMAN L. ORMSBY (1834-1908) THE BUTTERFIELD OVERLAND MAIL, by Waterman L. Ormsby, only through passenger on the first westbound stage, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum. San Marino, The Huntington Library. [1942] 179 pp. $4.00.

In 1858 Ormsby became the first fare-paying transcontinental passenger, and this book consists of vivid dispatches from en route to the New York Herald, of which he was a special correspondent. The route from St. Louis to San Francisco was via Red River, El Paso, Tucson, Fort Yuma, and Los Angeles. The Overland Mail ended with the advent of the Civil War.

MIGUEL ANTONIO OTERO (1859-1944) MY LIFE ON THE FRONTIER... By Miguel Antonio Otero, former governor of New Mexico. New York, Press of the Pioneers. 1935-39) 2 vols.

And a rough and violent life it was, of knifings, shootings, and survival of the most influential, told by Otero in plain language which emphasizes the tough character of the times.

JAMES O. PATTIE (b. 1804?) THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF JAMES O. PATTIE OF KENTUCKY, edited by Timothy Flint, historical introduction and footnotes by Milo Milton Quaife. Chicago, R. R. Donnelley and Sons Co. [1930] 428 pp.

Pattie was fur trading in New Mexico and California in the 1820's, and thus his lively narrative, first published at Cincinnati in 1831 (today of great rarity and value), is one of the earliest sources in English on the Southwest. The reprint in Thwaites' Early Western Travels series is a little fuller than this one in the attractive Lakeside Classics series, but is harder to come by as a separate volume.

DONALD CULROSS PEATTIE (1898)

A NATURAL HISTORY OF WESTERN TREES; illustrated by Paul Landacre. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. [1953] 751 pp. $6.00.

Best book on the subject by an authority whose prose style and scientific knowledge are happily wedded, and embellished by the best of all western wood-engravers.

ROGER TORY PETERSON (1908)

A FIELD GUIDE TO WESTERN BIRDS. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. [1941] 240 pp. $3.75.

The author's West ranges from Texas to British Columbia.

H. M. T. POWELL

THE SANTA FÉ TRAIL TO CALIFORNIA, 1849-1852; THE JOURNAL AND DRAWINGS OF H. M. T. POWELL, edited by Douglas S. Watson. San Francisco, Book Club of California. [1931] 272 pp.

Detailed and readable, in noble format by the Grabhorn Press, this is one of the most beautiful books of our times.

FREDERIC REMINGTON (1861-1909)

CROOKED TRAILS; written and illustrated by Frederic Remington. New York; Harper & Brothers. [1898] 150 pp.

That Remington could write as well as draw is evident from this book of Southwest sketches, including several on the Apaches and the Army's efforts to subdue them.

BERT ROBINSON (1889)

THE BASKET WEAVERS OF ARIZONA. Photographs by Robert H. Peebles. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press. [1954] 164 pp. $7.50.

From the abundant literature on aboriginal basketry this monograph on the eight basket-weaving tribes of Arizona has been selected for several reasons: it is authentic, the author having lived with the Indians for thirty years, part of the time as Superintendent of the Pima Reservation, and being of obvious deep sympathy with them; and it is historical rather than technical, and is beautifully illustrated from color and black and white photographs. Except for the Pomos of Northern California, the basket makers of Arizona, from the desert tribes in the south to the canyon and mesa tribes of the north, represent the apogee of this most ancient of the textile arts.

PHILIP ASHTON ROLLINS (1869)

THE COWBOY, AN UNCONVENTIONAL HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION ON THE OLD-TIME CATTLE RANGE. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons. [1936] 402 pp. $5.00.

More than the classic history of the cowboy, his work and his ways, Rollins' book is a philosophical interpretation of the frontier that ensures it a central place among Western Americana. First published in 1922, this third revised edition adds data on many points and contains new illustrations.

MARIAN SLOAN RUSSELL (1845-1937)

LAND OF ENCHANTMENT: MEMOIRS OF MARIAN RUSSELL ALONG THE SANTA FÉ TRAIL, as dictated to Mrs. Hal Russell. Edited by Garnet M. Brayer. Decorations by David T. Vernon. Evanston, Branding Iron Press. [1954] 155 pp. $7.50.

Near the end of her long life the author dictated memories of it to her daughter-in-law, going clear back to her life at Santa Fé in the 1850's, with reminiscences of Archbishop Lamy and Kit Carson, and on past the murder of her husband by Maxwell deputies in the struggle for that famous land grant, to her final sixty-three years on a ranch near Trinidad, Colorado. The result is one of the most poetic and tender of all Southwestern books.

TRENT ELWOOD SANFORD (1897)

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SOUTHWEST; INDIAN, SPANISH, AMERICAN. New York, W. W. Norton and Co.

ROSS SANTEE (1889)

APACHE LAND. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons. [1947] 216 pp. $3.50.

The best of all modern writers about Southern Arizona, Santee gathers here rich lore of Apache warriors and their bloody land, and illustrates the book with his characteristic black and white drawings which perfectly complement the text.

A TEXAS COWBOY; OR, FIFTEEN YEARS ON THE HURRICANE DECK OF A SPANISH PONY, TAKEN FROM REAL LIFE. With bibliographical study and introduction by J. Frank Dobie and drawings by Tom Lea. New York, William Sloane Associates. [1950] 198 pp.

First and best of all cowboy autobiographies, the original 1885 edition of which is now of great rarity, Siringo's rough and ready yarn, written solely, the author admits, to make money, is here royally introduced by "Pancho" Dobie, who ranks with it only one other cowboy book, E. C. "Teddy" Blue's We Pointed Them North. Typography by Carl Hertzog of El Paso.

THE TRAVELS OF JEDEDIAH SMITH; A DOCUMENTARY OUTLINE INCLUDING THE JOURNAL OF THE GREAT AMERICAN PATHFINDER, by Maurice S. Sullivan. Santa Ana, California, Fine Arts Press. [1934] 195 pp.

Fur Trader Smith was the first American to make a recorded journey overland from Missouri to Southern California, arriving at Mission San Gabriel in 1826 and being coldly received. This long lost fragmentary transcript of the original journal, though without literary merit, has value as a first-hand record of pioneering. Smith was killed by the Comanches in what is now Southwestern Kansas.

WALLACE STEGNER (1909)

BEYOND THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN; JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE SECOND OPENING OF THE WEST. With an introduction by Bernard DeVoto. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. [1954] 438 pp. $6.00. An indignant biography of Major Powell, the man who first explored the Colorado River, founded the United States Geological Survey and Bureau of Ethnology, fathered reclamation of the arid western lands, and was one of the Homeric figures of the Southwest.

MARTHA SUMMERHAYES (1846-1911)

VANISHED ARIZONA; RECOLLECTIONS OF MY ARMY LIFE, edited by Milo Milton Quaife. Chicago, Lakeside Press. [1939] 337 pp. As a New England bride Mrs. Summerhayes came to Arizona in the 1870's with her lieutenant husband, and years later when she published the first edition of her memoirs in 1908 the wide response it evoked astonished her. A revised edition followed in 1911. This posthumous edition in the Lakeside Classics is the most readily available on the second-hand market, although it too is now becoming scarce. Still another edition is called for, preferably edited by an Arizonian. The book is a classic of army life on the frontier seen through a woman's eyes.

SUN CHIEF; THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI INDIAN, edited by Leo W. Simmons. New Haven, for the Institute of Human Relations by Yale University Press. [1942] 460 pp. In spite of the editor's sociological apparatus and jargon this is a moving account of the first half century of a Hopi chieftain's life, frank in every aspect, and unlike any white man's story. The method was for Don to keep a diary which the editor then read back to him and added the subject's comments, and finally gave continuity and smoothness to the narrative. The result is admittedly artificial and yet unique in the insight it affords into the Indian mind.

IN FRANCISCO: THE BOCEdward Norris Wentworth, with drawings by Harold D. Bugbee.

CHARLES WAYLAND TOWNE (1875)

SHEPHERD'S EMPIRE, by Charles Wayland Towne and Norman, University of Oklahoma Press. [1945] 364 pp. $3.50.

In spite of overstriving for cuteness and odd words, the authors have written the best general work on sheep in the Southwest, from their introduction by the conquistadors to the present, historically accurate and packed with anecdote. Bugbee's black and white drawings add much to the book's interest.

RALPH EMERSON TWITCHELL (1859-1925)

THE SPANISH ARCHIVES OF NEW MEXICO; compiled and chronologically arranged with historical, genealogical, geo-graphical, and other annotations, by authority of the State of New Mexico. Cedar Rapids, Torch Press. [1914] 2 vols.

These massive volumes are a synopsis of the records which during territorial days were transferred for reasons of safety to the Library of Congress.. Although the earliest records were nearly all destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the re-accumulation began twelve years later with the reconquest of northern New Mexico by Vargas. They are a mine of information, worked by historians, lawyers, politicians, and novelists.

RUTH MURRAY UNDERHILL (1884)

THE NAVAJOS. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press. [1956] 299 pp. $4.50.

The long and complex history of the vicissitudes of The People, beautifully told by a long time Indian Service ethnologist in whose style jargon plays no part. Largest of all the Indian tribes, the Navajos have had a history of abrupt transitions, from nomads to farmers and pastoralists, raiders and wards-in-exile, to their present status as owners of some of the country's richest uranium deposits.

RUTH MURRAY UNDERHILL (1884)

SINGING FOR POWER; THE SONG MAGIC OF THE PAPAGO INDIANS OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA. Berkeley, University of California Press. [1938] 158 pp.

The Papagos are a gentle, poetic branch of the Aztec race, known to themselves as the Bean People. They have never warred with the whites, are given to soft speech and laughter, and to expressing these emotions in songs. Miss Underhill has gathered and translated these ceremonials in a little book of great beauty, illustrated from drawings by Indian boys.

GASPAR PEREZ DE VILLAGRA (d. 1620)

HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO; translated by Gilberto Espinosa; introduction and notes by F. W. Hodge. Los Angeles, Quivira Society. [1933] 308 pp.

The first translation into English of the epic poem by a member of Onate's expedition which destroyed the rocky pueblo of Acoma. The high-flown rhetoric of the Spanish, first published at Madrid in 1600, is rendered in prose translation, there are intensive notes by Hodge, and the volume is illustrated from modern photographs of Acoma. Time has smoothed the edges of what was probably the most cruel and unjustified episode in all the Spanish annals of cruelty and destruction.

EDWARD S. WALLACE (1897)

THE GREAT RECONNAISSANCE; SOLDIERS, ARTISTS, AND SCIENTISTS ON THE FRONTIER, 1848-1861. Boston, Little, Brown & Co. [1955] 288 pp. $5.00.

"This is the informal story of the men who explored, surveyed, and mapped our new boundary with Mexico after 1848, and then the huge area within it, before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861; and of those who blazed the trails for wagon roads and railroads through this land to the Pacific Coast. Also, it tells of the accompanying artists who sketched, painted, and photographed the Indians, the landmarks, and the scenery; and the scientists who collected, classified, and meticulously illustrated the flora and fauna in those vast regions." Author's preface.

FRANK WATERS (1902)

THE COLORADO; illustrated by Nikolai Fechin, maps by George Annand. New York, Rinehart and Company. [1946] 400 pp. $4.00.

The "practical realists" of Western Americana, those cold-blooded, narrow-eyed men who deal in points and pages and would flatten literature onto the gridiron of longitude and lati-tude, these bibliographical barbarians have objected to Novelist Waters turning geographer-historian, in this book in the Rivers of America series about the greatest Southwestern river of them all, the Rio Colorado, named by Garces who first descended to its bed at Havasupai Falls.

What Waters sought was the mystical spirit of the Colorado and the enormous area it drains, and his book is an imaginative in-terpretation, as well as a history, distinguished by some of the most powerful of all writing about the Southwest. The final chapters on the water problem along the lower stretches of the river are impartial, which will make them suspect in Southern California.

WALTER PRESCOTT WEBB (1888)

THE GREAT PLAINS. Boston, Ginn and Company. [1931] 345 pp. $6.00.

One of the most fecundating works on the Southwest since Turner's study of the frontier in American history, and Powell's report on the arid lands. A list of the chapter headings will indicate the book's scope: The Physical Basis of the Great Plains Environment, The Plains Indians, The Spanish Approach to the Great Plains, The American Approach to the Great Plains, The Cattle Kingdom, Transportation and Fencing, The Search for Water, New Laws for Land and Water, The Literature of the Great Plains, The Mysteries of the Great Plains in American Life.

PAUL I. WELLMAN (1898)

GLORY, GOD, AND GOLD; A NARRATIVE HISTORY. Garden City, Doubleday & Co. [1954] 402 pp. $5.75.

A chronological history of the American Southwest, from Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to and not including California, narrating the cruel and bloody story of Spanish cross and crown against the heathen, sympathetic to the aborigines while admiring the bravery of the Spanish. Wellman is a capable narrator and novelist, and he tells this several-centuried story with skill and insight.

WRITERS PROGRAM, ARIZONA

ARIZONA, THE GRAND CANYON STATE; A STATE GUIDE. Completely revised by Joseph Miller; edited by Henry G. Alsberg. New York, Hastings House. [1956] 532 pp. $6.00.

WRITERS PROGRAM, NEW MEXICO

NEW MEXICO; A GUIDE TO THE COLORFUL STATE. New and revised edition by Joseph Miller; edited by Henry G. Alsberg. New York, Hastings House. [1953] 471 pp. $6.00.

Compiled originally by the W. P. A. in the Depression of the 1930's, these and other state and city guides form a national encyclopedia of the U. S. A. The volumes on Arizona and New Mexico are among the best of all in the quality of writing and beauty of photographic illustration. The Arizona guide was originally edited by Ross Santee. Both works are basic and indispensable.

Yours sincerely

WILD FLOWER FAN I love wild flowers of every hue, And might even possibly name a few, But most of the sweet little untamed cusses To me are happy anonymouses Which do not mind, I feel quite sure, My lack of floral nomenclature! S. OMAR BARKER PANHANDLER Near sandy dunes where lizards play, A daring one came out each day To my back door with out-stretched paw, Bright greedy eyes and open jaw. This small albino's stay was brief, He came to eat a lettuce leaf. GRACE SHATTUCK BAIL UNTO THE HILLS Mountains ringed me all about. I stood alone and loosed a shout In that high, diamond-brilliant air. The sound came back from everywhere, Hollow, thin; it blurred and clashed Till I fell silent and abashed, And the last foolish echo died. Then it seemed the mountains cried With stony tongues and leafy lips: Here by God's own finger tips Is all of earthly beauty wrought, All majesty that man has sought To ease a spirit weak, distressed. Here is solitude and rest, Peace and healing, heaven-blessed. ETHEL JACOBSON THE GIFT Night strings Pearled beads of dew Upon fine silvered strands Of spiderweb and loops it round Dawn's throat. EMILY CAREY ALLEMAN FLYING HIGH Below me Lilliputian cars move As if a child slowly pulled on a string; Beside them strung on thin silver wire A card-flat train is a motionless thing. HELEN FLETCHER COLLINS REQUEST Teach me cool words of sails, or winds, of seas, For I have known the desert and the plain. I speak of yucca bloom and piñon trees Above arroya walls, the Spring she-rain On Taos, tall ollas by a bitter well, A thunder bird, a Penitente's hidden shrine, And mesa suns. The desert's golden spell Is in my heart, on lips and tortgue of mine. I'd know the taste of your north island words! A stranger to white mist, grey fog, black gale, How shall I thread by love with silver chords? How shall I meet your calm blue glance, nor fail At placid heart, if alien speech denies Forgetfulness of inland sands and skies. MARGARET MARCHAND BROWN NIGHT-BLOOMING CACTUS Shyly, after day is done, A modest flower evades the sun, Its fragile beauty more in tune With stars and less flamboyant moon. S. OMAR BARKER WASHINGTON STATERS IN YUMA: . . . As you may know I have been a strong supporter of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for a number of years and annually give subscriptions to many of my friends at Christmas. Although I was raised in Pennsylvania, and have now taken residence in Washington, I have always been interested in Ari zona because of two maternal uncles, Homer and Louis Smith. They moved to Arizona, locating in Yuma, prior to 1920. There they ran a pharmacy for over twenty years. At one time I believe Homer was mayor of Yuma and his remains are at rest in the Yuma cemetery. Louis has retired and lives in Los Angeles. At any rate my boyhood desires to visit Arizona were nearly fulfilled when I began to read your magazine. In February, 1950, I took my wife and five children on a winter vacation and drove to Yuma. We liked what we saw and began to discuss the possibility of a winter home. We had an Everett realtor visit us in Yuma and he was sold on the idea immediately. Since 1950 we have encouraged many of our friends to visit Yuma with the constant thought of a winter home. Now here is a story that you might be interested in. Twenty-eight people from Everett have formed the Washyuma Corporation. We have two members from Yuma and we are building thirty homes away from home. They are going to be located on the edge of the Yuma Golf and Country Club and will have a central swimming pool, shuffleboard, and putting green. Each unit will have a kitchen, bedroom and living room with a separate patio and car port. We will have a manager who will rent these units for us in our absence since most of us can only spend two to six weeks away at a time. Construction started last December and we hope the first buildings will be finished in March, 1958. We purchased our land from Al Brygger and he is a story for you all by himself. George Drumheller, M.D. Everett, Washington COMPLIMENT ON OUR COLOR: You may be interested in a compliment paid your magazine in an article by a famous authority on art, Francis Henry Taylor. In a criticism of LIFE's new publication "The Arts and Skills of America," which appeared in the New York Times Sunday, October 27, 1957, Mr. Taylor, formerly Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, stated that while the color illustrations in that book were very good, they were not as beautiful nor as expertly reproduced as those in your excellent magazine. You might be interested to get a copy of the book section of the New York Times for this date. I agree with Mr. Taylor that your publication contains the finest color reproductions available today. Arthur H. Raynolds, M.D. St. Petersburg, Florida VIVA THE OLD PUEBLO: You paid worthy tribute to Tucson, the Old Pueblo, in your issue last month. Tucson is one of the friendliest towns in the West, and I should know because our family has spent each winter in Tucson for the past ten years and we hope to retire there eventually. E. L. Stadder Toledo, Ohio Your Tucson issue was most interesting to me as I know it will be to thousands of others here in the Middlewest interested in moving to Arizona. I want to congratulate Phyllis and Weldon Heald for their article "Tucson: Pleasant Living in the Sun." Being a newspaperman myself, I believe more space should have been devoted to the CITIZEN and the STAR. Elmer Burkhardt Des Moines, lowa

"OWL CLOVER" BY WILLIS PETERSON. 34x4½ Speed Graphic; Ektachrome; f.18 at 1/10 sec.; f.4.7 Ektar lens; April, 1957; late afternoon. This field of Owl Clover (Orthocarpus purpurascens) was found alongside the road on the Apache Trail, midway between Fish Creek Hill and Tortilla Flat.

"PALO VERDE IN SPRING DRESS" BY ESTHER HENDERSON. 5x7 Deardorff View camera; Ektachrome; f.16 at 4 sec.; Ektar lens; taken in Spring '56 about first week in May at about 8 A.M.; Weston Meter light value of 200. Taken along a desert wash just a few miles from Apache Junction on the Apache Trail. Scene shows the blue Palo Verde tree (Cercidium floridum) which has a brighter yellow blossom than the more common Foothill Palo Verde. The blue variety grows exclusively along the washes and is especially good in this area of the Apache Trail. Also fine trees are found between Florence and Oracle Junction. The Palo Verde is the state tree of Arizona.