Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1891-05-23

Editorial Correspondence New Mexican.
EDDY, N. M, May 1S9l.-A plain
unvarnshed story touching the Pecos Ir.
rigation & Improvement company's mag
nificent sy stem of irrigation canals and
water storage reservoirs and the pheno-
menal success which has attended the
construction of these enterprises in south
eastern New Mexico may not prove I'M
interesting to the readers of the New
MEXICAN. 1t has been the pleasure of the
writer to visit this section more than once
in the course of long residence in New
Mexico, and he feels justified in the as
serton that certainly nowhere in the
great west have such changes been
wrought in few years as here. The
buffalo and the wild horse and the game
of the plain and foothills that
THE HOSTILE APACHE AND CoMANCHE
were wont to seek here but compara-
lively few years since, were compelled to
give way before the advance of that great
western plains pioneer, the range stock
raiser.
Five years ago found this whole region
under the command of the beef producer
and the fock-master, their immense
herds gathering weight and wealth from
grazing upon the succulent gramma grass
that here abounds or resting in the noon
day sun beneath the cooling shades of
the beautiful groves that line the many
splendid streams coursing through this
part of New Mexico. 1t was not long be-
fore nature began to grow tame, and
deal gently with the
HARDY AMERICANS WHO HAD COME
to supplant the Indian. Pretty soon their
homes, crude at first, blossomed into
shady retreats, and the wild flowers that
sprang up along the banks of the small
irrigating bitches grew large and hardy
and far more beautiful than before under
the kindly action of the sun supplement-
ed by the richly mineralized waters that
flowed down from the foothills. These
waters were rolling to waste, practically,
for all the live stock on earth could not
exhaust them. Presently the pioneers
began to plant orchards and gardens
"experiments" they were termed, but
how they did flourish! The soil had only
to be barely "tickled with the hoe" be.
fore the seed all new to this wild land,
burst into life and fruitfulness, and it was
not long before even the conservative
early settler, the rangeman, became con-
yinced that the day when
HORTICULTURE AND AGRICULTURE
would develop into the valleys greatest
and most profitable industries, was not
far distant. There had been ample tests !;
experiments were no longer in order; the
country was beginning to settle up; there
was demand for productions of the soil,
for the water to make these productions
as certain as the seasons.
The later settlers who came here to en-
gage in stock raising were not long in
perceiving that few years hence would
work wonderful change in the then ex-
listing conditions, and they sat about to
prepare for the change. They realized
all that mother nature had done for them ;
realized the fact that there must soon
come a different method Of handling their
vast herds so that other factors in the
production of wealth might be introduced
to supply not only beef and mutton for
THE EVER GROWING MARKETS
springing up in the southwest, but bread
stuffs as well, and fruits and vegetables
and vast quantities OF forage that the new
system of range stock raising would sure
ly demand.
HON. CIIAs. B. EDDY,
one of the early settlers of the valley, was
the first to see and feel these changes
and he and few of his friends whose
ranches dotted the valley here and there
we're not long in "getting together
They have been together ever since, and
behold the change! With a restless en-
ergy born of the west, with pluck ant
courage and skill and the aid of larg'
capital placed at their disposal by Willing
eastern capitalists, they have taken VI
the magic wand of American enterp ris
and twirled it up and down and along tn