Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-09-16
From the development and workin,

FROM tne deVelOpnent and wOrkln
of these immense mineral resources, "
hope in the future to see a vast popult
, tion the consumers of our farm product
, who will furnish market for tn
laborers in agriculture and irrigation.
Passing from the mineral resources
, the territory, I desire to call your after
: tion a few moments to the grea
natural wealth of New Mexico as an agri
cultural country. l have already calle
your attention to the fact that New Me1
leo is crossed from north to south, upo
either side of the Rio Grande, by tn
Rocky mountain range, which divides
into four great basins or water sheds
through which flow streams carrying
large bodies of water.
TO these streams and adjacent plaint
We must look for the agricultural pros
perity of the future, for rich as are tn
mineral resources of our mountains, it il
not to them that We must look for ou
greatest prosperity. The future pros
perity of the territory and its ability e.
support 3 dense population depen
largely npon the extent to which irrlga
tion may be successfully carried, for, al
grown and matured here without irriga
ton, or the artificial application of water
New Mexico has been known in tn,
past as pastoral country, large areas
consisting of extensive mesas or plains
bottom lands and mountain valleys, GOV
cred with rich, nutritious grasses princi
pally the black and white gramma, which
grow naturally without irrigation, cure
in the sunshine and
FURNISH FOOD SUMMER AND WINTER
for the great herds of sheep and cattle
which in the past have been the principa
resources of our farmers and stock grow.
ers. The cattle industry of New Mexico
is greater than that of any other territory
and the last census shows New Mexico to
rank as the fifth state in the number OF
her sheep and the seventh in the value OF
her wool.
Valuable as are these natural grasses
however, as an aid to agriculture, they
are, owing to the small rainfall, so limit
ed in quantity as to be insufficient to
support more than asparsely settled com
munity, so that repeat again the state
ment that the future prosperity of the
territory depends upon the extent to
which irrigation may be successfully car
ried. The efforts of the past show the
wonderful productiveness of the soil after
reclamation, and present effects are
proving the large acreage susceptible of
reclamation by irrigation at very small
expenditure of capital.
Many persons, unfamiliar with this
mode of agriculture, fail to realize it's
advantages. Those of US who have been
reared in the Mississippi valley, the most
fruitful and the largest body of arabic eland
in the world where crops are raised with
out irrigation, have had no occasion to
to study the advantages and disadvant-
ages of artificial agriculture, and few
realize the extent to which irrigation has
been carried in the past. Two-thirds of
the food supply of the world is produced
in arid regions by the use of irigatlon.
The densely populated regions of Persia,
China, East India and japan depend al
most solely on irrigation for their food
supply, having a rainfall less than that of
tains 23,0O0,000 acres of arble land, which
support eight persons to the acre with
crops grown solely by irrigation. Irriga-
tion is no new art or recent discovery; the
past is replete with instances of its sue
cess, Babylon, Tryre and Carthage, queen
cities of the past, were all desert born.
Their grandeuer and worth were all drawn
from the canals and bitches that watered
the land surrounding them. The lilies
that grew in the world famed gardens of
Babylon were the result of artificial irrl-
CATION. The greatest monment of the
people, who reared these fabulous trade
centers, are their ruined works fashioned
for the preservation and distribution of
the water. Of the great city of Cathage
not stone remains, but the magnificent
acqueducts that supplied her water still
exist and water the city of Tunis.
POSSIBILITIES OF ARID AMERICA.
With soil as rich as is found In any
portion of the world, adapted to the
growth of every variety of grain, veget-
able, vine and fruit produced in the tenn
perate zone, climate unsurpassed, it
would seem that the American desert
ulRuU, WlOA ouAoOAu SuP Pluuk anu CAOIu
for the saving and utilizing of the food
waters of summer and the melted SHOWS
of winter, be, in time, made the garden
of America, the home of larger popula-
tion than now inhabits the fertile valley
of the Mississippi and it's tributary
streams. Unfortunately, the policy of
the governme mt has, to a certain extent,
the reclamation of the arid pub
lie lands and prevented the development
of the regions requiring large expendit-
ures for reclamation.
Our public land laws were not framed
to meet conditions such as exist here.
They were framed to suit the conditions
existing in the eastern states, where the
rainfall was sufficient to produce crops
without irrigation, and where every home
steader was dependent upon his own ef-
forts to open and develop his holdings.
Here it is different.
In every part of the territory, the peo-
pie are alive to the necessity OF Irrigation,
and are either completing irrigation sys-
TENS begun in the past, or are entering
upon new enterprises. In the extreme
northwest, in the county of San Juan,
which is the only locality in the territory
where the water supply largely exceeds
the land to be irrigated, four extensive
enterprises are in the course of compile
ton. The waters of the San Juan, AMI
mas and La Plata rivers are being taken
out and carried upon the adjacent plans.
Four hundred miles of bitches have al
ready been com pleted, and ii is estimated
that il will cover 2250O0 acres of land, of