Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-12-27
A LIVE STOCK COUNTRY,
Advantages Of the Pecos Valley Region for
Stock Farms.

with average ability and $4,000 to $4,000
can do well, it is on an alfalfa farm on
the Pecos. Land seeded in alfalfa can
be bought at $50 per acre, and three
fourths of the purchase money can be
on long time and low interest. One hun
bred acres of such land will sustain 24o
COWS and five bulls, and from this stock
can be raised 200 calves and allowance
made for all losses. Two hundred calves
each year, raised on an abundance Of
milk and alfalfa, will weigh in the fall
600 pounds each, and are Just the stuff
northern feeders are looking for and for
which they are willing to pay high
prices. As feeders for baby beef, such
calves readily sell at 4 cents a pound,
gross weight, an average Of $24 per
head, or $4,000 for one years calf crop
raised on 100 acres of land. If it is de-
out ready for market as finished year.
lings they can be readily fattened on
the farm to advantage, and can be
made to weigh on an average 900 to
1000 pounds each, and worth 5 to 6
cents per pound.
This is no fancy sketch. 1t has been
done thousands of times in a less IA
vored country. The fattening and fin
ishing a be done in the valley. Grain
can be and is raised in great abundance
and just as readily as alfalfa, only more
manual labor is required and more
money needed for agricultural imple-
ments and machinery.
Resides these crops, there are fields
of sugar beets which make eight to ten
tons per acre, and are worth 81 per ton
at any railroad station on the line. OF
mangel wurzels, a most excellent cattle,
horse, sheep and hog feed, a field of
twenty acres yielded thirty to forty
tons to the acre. On the same farm
there are thirty acres in celery, which
is shipped all over the United States,
and will average from $500 to $1,000 per
acre for labor, profits and interest on
the investment. The land Is eminently
adapted to raising fruit, vegetables and
cereals, but it is prominently the field
for raising superior live stock of all
kinds. For vegetables and fruit there is
a market which fluctuates daily, and
many things %conspire to prevent the
proper returns after the crops are
raised. But for good live stock of all
kinds there is a constant demand at re-
munerative prices, and in the fattened
calf, the pork hog and mutton sheep are
centralized the combined profits of live
stock raising and agricultural products.
In thirty-six to forty-eight hours after
they are loaded on the ears they are
in the great markets of the livestock
industry. The returns are quick and GER
tain; a cash transaction without shad-
ow of failure.
Besides the land pre-empted by the
ditch companies, there are SOC, 900 acres
of land in the Pecos valley belonging to
the national government, each acre of
which is susceptible of irrigation by
Of artesian wells or by storing
the waters of numerous springs and
small streams, by making other dams
below the present ones, or by elevating
the wealth of the escape waters to the
lands by e. of machinery, and at no
point would it exceed 80 feet or be diff
cult to accomplish.
The land can be homesteaded in
tracts of 100 acres-a free gift from
Uncle Sam. 1t can also be taken up
under the desert claim law or forest cul-
ture law, in tracts Of 800 acres. But for
a man seeking a home in the valley and
desiring to go into business at once on
a sure footing, and gathering the cream
of ten to twenty years of successful ex-
periments, we advise the purchase Of
the improved lands, either from the va
rious companies or from individuals.
The reason for this advice is not that
we have any land to sell or amy interest
to serve, but is given for the prospect
or's good. No matter how we'll endowed
with mean and ability a man may be,
it requires several years of hard work
to bring a good stock farm up to a
proper paying basis if the land Is wild
land taken up from the government
Roswell Live Stock Champion.