The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1907-01-17

they struck New Mexico, why they'd
fad it was quite q different story.
Hadn't we lived mere always? Didn't
we know what we could and couldn't
do when it came to farming on New
Mexico's prairies and deserts? But
nothing daunted. HI land hungry tide
of immigration reached the New Mex
leo line, and to them the land just
over the line was no whit different
from That to the east of it. The tide
swept over and worked its way across
the border counties. Fools" we said,
they will starve out in a year." That.
was five years g and they haven't
starved yet. Quite to the contrary;
they have %prospered and gone ahead
most tremendously fast.
At Portales, New Mexico, just a few
miles over the northwestern Texas
line five years g a party of us were
there looking for cattle. Portales tnel
had two frame buildings, two or
three tents and a railroad station.
1t was 800 to 400 feet down to water
aid as far as the eye could reach in
every direction was one vast open un-
broken prairie-the primeval stock
range. Today the town has two week
ly papers,, two national banks, plea-
ty of substantial buildings, both pri-
vate and business, while every acre
of land bout it for miles is under
cultivation and crops equal to any are
raised there year after year.
At that time in Portales we met a
man hauling water in a wagon. He
was the type of the vanguard of the
settlers and was d%rongi1g along the
road with tour water barrels in his
wagon. We asked him how far he
had to haul his water. Bout foul
miles I reckon" was his reply.
why don't you dig a well on your
claim" we inquired.
oval, podner,' he said, the mean
time sucking vigorously at a dirty
corn o pipe, cts just a matter of
distance, for I calkerlate it's about
as far to dig as tits to haul. Just about
as far one way as tother.'
Valuable Land in Pecos Valley.
Ten years ago a thin wave of set
tiers swept over the Pecos Valley in
the southeastern r1e of the terri
tory. They found a great broad open
cattle and sheep range. They found
also that you could punch a pipe
down almost anywhere and get a flow
ing we'll that would spout 10 or u
fee high from a 1O-inch pipe. They
found that theae sheep and cattle
ranges would raise almost anything
you put in the ground. The thin wave
, grew to a mighty flood, n today lan1
in the Pecos Valley is held from 800
an acre up. AS they ook up the land
in these border counties the new COM
ers swept on into the interior. The
opening of the Rock Island across the
territory brought thousands of home
seekers into this territory. Every
where they went the old-timers laugh
ed and predicted failure. Everywhere
they went they stayed and succeeded
AID his has been going in until
today there is no use discussing the
question of whether it will he open
range or a government lease law for
the public ranges, because in five
years more such as the past five have
been, the open range will have cas-
to exist-will have become as extinct
as the buffalo. Already the stockman
along the eastern portion of New
Mexico have read the handwriting On
the wall. They see their finish and
holdings.
With the first great wave of set
tiers in western Texas came an influx
into New Mexico's ranges of Texas
Here they surely thought they would
be safe from the granger. But alas.
they are on the move again and this
time it is on the trains in stock cars
bound for the packing houses.
Western New Mexico, which is all
that part of this great territory west
of the Rio Gra1de, is SO far f re from
any very great number of settlers, but
is. however, stocking up just about
as heavily as it can safely be. The
western half, however, is so rough
and uninviting from a farms IT stand
point that it is hard, even in the light
of recent developments to believe it
will ever fall under the influence of
the breaking pillow. Yet who a tell
what these land hungry men from
the Fast will d09