It knows no enemies or pests of any kind, no rust, no chinch bug, nor anything else to interfere with its growth and maturity. While it is not raised on a large scale by anyone, it is so universally grown by all farmers, large and small, for home consumption, that four flouring mills are sustained in the valley.

INDIAN CORN.

This valuable cereal grows to perfection. It is no exaggeration to say that, both for quality and quantity per acre, this valley will rival the Missouri and Wabash bottoms. Under favorable circumstances a crop of corn can be grown from the same land from which the crop of wheat has been grown in the same year.

FRUITS.

Nearly all deciduous fruits grow well, and some of them do better than in almost any other place. Among these may be named peaches, which in the Mesilla Valley are equal to the finest to be found in any part of the world, both as to size and flavor. During this season (1899) when the peach crop has been a failure in many parts of the United States, here it has been large. From one orchard over 7 full carloads of early peaches were shipped, besides the large amounts sold at retail and in smaller quantities. Apples, pears, quinces, plums, and prunes are grown in the greatest abundance and are of most excellent quality. The codling moth here, as elsewhere, is giving the apple grower some trouble, but it is hoped that some means will be found to overcome its ravages.

GRAPES.

The summer climate here seems to have a peculiar value in converting the starch of fruits into sugar. For this reason the grapes grown in this valley are thought to possess a richness of flavor seldom found in any others. Many varieties are grown, but the Mission, the Muscat, and the seedless are leading varieties for shipping purposes.

VEGETABLES.

Vegetables of nearly all kinds, except Irish potatoes, do well, and are grown in abundance for home consumption and for shipping. Cantaloupes and watermelons are exceedingly fine.and delicious. . Particular notice may be made of the tomato. The raising and canning of tomatoes has become quite an industry, and the product of the Mesilla Valley canning factory brings in open market a price much higher than those produced elsewhere. Mr. Theodore Roualt is growing the present season about 300 acres of tomatoes, and expects to can and ship about 30,000 cases of same and 6,000 cases of canned green chile.

There is but one thing in the way of making this valley a "farmers' paradise"-our inability to store the waste waters of the Rio Grande.

LABOR SUPPLY.

Owing to the proximity of this county to the border of Mexico, the supply of common laborers is fully equal to the demand. Skilled artisans command fair wages, especially carpenters. During the past year or so miners have been in demand, at customary wages, and the prospects are that increasing numbers will be employed as the new mines are opened up.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

Las Cruces, the county seat of Dona Ana County, possesses a very pretty and commodious brick court-house, finished with stone, surrounded by beautiful grounds; a large brick schoolhouse, a large

hall, and an academy conducted by the order of the Sisters of Loretto. Union Park is situated just diagonally across the street from the court-house grounds; this park has a large pavilion in the center. It is most beautifully laid out and planted with trees and flowers, which line broad avenues, and was an inception of the "Woman's Improvement Association," a club composed of the foremost ladies of the town.

The following religious denominations have church edifices here: Catholic, Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South, Methodist mission, Presbyterian mission, and Presbyterian. About 2 miles south of Las Cruces, at Mesilla Park, are located the buildings and grounds of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. The main building is a fine structure of two stories and a basement, consisting of thirteen rooms. Science Hall, a large twostory brick building, contains eleven large recitation rooms and five smaller ones. There is also an engineering building, girls' dormitory, seed house, and a large greenhouse, and numerous auxiliary buildings.

The college farm contains about 250 acres, all in cultivation, onehalf being river-bottom lands.

SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS.

It is essential to the highest development of any community that its members have a common language. The older generation of the native people of this county, as in all other counties of the Territory, have been born under another Government, with another language, and can not be expected to speak English. However, it is an encouraging fact that by far the larger portion of our younger native-born citizens speak more or less English, and it is a further noticeable fact and truth that each succeeding generation commands a freer use of the English language.

The native people who formerly used primitive implements in their agricultural pursuits are rapidly adapting themselves to better and more modern methods.

MINES AND MINING.

In the southeast corner of New Mexico is situated the Organ Mountains. If this mineral formation was in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, or any of the Western States in which active mining and prospecting is carried on there would be to-day 5,000 men at work. Commencing at the Modoc mine, on the extreme south end of this formation, minerals in good paying quantities have been found at intervals that have extended as far as the great copper deposits of the San Andreas, 70 miles to the north. The contact of lime and granite is without a break the entire distance. The Modoc mine has been developed to a depth of 160 feet by a shaft. The ore has increased in value and worth with every foot sunk. At the bottom this vein is 15 feet wide, and 30 per cent lead ore. With lead at the present price this would be a very valuable mine if situated in Colorado. The Bennett-Stevenson mine on the same contact, about 6 miles to the north, has been a large producer since the early sixties. The production for the year 1898 (mining what had been left behind) was in excess of $40,000. No work has been done on this mine below the water level. About 2 miles farther north the Torpedo mine is producing a carload per week of 20 per cent copper ore, the work of two miners. The Memphis, adjoining the Torpedo, has been a great producer of copper and high-grade silver ore. At present this mine is only operated to furnish water for the Bennett

mill. Still, on the same contact extending to the north is the Jay Gould mine, shipping high-grade ore, copper and silver. The Merrimac, Little Buck (that produced $35,000 in silver in a few days), the Edison, Brown and Haffore, McLaughlin, Thompson, and Roualt, and other propositions all show veins of lead, copper, and silver in paying quantities when the right people come along and take hold of them. The Bear Canyon mines of Messrs. Bennett & Friedenbloom will some day be immense producers of lead and silver. At the head of St. Nicholas Canyon are found the finest indications of the existence of lead and silver ores yet to be found. The great San Andreas copper deposits are now shipping high-grade copper ores to El Paso. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad contemplate putting in good roads to these mines to secure the freighting of the ores. This is truly

a wonderful contact, but it needs new blood, with energy and capital. It will then give employment to thousands and add vast wealth to the Territory.

CLIMATE.

Dona Ana County, in common with the other sections of New Mexico, can lay claim to a health-giving climate; but apart from the generally favorable reputation of the Territory, as a whole, this county, embracing as it does the famous Mesilla Valley, has advantages from a climatic and public-health standpoint which are unparalleled. That modern scourge, typhoid fever, is very little known in this region, and the ordinary zymotic diseases are only occasionally seen. Among the native population tuberculosis is almost unknown, though of late years several isolated cases have come under the writer's notice.

The excellence of the health of school children is very noticeable, and is well attested by the records of attendance. As a location for the rearing of children where they may escape the various illnesses to which their age predisposes, Dona Ana County can have no superior. The climatic advantages of this section are manifold, as will be readily understood from the following condensation of the United States Experimental Station reports: During the last five years the average number of sunshiny days has been three hundred and fortyeight; the relative humidity during the winter months being 34. This maximum amount of sunshine and unprecedented atmospheric dryness, combined with the pure air which our mountain situation affords and the equability of temperature which our moderate altitude insures, makes the Mesilla Valley, the "pride of the county," an ideal health resort. In fact, it is nature's great sanitarium. These wonderful climatic conditions have been taken advantage of in the establishment of numerous resorts for the care of patients with incipient pulmonary diseases. At the present writing a sanitarium is under construction at Las Cruces which will be a model of its kind. The purpose of the company is to erect a large main building, 42 by 100 feet, two stories high, containing twenty-two great rooms, library, dining rooms, and smoking rooms; the whole to be surrounded by large verandas, with a southern exposure. Within easy access are to be erected several single-story cottages, after the style of the Saranac Lake Sanitarium. It is hoped in time to make the main building an administrative building and all invalids to be housed in the adjacent cottages, following in the lines of other institutions of similar purpose. There is under consideration two more institutions of this character.

It has given much pleasure to the writer to see this part of New Mexico attract such attention from the medical profession. At the last two meetings of the American Medical Association, held respectively at Denver, Colo., and Columbus, Ohio, the writer presented

papers dealing with the climatic therapeutics of southern New Mexico, and it was very gratifying indeed to note the general favor in which they were received.

That Dona Ana County has a bright future before it nobody will deny, for it possesses many of the requisites for securing such, not the least of which is its wonderful climate, attracting as it does the best class of citizens from all parts of the universe.

THE ELEPHANT BUTTES DAM.

The greatest setback this section has ever had was that resulting from the stopping of work on what is familiarly known as the Elephant Buttes dam. A brief history follows:

A company known as the Rio Grande Irrigation and Land Company, Limited, of London, acquired the rights of the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company. The object of this company was to store the overflow waters and irrigate the Rio Grande Valley in the southern part of this Territory. Of this overflow water there is an immense quantity that goes to waste every year, as there are no dams on the Rio Grande to store these waters.

The general plan of this company was to construct a mammoth dam at the Elephant Buttes, near Engle, N. Mex., and form at this point the largest storage reservoir in the world. In addition to the large dam, a series of smaller ones were to be constructed, together with canals, and by this means bring under irrigation and cultivation hundreds of thousands of acres of the most fertile land on the continent.

Work on the smaller dams and canals was commenced in November, 1896, and continued until the spring of 1897, upward of $90,000 having been expended. At this point the United States brought suit to enjoin the company from building the storage dam. Work had to be stopped, and that already done was left in such a condition as to be subjected to great damage by the annual floods. The ground for seeking the injunction was that the Rio Grande was a navigable

stream.

This claim is preposterous. The Rio Grande is not and never has been a navigable stream, except where it is affected by the tide. The true secret of the attack can be found in the effort of certain persons to have constructed at El Paso an international dam, and under the impression that the Elephant Buttes dam would interfere with their plans and monopolize the water, they oppose the enterprise. A careful investigation goes to show that, instead of the Elephant Buttes dam monopolizing all the water, the reverse would be the result, and the people at and near El Paso would have more water after its construction than before.

It is to be hoped that this question will shortly be settled, and the company permitted to resume operations, for with the completion of this work will blossom forth one of the richest agricultural, fruit, and dairy sections in the West. It will outrival California, and supply the East with a superior and better quality of fruits and vegetables than can be produced in any other section of America.

EDDY COUNTY.

The county of Eddy is fast demonstrating the fact that it contains within its boundaries all the possibilities for making it one of the greatest agricultural centers in the Southwest. That its vast irrigation system has had much to do with its present prosperity and the brilliant future that is now at its very doors, there is no manner of doubt. It was only when that system was first inaugurated that the

growth of the Pecos Valley really began, and it may truthfully be said that since that time the growth of the various industries in Eddy County has been phenomenal. It might be imagined that the one great interest that takes precedence over all others in this Western country, namely, that of cattle raising, could not be affected. by irrigation. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Irrigation has brought cattle into the country by the thousand. It has concentrated the interests of their owners in their establishment of one of the largest shipping points in the Southwest at Carlsbad; it has been instrumental in making the town not only their headquarters, but also the home of many of them.

As to the live-stock industry in the county, it is estimated that during the past year it has been increased just one-third-that is to say, that the value, as well as the number of the herds and flocks, has appreciated one-third over the estimates made last year. The Pecos Valley and Northeastern Railway, the extension of which was opened for business between Roswell and Amarillo on the 24th of February last, report that during the spring they transported over their line from all points over 130,000 head of cattle. Of this immense shipment it is safe to say that at the least three-fifths originated at Carlsbad or in the territory tributary to it. Not only did the county show progress made by the number of cattle shipped, but a more valuable feature by far was made apparent-that the grade of the stock was equal, if not generally superior, to that of stock shipped from older communities south of here. This is explained by the fact that the cattlemen of the valley, having been generally successful during the past two years, have invested a large portion of their profits in the purchase of a higher breed of cattle than those of other districts. Proportionately as much fancy stock has come into Eddy County during the year as into any cattle county of Texas. Herefords are, and apparently always will be, the favorite here, and after them comes the Durham as a close second. A very conservative estimate of the number of cattle on the ranges of the county, or immediately adjoining it on the east, places the number at close to 500,000 head, in herds going from 1,000 to 60,000. When it is said that the owners of this vast number of food animals are actively breeding them up to a standard of excellence that will gain for them the very highest prices paid in the great cattle centers for choice beeves, some idea of the progress made in this one great industry alone may be arrived at.

As to the sheep industry of the county there is no doubt but that it has been nearly or quite doubled during the past year. The constantly advancing price paid for wool, the active demand from Kansas City and Chicago for alfalfa-fed lambs have had much to do with this, especially when the exceptionally fine feed for flocks is considered, and one other matter that is a powerful incentive to sheep men to bring their sheep this way, and that is the fact that so far as known this section is the only one in the entire West where there is no friction of any sort between the cattle raiser and the sheep man. The following item, taken from the American Sheep Breeder, of Chicago, sets forth in most unmistakable language reasons why southeastern New Mexico is shortly destined to become one of the greatest sheep-raising centers of America:

The importance of the sheep-breeding industry on the Pecos River is gradually but steadily increasing. South of here, on the Rio Grande-the great dividing line between the United States and Mexico, a muddy creek, dry for most of the year, and which cost the United States $13,000,000 in 1847 to establish as a national