A Great Country

Col. M. Frost, one of the best known and most succeesful newspaper men in the south-west, recen tly visited the famous Peeos Valley, in NeW MexicoAmong other things he said : '■The last was my fourth trip to the Pecos country within the past five years and I have kept careful account of the progresa and development of that section. This has been so great that only a personal examination will convince one of its magnitude and success. The irrigation systems in successful opera" tion in the counties of Chaves and Eddy are aimply stupe.ndous. The9e contain more water today than would be necessary for ten times the amount of land now under actual cultivation and use. Enormous storage reservoirs have been constructed and contain water to overtlowing; in f act, spill ways have been used twice this year on the McMIllan, the Eddy and Hondo reservoirs already. Lake McMillan, as one of the reservoirs is named. submerg-es an area of 8, .'530 acres to the average depth of ten foot. the greatest depth being forty-two feet. One of it irrigates 80.000 acivsof lund, aml it is filled from the Pecog river and tlooil waters twi.-o a year. It is a large lake, fi-oni nino to ten miles long and from one-liali te tbree miles vvide. "There are plenty of good schools; here are bauks, churches. four n'apers, telephone aystems, railroads unning along and through the eatirt rrigated belt, electrie light plants, au ce plant, good roads and many othei ubstantial modern improvements. The two counties are in o-ood ftnancial condition and the value of property is stantlyonthe increase. Su fat1 this season there have been driven f rom the valley or shipped by rail about t0,000 head of cattle and before this month ends about a million and a half po ande of wool vrill be shipped. The vallej will show as its principal prodnet thi year, about 120.000 tons of alfalfa, an& this fall there will be shipped and fo sale about 5,000 Eg-yptiau corn and alfal fa fed hogs. These are worth today.on the ground, four cents per pound, an( the Pecos section is the only one in New Mexico that has gone into that profita ble business of raising and feeding hogs so far. The feeding of sheep for mut ton has also commenced and wiil be in creased rapidly, as the experiment ha proven suecessful and protitable. I have examined dozens of farms anc orchards in every iart of the Peoos Valley in New Mexico, above Roswell, at Roswell, 'below it, between Hajferman and Eddy, between Eddy and Tex as line, and found alfalfa, Egyptian corn, potatoes. fruit trees and grapes to do well, and in many parts to do famously well, and in no part of the valley, where attention and work was given the crops and the lands, have I found that the soil or the water did not do the full work expected. Within three years this valley will produce 500,000 tons of alfalfa, and then the most proiitable business will be the fattening of cattle. sheep and hogs for meat, many orchards and vineyards are being constantly set out and improved, and many of thein will be in full bearing within three years, and the fruit crops will simply be immense. This has already been demoustrated in some of the older sections of the valley, as for instance, in the vicinity of Roswell, and there is no good reason at all why the remainder can not and will not do as well. 'The progress of ihe section is shown by the fact, that within the past six months the Pecos Irrigation and provement company had disposed o more land than it has within the first three years of its existenre. T.ands, wlth water rights attachod. according to locatkra, are sold by the company at : prices ranging from $35 to $60 per acre, and the annual water rental averages $1.25 per acre. The policy of the company, of late has been to sell small ■ tracts, and the latest gales have been mostly of forty and eighty acre tracts to actual settlers, and to a very ■ lent class of American farmers from the north-westorn states and from the western and middle states." Those of our readears who are interested in this famous valley should read the advertisement of the fecoa Valley : Improvement Company in another column of this paper.