SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF CULTURE IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO. 81 



taining any other view than that the change in the territory was due to a change in the 

 water-supply." 



In order to assist in a final settlement of this question, if such a thing be possible, let 

 us consider the present conditions of agricultui-e in the once populous Chaco Canyon. 

 There are now in the canyon two Indians who are reasonably sure of a good crop of corn 

 each year. I saw their farms, unbehevably dreary wastes of drifting sand in the bottom 

 of the canyon where two large tributaries join and where the level of ground water is 

 consequently higher than anywhere else. In the vicinity of the chief ruins, 2 or 3 miles 

 upstream, the level of ground water is 20 feet below the surface of the lowest part of the 

 valley, but at the farms water can always be secured close to the surface, although farther 

 downstream the level again declines. The abundance of sand, as well as the high level of 

 ground water, is also helpful, since the sand, by acting as a mulch to prevent the evaporation 

 of the ground water, is an extremely useful adjunct of agricultui-e. In spite of these ad- 

 vantages neither of the two Indian farmers has obtained a good crop every year in recent 

 times, although, according to the local story, one of them failed only because he did not 

 build the necessary dam to retain all the water in an extremely dry year; the other failed 

 because of the absolute lack of water. Various other Indians cultivate parts of the valley 

 floor, but with the most meager success. In good years the corn is said to grow to a height 

 of 6 to 7 feet; in other years it is only 2 or 3 feet high, and often it fails completely. 



In the last sixteen years, according to Mrs. Wetherell, the wife of a trader whose husband 

 was killed by the Indians, there have been only two good crops. In three years, 1902, 1903, 

 and 1904, the Navajos planted corn as usual, but, with the exception of the two fortunate 

 men already mentioned, got no returns. In the remaining years the crop varied all the 

 way from almost nothing to fair. The reason for its failure in the dry years does not appear 

 to be that the method of cultivation is poorer than in the past, but simply that the summer 

 rains, upon which corn and beans (the only possible crops among the aborigines) entirely 

 depend, never fell at all or else did not fall until so late that the frost came before the 

 crops could ripen. 



Modern engineering and the process of digging deep wells and pumping by means of 

 engines might enable a few families to live comfortably in the Chaco Canyon, but that 

 has nothing to do with the matter. The former inliabitants, no matter how high may 

 have been their civiUzation, were primitive people who had no good tools and no knowledge 

 of mechanics. They built dams and ditches whose remains are foimd in all parts of the 

 Southwest, but the abundance of these remains is the best sort of proof that the people 

 knew nothing of any but the simple and obvious methods of flood u'rigation. If they 

 had practised any other sort, if they had built dams of cut stone or had constructed canals 

 of cement, or if they had been able to raise water out of the depths of the ground, traces of 

 their achievements could scarcely fail to be found. Dry farming, it need hardly be said, 

 is to-day out of the question in this arid portion of the country. How far it was practised 

 in the past is not yet certain, but if our reasoning as to the location of the villages on the 

 plateaus (and especially as to the small, remote ruins) is correct, there probably was a good 

 deal of it in very ancient times. 



The crops of the past appear to have differed from those of the present not only in quan- 

 tity but in quality. I can not vouch for the truth of this, but Mrs. Wetherell and others 

 state that the corn cobs and squashes found in the ruins are uniformly large like those now 

 raised only in good years, and not at all like the stunted little products of ordinary years. 

 Whatever may have been the quality of the crops or the extent of dry farming, one thing 

 seems evident: Chaco Canyon and the neighboring plateaus to-day, even with modern 

 methods of irrigation, could support only a fraction of the number of people who appear 

 to have lived there in the past. Either the climate was different or the ruins are utterly 

 misleading in their indications as to the density of population. 



7 



