208 



The ordinary deciduous fruit trees are cultivated, of course with 

 irrigatiou, very successfully, and the cliinate is sufiiciently warm for 

 the grapevine and sweet-potato to flourish. Cotton, however, though 

 grown experimentally on the college farm at Las Cruces (and there 

 attacked by Aletia), will not do sufficiently well to be worth cultivating 

 for profit. 



Thus, though the region is a warm one for the temperate zone, it can 

 not by any means be described as subtrojiical or approaching thereto* 

 All that can be said is that there are certain suggestions of the tropical 

 region further south, e. g., the abundant presence of the neotropical 

 butterfly {Syncliloe lacinia) and the presence of some genera of Coccidse, 

 such as Ceroplastes, Tachardia, and Prosopophora, which are rather 

 neotropical than nearctic. 



2. Santa Fe, in the northern i)art of the Territory, watered by 

 mountain streams (usually almost dry), about 7,000 feet above sea level. 

 The comparatively cool summer forms a pleasant contrast to the Mesilla 

 Valley, while the winter, although cold, is mild for a place of such 

 altitude, owing to the protection afforded by surrounding forest-covered 

 mountains and the general southAvest slope. 



As in the Mesilla Valley, the apple, peach, pear, plum, and apricot 

 are successfully grown, though sometimes injured by late frosts. It 

 is, perhaps, the only place in the United States where these fruits are 

 grown at and above 7,000 feet, though I speak here without certain 

 information of wliat may be done in Arizona and southern California. 

 Some small fruits, such as raspberries, succeed excellently. The fig 

 and the sweet-potato, which grow well in the Mesilla Valley, will not 

 do in Santa Fe, and it is too high even for grapes, excepting one or 

 two hardy varieties. 



Santa Fe, judged by its fauna and flora, is distinctly in what I 

 have called the sub-alpine zone, but it is near the upper limit. In 

 Colorado I had considered the mid alpine to go down to about G,.500 

 feet, though from lack of positive information this was only supposed 

 to be an approxinuition to the truth. Probably it was very nearly cor- 

 rect for Custer County, Colo., since we find at Santa Fe (7,000 feet), 

 the upper limit of the sub-alpine, the more southern latitude and the 

 southwestern exposure accounting for the extra 500 feet. 



At such an altitude one would expect at least some mid-alpine fea- 

 tures, and on the whole I have been surprised that they are not more 

 prominent than observation has shown them to be. At the same time, 

 one sees at once strong differences from the fauna and flora of the 

 Mesilla Valley, which will necessitate further subdivision of the sub- 

 alpine zone, doubtless on such lines as have been already indicated by 

 Dr. Merriam and Mr. Coville for jmiuts farther west. Thus, what nuiy 

 be termed the region of Solanum elwagnifolium extends up the Kio 

 Grande Valley from El Paso to Albuquerque, but at Santa Fe this 

 conspicuous roadside Solanum is wanting. Here, in its place, one meets 



