82 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



elsewhere. This water system is intended to irrigate 400,000 acres of 

 excellent land. 



New Mexico offers excellent opportunities for the investment of 

 capital in constructing reservoirs for conserving the spring floods, for 

 use on lands now desert. The co-operative system practiced in Utah 

 could be used very successfully in reclaiming large areas and im- 

 pounding water for irrigation. Individual ditch building is practically 

 at an end as the many small farmers' canals in the Territory and on 

 the Rio Grande in Colorado have appropriated the natural flow of 

 streams. Wells are obtainable in some valleys and the underflow or 

 sheet water may be tapped and lifted by means of windmills or other 

 pumping machinery. Numerous good wells are completed in Grout 

 county and elsewhere and the farmers are still prospecting -for better 

 fountains. Much water is wasted through the old Mexican systems 

 of irrigation and some of the natives are very slothful farmers, but 

 men of determination are conquering the deserts and startling the 

 world with the wonderful productions. 



Bernalillo county in the north central part of the Territory has 

 probably 400 irrigators, residing chiefly on the banks of the Rio 

 Grande from which small ditches are taken. The river valley lies at 

 an altitude of about 5,000 feet and produces abundant crops, if proper- 

 ly cultivated. The method of irrigation is almost wholly confined to 

 the old basin and flooding systems. A great waste of water is notice- 

 able in seepage and evaporation from the little basins or ponds sur- 

 rounded by sand banks. Colfax county in the northeast is devoted 

 principally to sheep and cattle raising, having only a few farmers lo- 

 cated near Springer, the chief city. Canals and ditches are small, but 

 increased efforts are being made for additional reservoirs, wells and 

 underflow channels. Donara Ana county in the south-central part has 

 many farmers over 400 using small ditches and growing a mixed 

 variety of agricultural products. Grant county in the southwest has 

 miners and stockraisers, with some small farms, carried on chiefly by 

 the stock owners. Windmills are used in lifting the under current, 

 one mill supplying water for about five acres of garden. 



Lincoln formerly comprised the present counties of Eddy and 

 Chaves and is the most advanced section of the Territory, in having 

 new farms and vineyards, sugar beet fields and everything of modern 

 invention in connection with fine irrigating systems. Here are the 

 towns of Eddy and Roswell and the great irrigation works of the 

 Pecos Valley Improvement Company. Mora county has a large area 

 under irrigation and probably 500 farmers till small fields successfully. 

 The individual reservoirs show the feasibility and value of impound- 

 ing water in the spring for use in the dry summer months. Rio Arri- 

 ba county in the north is watered chiefly by the San Juan and contains 

 many Mexican towns and Indian pueblos. The people have good 



