DURING THE PAST TWO YEARS New Mexico has 

 enjoyed a period of unprecedented development. Pop- 

 ulation has increased more than 100,000 and with it has 

 come an enormous and constantly growing demand for land, 

 irrigated and non-irrigated; and for information about the 

 land. National irrigation projects in New Mexico have drawn 

 world-wide attention to the marvelous fertility of the irrigated 

 districts and an accompanying demand for information about 

 these districts, of which the Central Rio 

 Introduction Grande Valley, within the three counties 

 of Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia, is 

 one. Development in this central valley has kept pace with the 

 rest of New Mexico. Demand for land is great ; demand for in- 

 formation is greater. The purpose of this book is to furnish 

 accurate, carefully verified, conservatively stated information 

 about this valley, so that the man who is looking here for farm, 

 orchard, occupation, home or health, may, after reading this 

 book, know conditions as he will find them. Included is a 

 necessarily brief outline of development, conditions and the vast 

 natural resources of the magnificent empire of 10,000 square 

 miles, outside the immediate valley of the Rio Grande, yet 

 within the boundaries of the three counties. 



In preparing this information the writer has to acknowl- 

 edge gratefully, assistance from many of the successful farmers 

 of the valley and from citizens in each of the three counties 

 whose number is too great for individual reference. 



