NEW MEXICO ITS SOIL, CLIMATE, ETC. 497 



farther in regard to this matter when I take up the subject of 

 grazing in this division. 



" The cattle and sheep of this Territory are small, because 

 no care seems to be taken to improve the breed. San Miguel 

 County appears to be the great pasturing ground for sheep, 

 large numbers being driven here from other counties to graze. 

 Don Romaldo Baca estimates that between five hundred 

 thousand and eight hundred thousand are annually pastured 

 here about two-thirds of which are driven in from other 

 sections. His own flocks number between thirty thousand 

 and forty thousand head ; those of his nephew twenty-five 

 thousand to thirty thousand ; Mr. Mariano Trissarry, of Ber- 

 nalillo County, owns about fifty-five thousand ; and Mr. Gal- 

 legos, of Santa Fe, nearly seventy thousand head. 



" Don Romaldo Baca stated to me that his flocks yielded 

 him an annual average of about one and a half pounds of 

 washed wool to the sheep ; that the average price of sheep was 

 not more than two dollars per head ; that the wool paid all ex- 

 penses, and left the increase, which is from fifty to seventy-five 

 per cent, per annum, as his profit. From these figures sqme 

 estimate may be formed of what improved sheep would yield. 



" Wheat and oats grow throughout the Territory, but the 

 former does not yield as heavily in the southern as in the 

 northern part. If any method of watering the higher plateau 

 is ever discovered, I think that it will produce heavier crops of 

 wheat than the Valley of the Rio Grande. 



"Corn is raised from the Vermijo, on the east of the 

 mountains, around to the Culebra, on the inside ; in fact, it is 

 the principal crop of San Miguel County, but the quality and 

 yield is inferior to that which can be produced in the Rio 

 Grande Valley and along the Rio Bonito. The southerr 



28 



