that Colorado, by her early development excelled us in mineral 

 product, but when we turned to other resourses, she had nothing 

 to compare with 'the fertile valleys of our rivers; and in the pro- 

 ductions of the field, the market garden, the orchard and the vine- 

 yard, New Mexico was immensely superior. The gainsayer, 

 baffled thus far in finding a land so favored as our own, might 

 then turn to California, and portraying her wonderful advantages 

 insist that at least that state was superior. And at first sight it 

 would almost seem as if this were true. For besides her marvel- 

 ous record as the laud of gold, she possessed the enormous wheat 

 fields of the north and the centre, and the magnificent fruit and 

 grape regions of the south. But in these latter respects 



AYE ARE FULLY HER EQUAL, 



and her mineral is nearly all of one metal. She has not our sil- 

 ver, or lead, or copper, or iron. And beyond all this, the pos- 

 session in vast and inexhaustible quantities of that great essential 

 article, which is the motive power to set in operation so many 

 branches of business coal gives to us the stamp of superiority 

 that can not fail to be recognized. 



I then proceeded to enumerate some of the wonderful resources 

 and opportunities of production, existing within our borders ; for 

 New Mexico is so large in extent, that few even of our own people 

 know except from hearsay how much of latent wealth lies await- 

 ing development within our borders. There are the great pine 

 forests, from which in a single county over 50,000,000 feet of 

 lumber are even now being produced each year. There are the 

 wonderful wheat lands of the northern valleys, which though 

 used uninterruptedly for over a hundred years, without rotation, 

 yet produce crops unsurpassed in India or Russia or our own 

 northwest. There are the long stretches of valleys bordering all 

 of the great rivers and their tributaries, which rival if they do 

 not excel the prairie soil of Illinois or Kansas, in the luxuriance 

 of their fields of corn. There are the broad acres in alfalfa and 

 other grasses, mere samples of what may be a vastly multiplied 

 reality, producing by their successive crops, a much larger weight 

 of hay than can be raised on the same area in any of the most 

 favored grass producing states. Our oats are greatly superior 

 to those grown elsewhere. While those of Kansas average but 

 27 pounds to the bushel and seldom exceed 30 at the highest, ours 



