Irrigation. 65 



in the primitive way in which the Indians raise their crops. They own 

 in common a large tract of land, and they begin to till near their towns, 

 commencing by destroying the forests and planting every year in a dif- 

 ferent locality, because, more especially in the lowlands, the vegetation 

 springs up so rank after the first year's crop that it is very difficult to 

 keep the ground clear of weeds. In this way they clear new land every 

 year, going farther and farther from their town, until sometimes their 

 crops are raised at a distance of as much as thirty or forty miles from 

 their homes. The natural result is the destruction of the forests around 

 the towns and at some considerable distance from the same, and con- 

 sequently the diminution of the rainfall. I was greatly struck, on my 

 last visit to Mexico, in 1896, by the scantiness of water at an Indian 

 town called San Bernardino, in the sierra district, about five miles 

 north of Teotitlan, the county seat of the district, which I had visited 

 in November, 1855, and found then exceedingly abundant in rainfall 

 and consequently in water, as well as all the mountains north of that 

 place, which extend for about eighty miles to the lowlands on the Gulf 

 of Mexico. On my recent visit, however, I found a great scarcity 

 of water : a small stream of probably not more than one-half an inch 

 in diameter, carried in very primitive wooden troughs, was all the water 

 the town had, and that only during the rainy season, the people being 

 obliged to go a considerable distance for water in the dry season ; this 

 being only one illustration of what the destruction of the woods is 

 doing in Mexico. 



The city of Oaxaca, at the foot of the Sierra, used to be, in my 

 young days, very well supplied with water, using for that purpose several 

 streams coming from the mountains ; but during the last dry season 

 the scarcity of water has been such as to cause a real water famine. 



The diminution of the rains, together with other atmospheric phe- 

 nomena, which takes place from time to time, produces in some years 

 drought that prevents the crops from being raised ; as the country pro- 

 duces at present only the corn necessary for its consumption, which 

 cannot be kept from year to year on account, of its being eaten by in- 

 sects. This diminution was very disastrous before the railroad era, caus- 

 ing serious famines. Since the railways were built, we import in such 

 years corn from the United States, spending several millions of dollars 

 in providing ourselves with that staple. All that will be changed, and 

 we shall be able to produce cereals enough not only for home consump- 

 tion, but even for export, when we begin to use irrigation. The con- 

 figuration of the country allows dams that will retain sufficient water 

 both for irrigation and manufacturing purposes, to be built at compara- 

 tively little expense. 



Large tracts of land in Western Asia, Northern Africa, and South- 

 ern Europe countries which, according to historians, were once densely 



VOL. 15 



