THE AWAKENING OF NEW MEXICO 



stream. The building of great reservoirs along the 

 lower course of the Rio Grande, just north of El Paso, 

 has long been under consideration and must surely 

 sometime be accomplished, either by private or public 

 enterprise. The soil and climate are exceptionally fa- 

 vorable to the higher forms of tho irrigation industry, 

 and its possibilities will be quickly realized when the 

 question of storing and distributing tho water shall be 

 settled in the right way. Tho character of these possi- 

 bilities may already be dimly discerned in the place 

 where Texas reaches out a slender finger of prosperity 

 below El Paso. Here the Mexicans have made a beauti- 

 ful agricultural and horticultural district, and live with 

 an enviable degree of comfort and thrift, though their 

 methods arc crude and ancient. 



Much the most notable irrigation development in New 

 Mexico is that which has been accomplished since 1890 

 in the Pecos Valley. It is in the southeastern quarter 

 of the Territory, bordering upon tho Staked Plains of 

 western Texas. No other locality in the arid region has 

 had the benefit of such daring enterprise and dauntless 

 faith as have been lavished upon this, originally one of 

 the most forbidding and unpromising of western valleys. 

 By sheer force of money it has been translated from a 

 semi-barbarous stock-range, fit only to support lean cat- 

 tle, to an attractive field for settlement, where thousands 

 of families can make their homes and win a certain living 

 from the soil. 



Before irrigation was invoked the region was a social 

 and moral desert as well as a waste of arid land. It was 

 the home of outlaws and the scene of frontier conflict. 

 "Billy the Kid" was the perfect fruit of the old con- 



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