THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



free pastures adjoins the irrigable lands on either hand, 

 so that fine cattle, sheep, and horses could be profitably 

 raised in connection with the small-farming industry. 

 Raising winter fodder on their irrigated acres, the set- 

 tlers could readily co-operate in the management of 

 their herds during the range season. For the finest 

 beef and mutton there is abundant demand at remu- 

 nerative prices. 



The latest and most promising industry of the Pecos 

 Valley is the sugar-beet culture and manufacture. A 

 series of experiments demonstrated that the conditions 

 of soil and climate were particularly favorable to tho 

 growth of beets. It had already been demonstrated in 

 Utah that irrigation permits tho most scientific culture 

 of the crop. As this valley has wanted for nothing that 

 money could buy, a sugar factory was erected near Eddy 

 in 1896, and the farmers gladly co-operated by planting 

 considerable areas to beets. The result of the first year's 

 crop put the Pccos' Valley at the head of sugar countries 

 in the matter of the quality of its production. The gen- 

 eral average of all beets delivered at the factory in car- 

 load lots showed seventeen per cent, of sugar in the beet, 

 with an average purity of over eighty -four per cent. 

 This is a higher percentage of actual extraction of 

 pounds of sugar to pounds of beets than has been real- 

 ized anywhere else in the world. The result points un- 

 mistakably to the development of a " sugar belt "in tin's 

 region, which will bo a striking economic advantage if 

 producers do not make tho mistake of getting into tho 

 fatal groove of tho single crop, as has been so largely the 

 case elsewhere with tho growers of wheat, cotton, corn, 

 raisins, and oranges. 



MM 



