THE OLD IN NEW MEXICO. 503 
east, from which the melted torrent evidently flowed. Ordinarily this plain is 
covered with a fair growth of a very nutritious bunch-grass, which affords pastur- 
age to vast herds of cattle and sheep, but owing to the total failure of the summer 
rains, there was no grass crop this year nor vegetation of any other kind. As 
an example of the truth of the adage that ‘‘it never rains but it pours,” the 
rainfall for the month of August, 1880, at Las Vegas, was eighteen inches. All 
the settled portions of the country are traversed by irrigating ditches, which are 
now as dry as the plains, but which show the traveler how farming is conducted 
here in ordinary years. Little patches of wheat and potatoes can be raised, by 
careful and patient tending, where a sufficient water supply can be had for irrigat- 
ing purposes, but a farmer of Illinois, Missouri or Kansas can raise a bushel of 
grain and ship it into the Territory cheaper than a New Mexican farmer can raise 
the same quantity under the most favorable conditions,. This fact settles the 
agricultural status of the Territory, and proves that New Mexico, as well as 
Colorado, must always depend for its bread and provisions upon the great agri- 
cultural district embraced within the limits of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Kansas. 
The people of all this vast mineral belt in the Rocky Mountains must inevitably 
be fed by the great agricultural States of the West. 
The mineral resources of New Mexico, however, are practically inexhausti- 
ble, and though the Americans have only just begun to invade the Territory, 
discoveries of gold and silver are reported every day, and in every part 
of the country. The character of the mineral deposits, in all sections of 
the Territory, is such as to render considerable capital necessary in order to work 
the mines with any degree of success. 
The towns of New Mexico are curiosities to the American. Las Vegas, for 
instance, is a place of about 5,000 people—or more properly, two places of about 
2,500 each, for it is, in fact, two distinct towns, thoroughly dissimilar in every 
particular. The ‘‘new town” is on the railroad, has broad streets running at 
right angles, its houses are of frame, generally painted white, and the place has a 
familiar American look, while the people are all Americans. The ‘‘ old town,”’ 
situated about a mile from the road, is different in every aspect, is inhabited by a 
different kind of people, and looks as though it belonged to an entirely different 
race and age. Like all the other towns in the Territory, except the three or four 
that have been put up by the Americans since the railroad came in, it is built 
around a public square, or plaza ; the business of the town is all done on the four 
sides of the square; narrow streets, or roads, diverge from each corner of the 
square and lead out into the country, but these, like the cross streets, where 
there are any, are not more than twenty-five feet wide, are without sidewalks, and 
are alleys rather than streets. All the houses—business houses as well as resi- 
dences—are built of adobes—sun dried brick—are one story high, with walls 
usually about three feet thick, and with flat roofs covered with earth. All the 
business houses are on the Plaza, while on the alleys or roads leading out from 
this the residences are situated. 
