14 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
should be equally far from the mark; yet there are qualities | 
about El Paso wine which remind you strongly of those veryg 
different wines, and make you fancy you might be drinkin 4 , 
them mixed. q 
The length of the valley from Algodones to El Paso is 
rather more than 200 miles; the average width is, say, five 
miles, and if but 40 per cent. of this area is devoted to grape 
culture, we immediately obtain 400 square miles, or 265,000 
acres. Taking the yearly production of wine as low as seven 
barrels per acre, we have 1,792,000 barrels, or 57,344,000 
gallons. 
At the lowest computation this wine would fetch one dollar 
a gallon in the States, so that if we suppose 50,000,000 
gallons to be about the proportion transported, and 40 cents 
per gallon to be paid in freight by rail to St. Louis, we have 
a yearly reyenue to the railway company (in the far distance, 
no doubt) of 20,000,000 dollars,—a sum sufficient to pay over | 
12 per cent. on the entire capital,—and 30,000,000 dollars to 
the grape growers of the Rio Grande valley. But little atten- 
Pueblo Indians ; they do not even stake it up, but allow the 
grapes to lie in the dust; but this I noticed everywhere, that 
the plants were kept well pruned, and not allowed to grow 
more than 2 or 3 feet from the roots. Irrigation to some 
extent was always employed; but I think it probable tha 
where any large extent of bottom-land is irrigated for Indian 
corn or other succulent vegetation, vines will be found 
thrive well on the higher lands all around, for they re pee 
but little water, and often produce the best qualities of wi 
on the apace | 
myn, g engraving is an exact copy of a pho 
ore leaving the valley from our camp 
