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CHAPTER X. 
THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF SONORA. 
Agriculture :—Extent of Cultivatable Land.—Agriculture on the ‘as: San 
eat io, San Miguel, Sonora, Yaqui, Mayo, and Fuerte Rivers. Crops :-— 
eans, &c., Cotton, Tobacco, Sugar-cane, Mulberry, Indigo, 
Edible " Cactus Plants, Agave Americana, &e.—Stock-raising : Sonora 
a fine Grazing Country.—The Grasses.—The Shrubs.—The mens fall.— 
Stock-raising ‘under Spanish Rule.—The Formation of Tanks.—Mining :— 
Wide-spread Distribution of the Mineral Wealth. —The Diestite Metals. 
eee ES 
AGRICULTURE. 
THE amount of land susceptible of cultivation in Sonora 
bears a very small proportion indeed to that of the whole 
country. In the first place, long ranges of mountains cover 
vast districts ; in the second, the valleys through which the 
rivers flow until they near the sea-coast are very narrow, 
and contain little bottom-land; and thirdly, where the 
valleys do open out towards the coast, they are rendered 
barren and unproductive by the sinking of the rivers, which 
thus deprives them of the means by which they might be 
irrigated. 
For instance: of the rivers which drain Northern Sonora, 
the first irrigating dam on the Altar River is situated thirty- 
three miles above Altar. From this point the stream is a 
‘permanent one down to Los Puertecitos in ordinary years, 
