8 BULLETIN 211, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



Outside of the timber-covered mountains, the soils have little or 

 no humus, because the conditions are unfavorable for the production 

 or decomposition of any large amount of vegetable matter. 



A characteristic feature of many of the plains is a layer of white, 

 calcareous material, a few to several inches in thickness, lying a foot 

 or so below the surface. This is known as caliche, or hardpan, and 

 is probably a concentration of this material leached from the lower 

 soil layers by an upward movement of the soil water due to pro- 

 longed surface evaporation. 



SUBDIVISIONS OF THE LAND. 



New Mexico contains a little less than 78,500,000 acres of land. 

 According to the Thirteenth Census (1909 data), 11,270,021 acres, or 

 14.4 per cent of the total area, were included in farms. This desig- 

 nation is quite misleading, as will be seen farther on; it certainly does 

 not mean that that much land is under cultivation. 



Of the above-named area, 1,467,191 acres — only 1.9 per cent of the 

 total area of the State and 13 per cent of the area reported as included 

 in farms — were improved land. The same authority states that 35.9 

 per cent of the farms were irrigated and that these irrigated farms con- 

 tained 31.5 per cent of the improved land. Irrigation plants then in 

 existence were able to water 644,970 acres, and irrigation projects 

 were then completed or under way that would irrigate 1,102,291 acres. 



Newell 1 estimates the total water supply of the State as sufficient 

 to irrigate 4,000,000 acres. The governor's report for 1909-10 2 

 states that "thorough investigations which have been carried on 

 during the past four years by the engineering department show con- 

 clusively that we have no less than 3,000,000 acres which may be 

 reclaimed by practicable diversion, storage, and pumping projects." 



The area of farming land has been markedly increased within the 

 past six or seven years by the introduction of the so-called dry- 

 farming methods in the eastern part of the State. Some of the best 

 land of northeastern Eddy and eastern Chaves Counties and con- 

 siderable of that in Roosevelt, Curry, Quay, Torrance, Guadalupe, 

 San Miguel, Mora, Union, and Colfax Counties has been patented, 

 and some small part of it has been improved. Estimates made by 

 men well acquainted with the development going on in that region 

 place the area of this land under cultivation in 1911 at 417,000 acres, 

 and these estimates are believed to be conservative. The year 1912 

 saw more of it in cultivation than ever before, but in 1914 the greater 

 part of.it was not cultivated and many of the farms were deserted. 



It is probable that this change in the method of using this land 

 will ultimately increase the total number of stock grown in the State, 



1 Newell, F. H. Irrigation in the United States, p. 55. New York, 1902. 



2 Curry, George. Report of the Governor of New Mexico to the Secretary of the Interior. [1909]-10, p. 

 24. Washington, 1910. 



