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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Photograph from Frederick Simpich 



GRINDING CORN ON A METATE TO MAKE TORTILLAS 



The tortilla is the staff of life in a Mexican family. It is a sort of baked pancake, made 

 of maize flour after the flour has been boiled with lime or water, and the resultant paste 

 ground to a proper consistency on the nictate, a volcanic stone in the shape of a druggist's 

 mortar. A second stone serves as a combination pestle and rolling pin. 



branded and free, timid as deer, they or 

 their forebears having strayed from the 

 unfenced ranches. In spite of the many 

 milk cows at large, in all these ranch 

 homes condensed milk is generally used. 

 To rope, throw, and milk one of the wild 

 cows is rather an exciting task, and fre- 

 quently "Mollie, the kind-faced cow," 

 will, when released, promptly chase her 

 captors up the nearest tree. 



AMAZING DIVERSITY OE PRODUCTS 



No other crop on the West Coast is 

 more talked of than the garbanzo, or 

 chick-pea. Each season buyers come all 

 the way from Spain, Italy, and Cuba, 

 where most of these peas are consumed, 

 and bid against each other, and, till the 

 price is finally fixed, the excitement 

 among the native growers is intense. 

 The annual crop is worth several millions 

 and is shipped out by rail through the 

 United States. 



Tomatoes, too, come from Sinaloa in 

 hundreds of carloads every winter and 

 find a ready market in our western cities. 

 Rice and sugar, grown on the West 

 Coast, are largely consumed in Mexico. 



Each sugar-making season a corps of 

 American experts goes to the West Coast 

 from the mills of Louisiana to handle the 

 crop of one of the American plantations. 

 The taxes paid to the Mexican Govern- 

 ment each year by this one sugar com- 

 pany alone represents a large fortune. 



Wild coffee thrives on the hill slopes 

 of Durango — a small but deliciously fla- 

 vored berry — and thousands of natives 

 gather their annual coffee supply from 

 these uncultivated bushes. 



THE BAT HUNTERS 



One odd class of prospectors makes a 

 good living hunting bat caves. In the 

 hill countries of Sinaloa and Sonora the 

 Mexican bat breeds by the thousands, 



