3 2 
CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS. 
beat down upon it, as this “ top-dressing ” 
of flat rock had shielded it from such 
action, protecting it, let us hope, for the 
future use of man. They told me this 
peculiar kind was the richest and most 
easily cultivated soil in Mexico, but it 
looked, with its covering of rocks, poor 
enough to put in some terrestrial alms- 
4t 
house along with the Sahara Desert. 
This whole Southwest, or rather North¬ 
west from a Mexican standpoint, is a 
country of deceptive appearances. Hun¬ 
dreds of my readers have probably 
traveled over the Santa Fe Railway as it 
courses through the Rio Grande valley, 
and, recalling the grassy, pleasant-looking 
country in the East, have wondered how 
this cheerless area of sand and sagebrush 
could ever be utilized. Yet in this valley 
is a farm of twenty-two acres for which 
