lands are broken and difficult to irrigate. On the north side of the river, between the mouth of the Animas and Jewett, is a splendid piece of valley land 25 miles long and 1 or 2 miles in width. The Animas and La Plata rivers empty into the San Juan near Farmington, about midway in the county. The flow from the Rio de los Pinos at its junction with the San Juan is 80 second-feet. The Animas is the largest tributary of the San Juan in New Mexico. Its mean flow is 855 second-feet below Aztec. The La Plata River enters the San Juan about 3 miles below Farmington. Its mean flow is 50 second-feet.

These streams are all permanent in character, but the flow fluctuates with the season, depending primarily upon the melting of winter snows in spring and upon the so-called rainy season, occurring usually in the latter part of August and in September. The spring flow usually begins in the early part of March and reaches a maximum from May 10 to 20, thence gradually declining until the fore part of July, when it reaches the normal summer flow. The rainy season flow, occurring in August and September, is characterized by sudden freshets, which are at times of great volume, as was instanced in September, 1896, when a flow of 7,800 second-feet was observed in the Animas River. The irrigation system in the San Juan comprises twenty ditches on the Animas, nineteen on the La Plata, and nineteen on the San Juan. There are also a few small ditches on the Rio de los Pinos, but the valley is narrow and the fall heavy, every ranch having its own small ditch. All these ditches are either private or community, with the exception of the Animas, La Plata, and San Juan Canal, which has been built for selling water to consumers.

The irrigable areas are found on the table and bottom lands of the San Juan, the Animas, and La Plata rivers. Besides this, and properly to be considered in the San Juan Basin, are the lands on either side of the Largo, Canyon Blanco, and Canyon Gallego, which flow into the San Juan from the south, but are dry part of the year. Still farther south are twenty-four townships supplied with water, but less abundantly, from the headwaters of the Rio Chaco or Chusca and Ojo Amarilla.

The Animas Valley, through which flows the Animas, a beautiful stream from 150 to 200 feet in width, with a minimum flow of 2,000 cubic feet per second, is a very fertile valley from 1 to 3 miles in width, and extending from the Colorado line on the north to a junction with the San Juan, a distance of 40 miles. Nearly all of the lands in this valley are under irrigation, and the entire 40 miles is dotted by beautiful homes and thriving villages. Between the Animas and the La Plata rivers lies the attractive Farmington Glade, several miles in width by 18 miles long, covering 25,000 acres of land. By a high line ditch water from the Animas River could be carried to this body of land, and it offers a particularly inviting field to those in search of irrigation enterprises. A peculiarity of the Animas River is that the bottom is composed of small, round, water-worn bowlders that exist to an unknown depth. More water flows in this bowlder bed than appears on the surface. The La Plata is about 40 feet in width.

There are in actual cultivation under the twenty ditches on the Animas, 5,480 acres; under the nineteen of the La Plata, 4,200 acres; under the nineteen on the San Juan, 4,840 acres; while on the Rio de los Pinos, some 400 acres are under cultivation, making a total of 14,920 acres actually under cultivation on these streams. The total

land under ditch is in the neighborhood of 100,000 acres, that portion not in actual cultivation being used for pasturage; of this, 50,000 acres could be put under cultivation without increase in the present irrigation systems.

Work is being prosecuted on the construction of a 35-foot canal to cross the Five Mile mesa to bring water on the Navajo Indian Reservation. The work is being done by the Government.

Several companies and syndicates are now figuring on the construction of a number of new ditch and canal enterprises in the county that will bring under irrigation and into cultivation large bodies of rich Government lands subject to homestead and desert-land entries. Not one-fifth of the rich fertile lands of San Juan County that can be reclaimed by the building of new ditch canals and storage reservoirs have yet been reclaimed. In the western portion of the county tributary to the La Plata Valley several large storage reservoirs are now in contemplation which will water large bodies of uplands or mesas that are now vacant Government lands. The acreage adaptable to cultivation but not yet under ditch is 500,000 acres. The greater part of this can be reclaimed, as the water supply is abundant. On several ranches windmills have been erected, as abundant water is found at a small depth, and at greater depth artesian water could probably be developed.

TOPOGRAPHY.

San Juan County is not a mountainous country, although some of its hills rise to a considerable height. Outside of its river valleys the county is a series of table-lands broken by arroyos and generally composed of very rich soil, upon which the native grasses flourish. The altitude of the county ranges from 5,100 to 5,800 feet. On the La Plata is a large body of land called The Meadows, consisting of about 30,000 unbroken acres, which slope gently from both sides to a dry run in the center, in some places being all of 5 miles wide and lying just right for irrigation. A man could readily irrigate 100 acres of this without assistance. The soil is very deep and would make great wheat or other grain crops, alfalfa, or vegetables. It is also free from sagebrush; in fact, it looks like an old field all ready for the plow. This body of land would support in comfort from 500 to 700 families. At the head of this prairie is a natural reservoir covering some 400 or 500 acres, admirably located for a receiving and distributing reservoir, accumulating water during the night for use during the day so as to economize water and ditch construction. It would also at the same time make a beautiful lake for boating and fishing.

CLIMATE.

San Juan County has as perfect a climate as is to be found on this earth. Its summers are cool, never oppressive at night, and a temperature of 100 in the shade is not on record. The winters are always open and the almost unbroken sunshine and the absence of dampness in the air greatly moderate even a zero temperature. There are an average of 235 perfectly clear, sunshiny days in the year, about 100 partly cloudy days, mostly in summer, and 30 cloudy days, also mostly in summer. In winter, during the day, the winds come up the valley from a southwesterly direction, passing over the wide arid desert to

the south, so the air is dry and warm; while at night it veers to the opposite direction, coming down the valley from the snow-capped La Platas and San Juan mountains of southern Colorado, 60 to 100 miles away. The summers are cool and breezy on account of the favorable altitude of the county, with cool, pleasant nights, tempered by refreshing breezes from the snowy mountains of Colorado, which are only from 40 to 60 miles from its valleys. There is no malaria lurking in its pure atmosphere. It is free from ague, chills, and fever. For those troubled with rheumatism, catarrh, asthma, bronchitis, throat or lung diseases there can be found no better climate. This is nature's own sanitarium for the consumptive, and many who have come to San Juan County in the earlier stages of this disease have become completely cured.

AGRICULTURE.

The agricultural products of the county are many and varied. Everything common to a south-temperate climate is raised-corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, timothy, clover, cane, broom corn, alfalfa, and every variety of vegetable in enormous quantities and of the finest quality; potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, pease, beets, and the finest quality of the sugar beet, turnips, pumpkins, squashes, melons, cantaloupes, and in fact every vegetable common to the latitude.

Land properly irrigated and cultivated will produce per acre 30 to 40 bushels of wheat, 50 to 90 bushels of oats, likewise rye 15 to 30 bushels. This spring wheat sold at $1.60 per hundred pounds, oats at $2, and corn at $1.65. The average price of alfalfa in San Juan County during the past winter was $6 per ton.

An example of what intensive cultivation of Animas Valley soil will accomplish, the case of A. J. Gilmour, of Floro Vista, may be cited. Mr. Gilmour has ranched near Flora Vista for the last fifteen or eighteen years. Off a tract of land measuring, as nearly as can be determined, 14 acres, he last year gathered and marketed 36,000 pounds of ripe onions, which netted him in round numbers $540. He delivered the onions to the Hyde Exploration Company at Farmington, the sacks having been furnished. Besides the ripe onions, there were 1,000 pounds of culls sold. The crop this year, it should be stated, was 14,000 pounds short of the amount grown last year on the same ground. On a small ranch near Cedar Hill, from 94 acres, last year 310 bushels of wheat were raised and 20 bushels of alfalfa seed. The wheat was marketed at $1.20 per hundred, 78 cents a bushel on the ranch, and the alfalfa seed for $11 a bushel; a total money yield of $461.80, or over $50 an acre. The oats yield was 76 bushels per acre, worth at Durango $2 per hundred, or 64 cents a bushel of 23 pounds. The alfalfa yield averaged 6 tons to the acre, worth $6 a ton on the ranch for feeding range cattle, which pasture in the hills and mountains during the summer and are brought to the valleys for winter feeding. This is not a corn country, the nights being too cool for its greatest development, yet on the same land the smallest yield was 41 bushels per acre, and the average 45 bushels. This exceeds the average in the United States by over 10 bushe's per acre.

A. U. Graves, of Cedar Hill, last year produced 22.000 pounds, or 366 bushels per acre.

Watermelons, celery, and peanuts, hard and soft shell almonds, and walnuts are of favored return, while the San Juan cantaloupe, in its

delicacy of flavor, generosity of yield, certainty of maturity and robustness for shipment, can not be anywhere surpassed. This cantaloupe is yearly increasing its scope of both cultivation and market travel, and will soon be of cosmopolitan demand. Watermelons reach a weight

of 40 pounds. Cabbages also reach that weight per head.

While no general test has yet been made, the soil and climatic conditions constitute a prediction that tobacco is to be an early future successful San Juan County crop.

Pop corn attains a height of over 13 feet, while indian corn stalks reach above 12 feet.

The native grasses make excellent hay that yields 2 to 3 tons per

acre.

The canaigre plant-with roots containing from 30 to 40 per cent of tannic acid-grows wild in the valleys and is the source of a coming and great industry. It is estimated that 100,000 acres are covered with this plant, with a production of 2 tons of the roots per acre. The roots, which renew themselves annually, sell as high as $80 per ton for tanning purposes, and a movement is now on foot to interest capital in a tannery and a shipment of the roots to big market centers. Sugar beets especially yield well in San Juan County. Tests made at the agricultural experiment station at Mesilla Park have demonstrated that San Juan and Santa Fe counties, N. Mex., raise the finest sugar beets in the United States. They average 85 per cent in purity and yield 21 per cent of saccharine matter.

HORTICULTURE.

San Juan County's greatest glory, however, is its orchards. Said a writer recently: To realize anything of the capabilities of San Juan County in the fruit line you must visit the orchards. Then you can see for yourself. It is impossible to do the subject justice in a written. description. An orchard is beautiful at any time. Even in the winter, the bare outlines of the trees thrown sharp against the sky have a beauty of their own. Spring, the blossoming time, with its snowcheeked petals, flushed pink with joy at the new life pulsing through the old earth's veins, has been made famous alike in song and story. The trees of summer with their green vigor, their depth of shadow, their delicate traceries, their dainty dancing to the merry breeze, have likewise been extolled by many a noble pen.

But the fall, sacred to Ceres and Bacchus, is the season of seasons. Then the orchards and gardens are ablaze with color, a feast for the eye, and palate, too, for that matter.

Rosy-cheeked apples, golden pears, velvety peaches, purple and palegreen grapes, yellow and crimson plums form a scene of plenty that beggars description.

There is an orchard of some 14 acres, situated about half a mile out of Aztec, that is a pleasure to behold. Though smaller than some, it is wonderfully productive. That is true of the ranches around Aztec generally. As a rule, the tracts of land are smaller, but very closely cultivated. In this orchard you could seemingly pick for hours and make little impression.

San Juan fruit includes apples, peaches, pears, plums, prunes, apricots, nectarines, cherries, grapes, and all of the berries, orchards ranging from 10 to 80 acres. Apples and peaches bring 1 cent per pound

on the orchard delivery table, with a yield per tree for peaches of from 300 to 800 pounds and apples from 500 to 1,500 pounds, with exceptional apple trees climbing as high as 2.000 pounds. In apple production 20-ounce apples are not rare, the largest individual apple ever grown in the valley weighing 28 ounces, while the crack San Juan premium box of this fruit contained 24 apples with an aggregate apple weight of 25 pounds.

Pears sell at 2 cents per pound in the orchard, which means $400 per acre. Bartlett pear trees reach 1,250 pounds of fruit, while the great Idaho variety frequently attains an individual weight of 1 pounds. The delicious sugar pear is probably the most prolific and profitable of San Juan pears.

Cherries with 100 trees to the acre return from $3 to $4 per tree; while grapes, including the principal table, wine, and raisin variety, are of heavy yield and profitable market. In one San Juan County vineyard 32 different grape varieties are noted. Six-year-old Concords yield 60 pounds to the vine.

Practically all the plum and prune families are represented--the San Juan cap sheaf and crown of this fruit being the superb Prunus Simonia, which reaches the size of a tomato and combines the aroma and flavor of the muskmelon and the banana.

San Juan County is becoming known as one of the great fruit sections of the Southwest, unsurpassed by California. Fruits have a fine and rich flavor, and for shipping and keeping qualities are unexcelled. During the fall of 1900 there were shipped from San Juan County alone 100 cars of winter apples to the city of Chicago, most of which were handled by the firm of Porter Brothers. Most of this fruit, after reaching Chicago, was sorted, packed, and exported to foreign countries. A famous label of a train load of apples from San Juan County was: "A million apples, and not a single worm."

One 11-year-old apple orchard yielded an average of twelve 50-pound boxes to the tree last year, worth from 40 to 60 cents a box on the packing table, the buyers doing their own packing. With 100 trees to the acre such an orchard yields a snug income. The trees begin to yield paying crops the third year from setting. Premiums are won wherever this fruit has been exhibited, especially in competition with Colorado and California fruit. Fruit is often transshipped at Durango and goes to the Eastern markets as Colorado fruit, and has added much to the reputation of the Colorado apples, commanding the highest price in the market, some being sold as high as $5 for 50-pound boxes in the Eastern markets. At the Durango fair, from this orchard were exhibited 36 apples which weighed 40 pounds. At an exhibition of the Horticultural Society at Colorado Springs, they won the first premium and diploma. Eight apples of this exhibit weighed 10 pounds. The Denver and Rio Grande Company paid $4 for them to use in another exhibit. The apples are clean, with no blemishes, and beautifully tinted, the product of the kisses of the New Mexico sun.

A profitable San Juan fruit-growing practice is the keeping of fine sheep or Angora goats in the orchards the year round, thus at once keeping the orchard clean and feeding and fattening the animals themselves.

Fruit-grafting is very successful, as many as seven different fruit. varieties finding lodgment on one tree.

The cottonwood, willow, and cedar are native growths, while in