age of saccharine matter, the highest, in fact, of any beets produced in the world.

The Pecos Valley is not only highly favored in the matter of soil and climate, and in its adaptability for the production of many valuable agricultural and horticultural specialties, but it also possesses many important advantages from its geographical position. Pecos River rises in the mountains of northern New Mexico and flows almost due southward through the eastern part of the Territory and into northwestern Texas. At intervals along the river for a distance of 164 miles, from Roswell to Pecos, are the great irrigation works inaugurated, owned, and controlled by the Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company, and it is this portion of the country that is now known far and wide as "the Pecos Valley."

New Mexico, as a whole, and the adjoining portions of Texas and Arizona are in the main arid and given up to mining, grazing, and stock raising. It is only here and there in favored spots that irrigation is possible; and it is upon the products of these few places that the population must depend for support. By far the largest of these irrigated sections, lying in the center of this vast arid region, is the Pecos Valley, and hence it becomes a great oasis from whence the increasing inhabitants must derive sustenance. Both locally and as relating to the country at large, the geographical position of the valley is therefore seen to be an advantageous one, and will continue an important factor in the development of this famed region.

Irrigation has well been called the "touchstone of successful agriculture," for under its fructifying influences the valley has risen from comparative nothingness to a high state of development. Barren wastes, freshened by the touch of water, have metamorphosed into waving fields of succulent grain and alfalfa. Young orchard trees rear their heads to the god of day, encouraged by the water drops at their feet. Productive farms are on every hand. Homes are established and are yet being builded by an enterprising and frugal people. Towns, with established trades, dot the line of the railway. A modern factory, whose product is beet sugar, one of seven in operation in the United States, stands just outside the bounds of Eddy, receives the beets, rich with their content of sugar, distributes their equivalent in cash to the farmers, converts the tubers into white crystals, and sends the sacked sweetness abroad over the land.

Irrigation has made all this possible. Is it not an adjunct, then, devoutly to be wished for by all men, all communities, and in all ages? Irrigation has been practiced from earliest time and over wide areas of the earth's surface. From the dawn of history the Egyptians, Persians, Chinese, and the swarming millions of India have subsisted for the most part on the products of the artificially watered lands; while in this country the ruins of ancient canals found all over Mexico and the southwestern portion of the United States testify to the knowledge of irrigation possessed by the long-forgotten Aztecs. And to day it is true-though the statement will surprise many well-informed people— that a very large part of the world's population draws its support from irrigated lands. The cultivators of such lands have many things in their favor. In the first place, they in effect control the rainfall. Not only need their crops never suffer from drought, but these can have at all times the maximum of moisture required for their most rapid growth. Furthermore, it is generally true that an excess of rainoften as injurious as its lack-need not be feared by farmers in the irrigated regions. In addition to all this, the water used for irrigation

always contains more or less solid material, both in solution and suspension, a portion of which-and in the case of the Pecos River a very considerable portion-is composed of fertilizing elements. From this

fact has originated the maxim that "irrigated land never wears out," in which there is at least this much truth, that the process of irrigation annually adds more or less fertilizing material to the land, and that in many parts of the world this has been found sufficient, century after century, for all the needs of the most intense farming.

When this is understood and the further important fact that the fertilizing elements in the soil of the arid regions are not dissolved out and carried away by the excessive rains of older climes, an explanation will be found for the high values which irrigated lands, especially where an unfailing supply of water is assured, have always commanded. Not only are the risks and uncertainties of farming reduced to a minimum, but the land is given every opportunity to yield annually its maximum product.

To the majority of people irrigation is a new idea, but it is as old as civilization, for it is one of the paradoxes of history that everywhere throughout the habitable globe the first agriculture began in arid lands. Here were the first farms cultivated and the first flocks grazed; on arid lands were the first cities built and the first governments organized. The corner stone of all this ancient civilization was irrigation. With the ruins of the city and temple are found the broken reservoir and the remains of the winding canal. It was from the rich soil of treeless, rainless plains that the dense population and throngs of the ancient world subsisted.

So much for the past. For the to-day:

Seventy per cent of all the families in the United States are tenants. Small holdings of irrigated lands will alone alleviate these conditions and make a nation of home owners. Irrigation is truly the friend of the poor man, for it makes it possible for him to acquire a small holding of irrigated land, where he can eventually own his home.

It is upon this policy of colonization that the great enterprises existing in the Pecos Valley are conducted. Every inducement is offered to the home builder. Pleasant and fruitful abiding places here await the energetic and progressive tiller of the soil.

THE GREATEST OF ALL AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES-THE GROWING OF SUGAR BEETS AND THEIR MANUFACTURE INTO SUGAR.

The western portion of these great United States is all aglow with a new industry that is emerging from behind the cloud of business depression and warming with genial rays of promise the agricultural population, the hardy sons of the soil, the exemplars of the great Cincinnatus--America's true freemen.

The industry thus developing is the growing of American sugar beets by American farmers, their manufacture into American sugar for consumption by the American people.

There are only seven beet sugar factories in the United States, and of these the Pecos Valley has one, being located at Eddy. On the 9th of May, 1896, ground was broken for the foundation of the present structure, and on November 25, six and one-half months from the date of commencement, the first beets were fed to the knives, and the first beet-sugar factory of New Mexico was formally launched in the manufacture of sugar. The campaign was continued over a period of three months and, everything considered, was a most complete success.