TOBACCO CULTURE IN NEW MEXICO.

In a former report I called attention to the subject of tobacco culture and its possibilities in New Mexico and referred to experiments then being made with a view to ascertaining just what could be done here toward the production of a grade of tobacco that would command the attention of manufacturers of this important article of trade. As a result of the interest aroused through correspondence between Mr. James A. Davis, industrial commissioner for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company, and the Albuquerque Commercial Club samples of the New Mexico product were submitted to Mr. W. G. Pilkington, a Virginia authority on tobacco, who reported as follows:

The tobacco you sent me has an excellent flavor, but owing to the fact that it was cut before being thoroughly ripe it cured up green. In as dry a climate as New Mexico, with the proper kind of seed to begin with, tobacco ought to cure a splendid bright red color, without using any fire at all. But in order to get the right color and flavor, two things are necessary-the right kind of seed and allowing the plant to become thoroughly ripe.

In New Mexico the plant bed should be made in February and should be from 20 to 50 yards square, according to the size of the crop contemplated, and should be irrigated. The plant bed should be gotten in thorough order and the seed should be sown in it by the 1st of March.

The plant should be ready to set out in June, and, if the ground is in good order, one rain or one irrigation will make the crop. Tobacco requires less water than any other plant I know of. The great trouble with us is that we have too much rain, which makes it cabbage or bunch up. If we could have moisture just when we wanted it, and not too much, and such soil as you have in the West, we would make the finest tobacco in the world.

Further experimental planting last season resulted most satisfactorily. These experiments were chiefly carried on by Maj. Frederick Muller, at Santa Fe; Mr. Herman Blueher, at Albuquerque, and Mr. R. M. Stockton, at Belen, in the central part of the Rio Grande Valley. Speaking for the latter district, Mr. Stockton says:

I have grown tobacco on a small scale in this part of the Territory for the last thirty years with very satisfactory results. Of varieties for cigars I have found the following to be especially adapted for this locality: Zimmer's Spanish. Comstock and Habana, an imported seed. Besides these I have also grown Bonanza, Sterling. Improved White Burley, and General Grant. My opinion is that the fine Habana varieties will do as well here as in Florida, and that any tobacco grown anywhere in the United States can be grown with the same degree of success in this part of the Rio Grande Valley.

In the vicinity of Albuquerque, Mr. Blueher, who has amassed a fortune from truck gardening, has met with the most pronounced success. His experiments have been made with such varieties of tobacco as Zimmer's Spanish, the Small Cuban Habana and Large Habana, all of which did well, but the best reports came from the Small Habana; tobacconists in Louisville, Ky., declaring it, when properly cured, fully the equal of the imported Cuban article, and superior even to the high-grade tobacco which in recent years has brought Willet County, Tex., into widespread fame and proved so highly profitable to the farmers thereabouts. Samples of Mr. Blueher's product are now undergoing a ten months' sweating process in the establishment of a dealer in Ohio who confidently predicts that it will come through the test with results that will prove a surprise to those engaged generally in the tobacco trade. Properly handled, it is said these finer grades of tobacco will yield, in New Mexico, 1,000 pounds to the acre, worth in the markets of the country $600 to $1,000. This season

through Mr. Blueher's interest in the subject, a Mr. Hunter, a Kentuckian, has been induced to set out some 12,000 plants of the Small Cuban variety near Bernalillo, and at this writing they are reported as a very promising stand. Thus it appears that the near future is very encouraging for the introduction of a new and highly profitable industry in New Mexico. With the results thus far attained, with a soil and climate that seems to be specially adapted to tobacco culture, and an abundance of cheap and reliable labor at hand, there would seem to be no obstacle in the way to making tobacco raising one of the chief sources of productive wealth throughout the Rio Grande Valley and its tributaries.

COTTON GROWING.

In former years, before the advent of the railroad, a considerable quantity of cotton was raised in New Mexico, in the central and southern part, the product being worked up into cloth by the native people, who, by the way, are experts in the use of the loom. But with the opening of the Southwest by the railroads to communication with Eastern manufactories, cotton planting ceased and for nearly thirty years no crops worthy of note have been raised in this Territory. Now, however, the production of this valuable Southern staple is beginning to receive fresh attention, especially at the hands of settlers in the southeastern part of the Territory, and the acreage planted to cotton will henceforth no doubt be increased annually. Along the Pecos in Chaves and Eddy counties very successful results have been obtained, the yield being 1 bale to the acre.

DATE CULTURE IN THE SOUTHWEST.

It is now an established fact that dates of good quality and in commercial quantities can be produced in the warmer parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and California.

During the last year at the Government experimental station farm, near Phoenix, three imported trees bore more than 500 pounds, the fruit ripening between August and January. The fruit sold at 25 cents a pound, wholesale, at Phoenix, and thousands of pounds could have been disposed of in this one market. Packed in neat boxes, the dates retailed at 50 cents to 75 cents a pound. The crop averaged from 40 to 200 pounds per tree. So great is the faith of the settlers in the date palm as a means of future income that thousands of the trees have been planted in Arizona alone. Most of these trees are in fine condition and everything points to an excellent crop this year. Commenting upon this subject the Denver Republican says:

When the Agricultural Department began its experiments with the date palm in the arid lands of the Southwest it was denounced for "puttering" with a visionary scheme. It was declared that nothing would grow in the bad lands of the Southwest, but the Department persevered, and now it seems on the point of conferring a vast benefit on the ranchers of Arizona, New Mexico, and southern California. Unless all present signs fail, thousands of acres of desert land will be put to profitable use, and a new and thriving industry will spring into being. Inasmuch as America no longer has vast domains of uncultivated land at its disposal, the Department of Agriculture is doing good work in turning the acreage of every section to best account. The country is being settled so rapidly that even the resources of the desert must be called out in the future.

CLIMATE AND CROP SERVICE.

SANTA FE, August 21, 1901.

SIR: I have the honor to inclose you herewith my report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901.

Very respectfully,

Hon. MIGUEL A. OTERO,

Governor of New Mexico.

R. M. HARDINGE, Section Director.

REPORT OF THE NEW MEXICO SECTION OF THE CLIMATE AND CROP SERVICE OF THE WEATHER BUREAU, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CoOPERATING WITH THE NEW MEXICO WEATHER SERVICE), FOR FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1901.

The scheme of organization of the section has not been changed during the year. The thirty-fourth Territorial assembly continued the annual appropriation of $700 for the necessary printing of the several bulletins and reports of the section, which are distributed throughout the country under the Government mailing frank. This fund is available and sufficient until the close of the Territorial fiscal year ending November 20, 1903. All other expenses, as equipment of stations, salaries, stationery, etc., are borne by the national service.

Six stations have been established and discontinued during the year, making 42 stations reporting more or less regularly at the close of the year. Thirty-two stations are now equipped with the standard "cotton-region" instrument shelter. The station of Carlsbad, representing the important district of the lower Pecos Valley, and from which reports have not been received for more than two years, has been resumed under excellent auspices. Special rainfall stations have been established at Dolores and at Golden, situated on the northeastern and southwestern slopes of the Placer Mountains at an elevation of from 6,000 to 7,000 feet, whose reports are expected to prove of much interest as furnishing comparative precipitation data between the mountains and plains of that neighborhood. A station has been established at Alamogordo which promises to well represent this important and rapidly developing section of the Territory. A new and valuable station has been established at Las Vegas, under the supervision of Dr. William Curtiss Bailey, formerly medical director at the Las Vegas Hot Springs, from which full reports including humidity observations are being received. At the close of the year negotiations are under way for the establishment of a station at Taos with Mr. Frank Staplin as observer. As yet this rich and beautiful valley has been unrepresented in the reports of the section.

The regular publications of the section consist of the Weekly Climate and Crop Bulletin, the Snowfall Bulletin, the Monthly Report, and the Annual Summary. The Weekly Climate and Crop Bulletin, issued during the growing season, is made up from the reports of about fifty correspondents who fairly represent the more important agricultural and grazing sections of the Territory. About 400 copies are issued weekly in the bulletin form, while the subject-matter of the bulletin is widely copied by the press of the Territory. The Snowfall Bulletin, summarizing the reports of about 125 postmasters and others reporting the amount of snow lying on the ground in their vicinity, is issued at the close of the months of January, February, and March. One hundred and fitty copies are issued in bulletin form, while the subject matter of the bulletin received wide distribution by the newspapers. A correspondent of one of the leading papers. writing from the Mesilla Valley, the granary" of the Territory, with reierence to the unusually large acreage and fine prospects of the grain fields of that section, says: "Early in the spring reports from the headwaters of the river (Ro Grande) indicated unusual snows on the slopes of the Continental Divide in Colorado and New Mexico, and in consequence a Letter supply of water in the river than in the last few years. In reliance upon these reports a much larger area was planted in wheat and other grains by the farmers of the valley." The value of the Snowfall Bulletin to the public, by furnishing information from time to time of the amount of snow lying in the mountains and about the headwaters of streams, has been fully demonstrated. The Monthly Report is a tabulated presentation of the meteorological data from the several stations of the section for that month, with such discussion of the data as may be pertinent. The Annual Summary is a summarized tabulation of the yearly data of the stations composing the section. The Monthly Report and the Annual Summary are neatly printed quarto pamphlets; 500 of the former are issued each month, and 600 of the latter.