being an important railroad shipping point for the wool and other products of northern Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties. It has 550 inhabitants and boasts of several fine business buildings. The agricultural communities of that part of the county are Pojoaque, with 798 inhabitants; Santa Cruz, which has 674 inhabitants; Tesuque, 348 people, the latter being across the divide 9 miles from Santa Fe; Agua Fria, with 484 people, a suburb of Santa Fe; Cienega, 400 people, also tributary to Santa Fe; San Ildefonso, 390 people, near which the Government has just completed an extensive ditch system for the San Ildefonso Pueblo Indians. Chimayo, in the extreme northwestern part of the county, is credited with 319 people, and Canoncito, or Lamy, 17 miles southeast of Santa Fe, with 323 people. The latter is a railroad junction point and near by is the great Onderdonk live-stock ranch. A quarry of building and limestone is situated near Lamy. While these latter are not incorporated towns, yet they all have public schools and are the centers of fertile agricultural or mining districts or are railroad towns, which some day, with more improved irrigation systems and more capital invested in mining and commerce, will become flourishing towns.

There are five Indian pueblos in the county, all very interesting for their primitive and quaint characteristics. The largest is Santa Clara,⚫ with 223 people; San Ildefonso, 137 inhabitants; Nambe, 81; Tesuque, 80, and Pojoaque, 12.

FUTURE PROSPECTS.

It is not so much what Santa Fe County has been or what it is as what it promises to be in the future that marks it as one of the most remarkable sections in the Southwest. Its superb climate in itself means eventually the establishment of many sanitaria for health seekers, the founding of summer resorts, and the building of hotels and homes for people who seek an ideal summer and winter resort. Its large area of grazing lands must sooner or later bring cattle to cover its thousand hills and sheep by the hundred thousand to browse upon its mesas; its perennial water supply, which is increased enormously at a certain season of the year, must lead to the building of irrigation systems that will make the county rich in farms and orchards; its undeveloped mineral wealth must in time make it one of the richest mining districts in the West, giving employment to thousands of miners, and, last but not least, its industrial possibilties are such that even a Pittsburg might envy. Its large beds of fuel that can be mined cheaply; its possibilities for the development of water power; its comparatively dense population which would furnish labor; its climate so conducive to continued activity; its nearness to the oriental, Mexican, and South American markets; its great supplies of raw material, such as wool, hides, lumber, mica, ores; its transportation facilities which will be added to from year to year, mark Santa Fe County for a manufacturing center that must bring the population of the county up to ten and twenty fold its present number. Woolen factories, beet-sugar factories, canneries, brickyards, tanneries, smelters, furnaces, steel mills, potteries, glove, shoe, and furniture factories are a few of the manufacturing possibilities of this section, so richly endowed by nature and evidently designed by Providence to be a center of great industrial activity. The future can not be painted in too glowing colors, for the example of Massachusetts, of Pennsylvania, of Ohio are before the world, Commonwealths much less favor

ably situated, with fewer natural resources, which have become industrial empires in less than fifty years. New Mexico, and Santa Fe County especially, have within them the great natural capital which is bound to make them prominent in the industrial world, and the wise man who invests his capital in such enterprises at present, before the grind of competition is felt, will reap a rich harvest. There is the making of many millionaires in the latent industrial possibilities of Santa Fe County.

SAN MIGUEL COUNTY.

San Miguel, the "Empire County" of New Mexico, is not only one of the most favored sections of the Territory in point of early settlement and subsequent development, but it presents such a diversity of resources that home seekers and investors are alike attracted to the region.

In the development of the stock interests San Miguel County has set the pace for the other counties of the Territory, and now it is considered the hub of the cattle-raising and woolgrowing business. The county is singularly blessed in the matter of water-an absolute necessity to a good stock country. The Rocky Mountains which form the western boundary of the county, the Turkey Mountains on the north, and the Sabinos and Huerfano Mountains on the east, combine in giving the county an altitude which insures heavy precipitation. In fact, the region is blessed with a "rainy season" extending from the middle of June until the last of August, which provides the countless streams and hundreds of natural reservoirs dotting the plains with an abundance of water until the volume is augmented by the snows of winter.

A letter from C. M. O'Donel, manager of the Bell Ranch, to the Las Vegas Board of Trade, gives in a general way information relative to the resources of that portion of the county lying east of the meridian 104°, and will apply to all sections of the county except those vitally affected by the mining industry. He states:

Owing to the fact that the larger portion of this area is occupied by a private land grant, the rate of population per square mile is low. But on the land which is subject to settlement the water courses are fully occupied by a native population which is generally industrious and law-abiding.

The principal industry is stock raising, cattle and sheep predominating. I estimate the cattle in this area at 25,000 head, the sheep at 30.000, and range horses at 1,000. The cattle are of very good quality, grading as high as any in New Mexico, and the native owners are showing an increasing interest in improving the quality of their stock. This applies to sheep as well as to cattle.

Agriculture on the temporal" system is carried on in a desultory manner wherever a rich piece of bottom land affords the opportunity. Corn and beans represent the principal crops planted. The product is precarious and at no time large. Exception must be made, however, in the case of the thriving community of Canyon Largo, where orchards and gardens flourish under ditch, and a quantity of fruit and vegetables is produced annually in addition to the staple food products-beans and corn.

There is a school in every neighborhood where a few children can be gathered, and while the education to be obtained in these schools is not of a high order, the children can be fitted for the better institutions of learning afforded by the cities of the Territory.

There are considerable tracts of land in this section suited to the raising of Angora goats-a highly profitable industry-and many people now contemplate availing themselves of the opportunities offered.

The most important economic factor in this part of the county at present is the approaching completion of the El Paso-Rock Island Railway extension from Liberal, Kans., to Santa Rosa, N. Mex. While the railway only passes through the extreme southwestern corner of the county, it will add greatly to the transportation facilities of the people. Another railroad is projected (the Dawson Coal

road), and work on it will doubtless begin this fall. This road will connect with the Rock Island at Liberty, which is located on the south line of the county, and run in a northwesterly direction to a point west of Springer, having a trackage in San Miguel County of about 40 miles.

The area of the region covered by Mr. O'Donel in his letter is about 30 by 40 miles, and although San Miguel County is larger than the State of Massachusetts, and with half the population of Wyoming, his observations can be said to hold good in nearly all other portions of the county.

THE BELL RANCH.

The above ranch, owned by the Bell Valley Land and Irrigation Company, is probably the best breeding ranch in America. It contains about 800,000 acres of land, all inclosed. The Canadian, or Red River, waters about 80 miles of the ranch, measuring the meanderings of the stream, and with the many small tributaries, makes it a wonderfully fertile and well-watered tract. The usual run is 20,000 to 50,000 head of cattle, with the usual complement of horses. The stock is well graded, being composed of Herefords and Durhams. The ranch possesses, in addition to branding corrals, a store, post-office, men's quarters, stables, brick corrals, and a stone residence having 200 feet front, with a 100-foot ell. It is located about 80 miles east of the city of Las Vegas in the tract described above by Manager O'Donel.

CATTLE INDUSTRY IN GENERAL.

The rich valleys of San Miguel County have proven especially alluring to the owners of small herds of cattle and those who make a specialty of fine-bred stock, while the rolling foothills, flanked by great plains, ending abruptly against the sides of extensive mesas, furnish an abundance of nutritious grasses for the needs of the range stock owned by the large companies. The mild winter climate, absence of death-dealing blizzards and hail storms makes this section the best breeding grounds in the United States. The wild grasses seed late in the season and cure into hay on the ground without cutting, furnishing an abundance of feed for the winter, and making cattle breeding comparatively inexpensive.

During the year 1900, 130,126 head of mostly steer cattle were sold and removed from the Territory, of which number San Miguel County furnished 6,000 head. It is estimated that there are now grazing in the county 40,000 head of cattle. Not once during the year 1900 were the services of a veterinarian needed to stamp out disease. The range cattlemen have of late paid out considerable money in introducing good blood into their herds and are rapidly eliminating undesirable breeding stock. As an example of what effect this course has had, the Bell ranch sold on the Kansas market last October a string of yearling steers for $23.40 per head and thousands more of the same class were wanted at the same figure. That there is room for extension of the cattle industry of the county is evidenced by the fact that cattlemen assert that the production of cattle on the practically free pastures can be twenty times increased without overloading the range. In the city of Las Vegas is located the headquarters of the Territo rial cattle sanitary board, and very many of the cattlemen of the Territory make their headquarters or homes here. While the herds of many of the cattlemen range in Colfax, Guadalupe, Union, and Mora counties, the industry throughout the northern and eastern por

tions of the Territory pays direct tribute to the county of San Miguel and city of Las Vegas, and thus do these localities furnish a simile to the cities of Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo, into whose laps are tossed the mineral wealth of the central counties of Colorado.

THE SHEEP INDUSTRY.

This industry is not only preeminent in New Mexico, but also in the county of San Miguel. Of the 20,000,000 pounds of wool produced annually in the Territory, this county grows 5,000,000 pounds and its markets handle over 10,000,000 pounds. Sheep men of the eastern, northern, and southern counties market the greater portion of their product in Las Vegas, whence it is shipped to the Eastern markets. Four wool-scouring plants are located in Las Vegas, each having a capacity of 2,500,000 pounds of wool per year, and they are now considered insufficient to handle the supply, and other plants are being erected.

Of the estimated number of sheep in the Territory at present, San Miguel County possesses about 400,000. Of the 100,864 sheep brought into the Territory, 200,000 feed on the ranges here. In consequence of the county being mountainous and having an abundance of water and grass the percentage of loss is reduced to the minimum, and the mutton brings a good market price at all times. The market price for lambs of the first feeding ranges from 3 to 4 cents per pound, netting the grower from $2 to $2.50 per head.

As is the case among cattle raisers, the sheep men are rapidly enhancing the value of their flocks by improving the blood through the introduction of fine rams. The annual cost of running sheep per head in this county is estimated at 30 cents, and the percentage of increase is estimated at between 75 and 100. The present selling price of ewes is $3, yearlings $2.50, and 6-months lambs at $2.25. Sheep raising in this county is considered the most profitable business in the West to-day, and many evidences are offered daily of people who started in the business from ten to twenty years ago with practically no capital and to-day find themselves worth from $50,000 to $100,000.

THE GOAT INDUSTRY.

This business is constantly increasing, the number of small flocks owned by the native people being almost innumerable. It is only within the past few years that the hides of the common New Mexico kid began to be especially valued and considered an article of commerce capable of exercising an extensive influence in the business world. However, it is now considered in the best markets of the world that the hides are unsurpassed for making varieties of the finest kid leather. European buyers, as well as those of the Atlantic coast cities, are constantly seeking them, and in consequence the business of rearing the hardy little animals is growing to considerable proportions in this county.

The Angora goats, valuable alike for wool, meat, and hides, are worth $5 per head.

EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT.

The constantly increasing population, the commingling of other nationalities with the natives in social and commercial intercourse, have given rise to the necessity for constantly increasing efficiency in the educational system of the county, and the progress made has been

both noteworthy and commendable. Las Vegas, the county seat, boasts of facilities for thorough education in both the Spanish and English languages, not only as applied to the common-school system but also in higher branches, which will fit the rising generation for any profession in life.

From the report of the county superintendent of schools, it is learned that the county possesses 93 districts. The number of schools in the county (excepting East Las Vegas) is 80. Average attendance during the year ending June 30, 1901, 2,910. Cash balance in the treasury August 1, 1901, $8,612.80.

However, the public is afforded a much more complete school system than that included in the report of the county superintendent of schools. In 1869 the Sisters of Loretto established a convent and school for girls in Las Vegas, which is still flourishing. The average enrollment of pupils ranges from 180 to 200. The property of the school is worth about $15,000.

The Presbyterian mission school, also located in Las Vegas, was established in 1870, and has accumulated property worth nearly $20,000. The institution employs two teachers, and the tuition term is ten months.

The Jesuit fathers, who own the largest private school property in the Territory, valued at $40,000, began their educational work in 1875. The De La Salle Institute, established in 1888 by the Christian Brothers, accommodates over 100 pupils; the school session ranges over a period of ten months. The property of the institution is valued at $10,000.

The Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church supports a training school for girls and women. They are taught sewing and housekeeping and the elements of an English education. The school has accomplished a grand mission in teaching natives American ways, language and ideas, and the workings of the government of the United States.

All of the above-mentioned five sectarian schools are located in Las Vegas, and the worth of the property will aggregate over $100,000. The public schools of Las Vegas and East Las Vegas are a source of great satisfaction to the residents of the city and county, and they compare favorably with the best public schools in Eastern communities. East Las Vegas is an incorporated city and has but one school district, under the management of a board of trustees. Las Vegas proper, which is not incorporated, has two school districts, whose destinies are looked after by various school directors. The directors availed themselves of the law of 1890 and voted school bonds for the erection of school buildings, each district now boasting of three-story white sandstone edifices, adequate to accommodate a city of twice the population of Las Vegas and handsome enough to grace any community in the United States. The buildings cost $12,000 and $14,500, respectively. The average enrollment of pupils is 300.

East Las Vegas possesses the distinction of being the first community in New Mexico to erect a public school building by a special tax voted on themselves by the people. In 1889 the town council, in the absence of a law permitting the issue of bonds by school districts, built a schoolhouse under the general law permitting incorporated towns to issue bonds for public buildings. The schoolhouse was originally erected of white sandstone, at a cost of $15,000, and during the past year it has been enlarged commensurate with the needs of the city and the value of the property enhanced fully $5,000. In 1891