she must be a citizen of the United States, native or naturalized; must be over 21 years of age and either unmarried or the head of a family, and must not have previously made an entry of the kind desired. The first thing required to accomplish this object is to go on the public domain and select the tract desired. The tract must be examined and affidavit made that the land is not of a mineral character, which affidavit is always required. There are two laws under which the Government permits the filing upon land for agricultural purposes, the desert land and the homestead act.

If a tract of desert land can be found which can be made productive by leading to it sufficient water to irrigate it a map should be made showing the proposed ditch and the source from which water is to be obtained. Application must then be made before the local land office, or the county clerk or United States court commissioner in the county in which the land lies, for 40 to 320 acres, as may be desired, and 25 cents per acre as a first payment is then required. At the end of one year from the application there must be filed in the local land office. proof of the expenditure in reclaiming and improving the land of a sum equal to $1 per acre. By the end of the second year there must have been expended a like sum and by the end of the third year another like sum, making $3 per acre that the law requires to be expended on the land. Final proof can then be made that the law as to reclamation has been complied with, and on paying the Government $1 per acre more, title to the land will be given.

A homestead entry can be made by a person qualified as before stated and can not be for more than 160 acres. It can be made before the same officers as a desert land entry. The land office fees and commissions, payable when application is made, are as follows: On lands within the railroad limits, $22 for 160 acres, $19 for 120 acres, $11 for 80 acres, $8 for 40 acres. Without railroad limits the land office fees and commissions for a homestead entry are as follows: 160 acres, $16; 120 acres, $14.50: 80 acres. $8; 40 acres, $6.50. The applicant must in every case state in his application his place of actual residence, and the post-office address to which notices relative to his entry shall be sent, and his full name. The entryman must establish his residence in a house to be built on the land within six months from the date of entry, and must, in order to maintain his entry, reside on and cultivate the tract for five years, unless he desires to commute and pay for the land in cash or equivalent, which can be done after fourteen months actual residence on and cultivation of the tract. Entries under the homestead law can be completed after five years' actual residence; but the applicant is required to file with the register his notice of intention to make proof, with the required fee for publication, and it is the duty of the register to have said notice published, when the applicant will appear with two witnesses named in the notice and make proof on day named, and before officer mentioned. By the act of June 3, 1900, any person who before that time had, from any cause, lost or forfeited a previous entry was given the right to make a new entry.

LAND AND WATER POSSIBILITIES.

The total area of New Mexico is 78,197,005 acres-122,510 square miles-equal to the combined areas of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New

Jersey. The census figures show the average size of the irrigated farm to be about 30 acres, but "10 acres are enough" for any one man to undertake to cultivate properly. The average first cost of bringing land under water in New Mexico is $5.58 per acre as against the average throughout the arid region of the West in general of $7.80. Taken altogether, the Territory has at this time about 20,000,000 acres of agricultural land to offer for settlement. The creek and river bottoms afford about 2,000,000 acres of easily irrigated land, of which about 1,000,000 acres are now under ditch, and most of it under cultivation. This does not, of course, include what is available for irrigation if large water-storage reservoirs are constructed, such as are just now being so earnestly considered by the Federal Government. By the carrying out of such enterprises perhaps not less than 10,000,000 acres of land in this Territory, at present chiefly valuable for pastoral purposes, could be brought to a high state of cultivation, providing homes for thousands of settlers. But with existing conditions New Mexico affords a rare field for the establishment of colonization enterprises, with her 1,000,000 acres of irrigated land now lying practically idle to invite them. These opportunities are certainly not going "abegging," and unaccepted much longer. The very theory of "expansion" which now seems to have taken so firm a hold upon the people, especially the agriculturists of the central Western States, makes this quite clear. So, also, do the records of our land offices, showing as they do that nearly 1,115,000 acres have been entered under the homestead and other land laws during the past two years, and if we allow 160 acres to each locator and figure his family at five persons, this would represent a total new population of land owners and homebuilders of 35,000. And so little has been known of New Mexico's resources that it is only of very recent years that attention has been attracted to the manifold advantages presented here for horticultural and agricultural pursuits.

The foundation and building up of the commonwealths of the arid region detail a most romantic story. First, nature, and then the Indian, only less pitiless, had to be subdued; but civilization, armed with steam and electricity, has circumscribed the desert that in Fremont's time was supposed to stretch from the Missouri to the Pacific to a few small tracts like Death Valley. Irrigation forces a common and combined effort of communities and not of individuals. Capital and American energy have been wielded with all their concentrated power, until to-day even the Mohave and Colorado deserts and kindred wastes have been made to yield tributes of corn and wine to the dominion of man.

No one reasonably well informed now dares venture his reputation in the assertion that any particular area of the great West is hopelessly sterile or arid. Where the pioneer has gone and died, the engineer follows, opens rivers in high places," science smiles, and the desert blooms. A new condition has entered into American life. The West, so little known, so much disfigured in Eastern literature, now teaches the farmers of the older States the art of crop manufacture. The averages are always higher than in the East.

A WELCOME TO HOME SEEKERS.

New Mexico offers a wide field to choose from and a cordial welcome. to those who are seeking farming and fruit-growing locations in the far West. Our soil and clime are far more fruitful, far more attractive

in all that makes life worth the living than the Indian lands just beyond our eastern border recently so greatly sought for by thousands of home seekers. It is said that not one in fourteen of the 150,000 men and women engaged last year in that mad rush for Western homes succeeded in securing a location. To the unsuccessful ones let it be known that New Mexico has land and water and sunshine in abundance, practically free for their taking, and that the good people of this Territory stand ready to welcome them with open arms as friends and neighbors. These especially we invite to come and inspect our valley and foothill districts, marked with their rich foliage, fruit, grain, and garden areas, and become convinced of the ability of this soil to abundantly repay the honest industry of the fruit grower and the husbandman. Let them come and critically examine into the splendid fruit, melon, sugarbeet, and vegetable farms of the Pecos Valley, the beautiful orchards and vast stretches of alfalfa in the San Juan country, the Mimbres Valley, Mora, and Canadian, and the garden-like valleys along the Rio Grande, and in Santa Fe, Taos, San Miguel, Valencia, Otero, and Rio Arriba counties, wherever water can be developed, and they will be assured that here the promise of the future is not to be surpassed by any region of the country east or west.

SOURCES OF WATER SUPPLY.

It may here be asked that if there is so large a percentage of sunshine in New Mexico as the statistics indicate, from whence does the water come to irrigate? The valleys of the Territory are all well sheltered. The summer precipitation thereon is the only rainfall that is important. It averages about 12 inches per year. The water supply is drawn from the rivers filled by the slowly melting snows of the high mountain chains that everywhere inclose the irrigable lands. The snow usually lies from 8 to 14 feet on the level, and the deep gulches and cañons are filled with packed and frozen masses hundreds of feet deep. These are nature's own storage reservoirs. The snow melts slowly during the irrigation months and keeps up the supply of water in the streams that feed the fruitful valleys.

COMMUNITY OF INTERESTS.

Irrigators live in compact communities on small farms. Their profits are large and they enjoy from the start greater comfort and companionship than their brethern in nonirrigated agricultural districts. Pioneer farm life loses its lonely terrors, and women especially need fear none of the hardships so often and so graphically described. The community itself may be isolated, but the individual never. Yet it should be remembered that irrigation is not farming made easy; it is farming made sure. It does not agree with the constitution of a drone.

AGRICULTURE.

The census figures dealing with the agricultural wealth of New Mexico are as true an index of its growth, prosperity, and permanence as any other figures that could be given. They show the average value of all farm land in the Territory, including the great live-stock ranches, where little or no land is under ditch, to be $3.35 per acre. The average value of irrigated farm land is $29.26 per acre, and according to

this same authority, the census report for 1900, the value of farm property in each county in the Territory was as follows:

These figures include the value of live stock in each county. The value of the farm products in the year ending June 30, 1890, are given as follows:

These figures give a fair idea of the nature and variety of the agricultural products of the Territory. A census bulletin issued a few months since places the value of all farm property in New Mexico at over $51,000,000, a remarkable showing for a country that is accustomed to boast chiefly of its mining, vast live stock, and wool industries.

NOTABLE RESULTS.

New Mexico has taken first prize for wheat at the World's Fair, and the second for oats, Russia alone surpassing this Territory.

According to an official bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture, New Mexico's yield of cereals average and compare as follows with the States named:

Commenting on the above showing, the Irrigation Age says:

New Mexico is one of the Western communities which has probably surprised the public by the extent, the variety, and quality of her products. She claims 480 varieties of wheat, 75 of oats, and 27 of rye, and, God bless her, she puts aloft the inscription, "All raised by irrigation." The samples of these grains are of the highest quality.

These results are attributable to the fact that in New Mexico every stream is a Nile, and the Rio Grande and the Pecos each carry more rich sediment (nature's own fertilizer) in their flood waters than even the famous river of Egypt.

YIELD OF CROPS.

To attempt to enumerate the productive possibilities of this country would be to undertake an almost endless task. For two reasons New Mexico has superior advantages to California and Colorado, its principal rivals. It has an earlier season by three or four weeks than Colorado, and, because of its more central location, commands the attention of Western market centers two weeks ahead of California in disposing of all hardy fruits. Fruit plucked in New Mexico one morning will be in Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo and on the breakfast table next morning. It reaches Kansas City in thirty-six hours, Chicago in forty-eight, and New York in seventy-two hours. Another decided advantage exists in this, that in this Territory the fruit remains on the tree until fully ripe; the consuming centers are so near at hand and the railway facilities so excellent that it does not have to be plucked green and left to "ripen" in its long transit, destroying its flavor and injuring it as healthful food. For these reasons New Mexico's fresh fruit commands 30 per cent more in the consuming markets of the country than the California product. An instance may be cited: New Mexico prunes of the Prince Engelbert variety were sent to the markets of Santa Fe, Denver, and Chicago this past year