alfalfa and grain in the Territory. There are about 150 wells in Deming and about 60 more in the county. The possibility of using this under flow for irrigation

depends entirely upon cheap fuel.

Respectfully,

Hon. M. A. OTERO,

D. BAUMAN.

Governor of New Mexico.

TUCUMCARI'S UNDERFLOW.

From Tucumcari, a new settlement on the Rock Island road and on the edge of the Staked Plains, a correspondent writes:

The greatest problem which has heretofore militated against the growth of the town has been solved by the discovery of good water in artesian wells at a depth of 150 to 400 feet.

A. B. Simpson was the first person to invest a few dollars in water speculation, and at a depth of 136 feet he struck a large flow of water, clear, soft, and pure, which has continued flowing ever since.

Encouraged by Mr. Simpson's success, the Blankenship Brothers, contractors, sunk a well, and at the depth of 200 feet struck a flow of good soft water. The water in these wells is raised to the surface by wind power.

The Tucumcari Electric Light and Water Company sunk a 300-foot well and the water raised 175 feet in ten minutes. A 10-horsepower gasoline engine will be used to raise the water from this well.

The Chicago and Rock Island Railroad Company struck an extraordinarily large flow of fine, soft water at a depth of 349 feet. A steam pump has been connected with this well which hoists water into a tank at the rate of 65 gallons per minute.

A SOCORRO COUNTY SUCCESS.

SOCORRO, N. MEX., August 2, 1902.

SIR: You ask me what success I am having in pumping the underflow for irrigation purposes, and cost of same.

My well is about 13 or 14 feet deep and about 8 feet in diameter, with brick laid on a solid, round framework of plank nailed together, the bricks being laid on the framework so that the inside of the well is a smooth surface. Then, by pumping and taking out the quicksand on the inside, this framework with the brick on it sinks down, and no quicksand comes in from the side.

This plan has proved a great success where trouble has been encountered with quicksand. The water raises about 5 feet in the well. I use a 5-inch pipe and an 8-inch cylinder to raise the water and run the pump by horsepower, using one animal to do the pumping. This 5-inch pipe flows full of water when the pump is in operation. I am watering about 2,000 fruit trees and running the pump about half of the time. The first 4 feet of water in the well when we commence pumping in the morning is pumped down in about two hours, but the last foot holds just about the same all day, and we can pump a 5-inch stream all day from this small well, and if we should sink it deeper, which I could easily do, I do not think that we could exhaust the water at all, so great is the underflow at 11 and 12 feet in depth; and in many places here we can get the same flow at 5 or 6 feet.

This pumping of the great underflow of water where evaporation does not reach it in the great, rich valleys of New Mexico will do more to build up her people and develop her great resources than any one thing I know of to-day. All expenses of my well and plant will not exceed $300.

I am, respectfully, yours,

Hon. M. A. OTERO,

Governor of New Mexico.

A PAYING PROPOSITION.

W. H. BYERTS.

Speaking of similar successes in another locality in the Rio Grande Valley, a correspondent says five or six more enterprising citizens, Americans and Germans, have put down modern wells and raise water with pumps of various patterns, using gasoline engines for power.

These men have been farsighted enough to even borrow money on what they considered a safe venture. And they have shown and are showing that they made no mistake. The experiment of a pioneer valley farmer, James Smith, is referred to in detail. Says the writer: . I first measured the water he was pumping from his well by gasoline engine. His pump was throwing just over 400 gallons a minute and producing quite a respectable head of water in the ditch, which was then irrigating a fine healthy orchard bearing more than abundance of fruit.

This amount of water cost in gasoline 10 cents per hour-i. e., an acre-inch of water would cost about 11 cents. A very full annual supply of 3 feet would thus cost $3.50 per acre this entirely under your own control and no paying if you do not use the water. This is as inexpensive as the water rented from most irrigation companies, where the water is not under your own control and where you quite frequently can not get it just when you want it most.

The well of Mr. Smith is 59 feet deep and the water rises to within 13 feet of surface. It has fully irrigated without help from river or rain since last October 35 acres of land, in fruit trees, vines (and these are a beautiful sight, laden with grapes), strawberries, general truck, and alfalfa.

The well, under proper management, running night and day, should be able to take good care of 100 acres, and if a reservoir were built and worked in connection with it, more than this could easily be handled. This allows for 6-inch irrigations once a month, which is ample for almost all crops on an average, most taking less with proper cultivation.

ARTESIAN DEVELOPMENT.

Artesian water is becoming more and more of a factor in the work of reclaiming the arid West, and as capital and energy extends the field it will undoubtedly be the most important single factor in the great work of converting the desert into smiling farms and fruitful orchards. In many places where reservoirs are not practicable artesian water is easily and comparatively cheaply to be had, and in such places the way of the agriculturist is easy. Once put down, the landowner draws his wealth from the well, being exempt from water rent (and the necessity of labor on the community ditches, where that system prevails). He need not wait for his turn to be named by the mayordomo; whenever his crops need it he has only to turn the flow into the ditches and the vegetable world is his.

In New Mexico artesian flows have thus far been tapped in five widely separated districts. Outside of the great spouters in "the Roswell country" such flowing wells have been opened during the past year near Engle, in Sierra County, and near the village of Mineral on the east line of Union County. There are two small flowing wells in South Santa Fe County, and near Springer, in Colfax County, is a flowing well of delicious mineral water 200 feet in depth.

ROSWELL'S ARTESIAN ZONE.

But at no point in the Southwest is this feature of irrigative farming so marked as in Chaves County, where the increase in the number of wells has spread the area of tilled land far beyond the range of the ditches, and is working an agricultural and horticultural metamorphosis such as the world never knew before.

The first of these flowing wells was encountered purely by chance in 1890, and at that time the irrigated area was confined solely to the zones of the irrigation systems supplied by the Spring rivers, the North and South Berrendos (spring creeks), and the Pecos River. While these streams afforded a perpetual supply of water, all of the

water was even at that time appropriated, while hundreds of thousands of acres of the finest farming land in the Territory were useless for want of water. The coming of the artesian well has changed all of this. In a great zone 9 miles wide by 50 long the presence of artesian water has been proved, and the land, once abandoned to rough grasses and mesquite, is rapidly being put under cultivation and proving the most fertile in New Mexico. Even this vast area, however, is being constantly extended as the more speculative farmers and ranchmen try for flowing waters in localities before considered out of the water belt. Undoubtedly, as the attention of the Department of the Interior is drawn to this artesian field, the area will be extended beyond the expectations of even those best acquainted with the topography of the region. There is every reason to suppose that a series of experimental wells would extend the moist belt and thereby add many thousands of dollars to the taxable acreage of the community. Water has been encountered in many places where expert observers deemed it impossible, so with the skill and experience of trained Government scientists there can be little doubt that at least the boundaries of the artesian district may be outlined. Nor does the possibility of benefit from these artesian wells end with the matter of water. At various points in the artesian field beds of pure rock salt over 100 feet in thickness have been drilled through and several veins of absolutely pure sulphur have been encountered. These deposits, together with the immense quantities of gypsum every where encountered in the valley, makes the resemblance to the formation of the Beaumont oil fields most remarkable. At several points are marked oil seeps and many geologists claim that there is every reason to expect that a heavy flow of petroleum would be encountered by deep borings. Even, however, were these mineral riches not encountered the mapping of the artesian area would be of vast value both to the General Government and to that of the Territory as well. Of course, in the progress of time the work will doubtless be accomplished by private capital, but the systematic and trained investigations of the Government would achieve in a season what ungeneraled private means would take years to determine.

THE IRRIGATED AREA.

Since the discovery of the artesian strata the irrigated area of Chaves County has increased over 500 per cent, and the spread is unceasing. There are now over 125,000 acres under irrigation from wells, making the grand total irrigated nearly 400,000 acres. It should be noted in passing that the great majority of the artesian land is in such shape as to be inaccessible to the canals, even were all the water not appropriated, so that each one of these wells practically opens up an area that would otherwise never be of use to man. During the past summer a large number of wells have been drilled, and water was developed at many points not dreamed of by the original prospectors.

The geological formation in this field is most interesting, showing constantly proofs of volcanic as well as oceanic periods. Upon both of these, however, the sedimentation has been heavy and of varying character.

The wells are bored by the common churn drill, water being encountered at some places in so little a depth as 150 feet. It should be noted, however, that there are two artesian flows, the first being often

encountered at the depth named. This is, however, of light volume, and is generally cased out, the drill going on down to the second flow, usually encountered at about 200 feet. Both flows are found in a very porous though extremely hard limestone. The water though "hard" is remarkably clear and pure, tests by the scientists on the staff of the College of Agriculture showing but 100 parts of impurities to the 100,000, a ratio approached nowhere else in the Territory, with the single exception of Grant County. The temperature of the water is, of course, the same the year round-not far from 45. The wells are of varying size and consequently varying flow. The majority of them are fitted with 5-inch casing, and these wells average very closely 600 gallons per minute-a volume so vast that it is apt to stagger the newcomer. Many of the wells have been flowing for ten or twelve years and there is not the least decrease in volume, the very strongest guaranty that the wells are tapping a perpetual deposit of water whose source no man knows or can do more than guess at.

One well of the size named is amply sufficient to irrigate 160 acres of land planted in any of the grains, orchards, or alfalfa, the latter forage staple here attaining as much as six crops a year, on account of the fact that water can always be applied at the roots at exactly the right moment, a happy condition that is possible nowhere else. The artesian productiveness, however, is not limited to forage crops. All of the cereals and root crops thrive and produce enormously, many farms producing the first year of croppage 100 per cent per acre more than its pro rata cost of drilling the well. Besides the irrigation of the soil these wells furnish ample water for all sorts of vegetation and for stock, and the pressure is even sufficient to run all sorts of light machinery, feed cutters, churns, saws, cider and saw mills. The possibilities of the wells are hardly touched upon in this line.

A JOY FOREVER.

The artesian well in Roswell has wrought a transformation such as the Southwest never knew. There are over a hundred of these perennial fountains in the town limits, making possible beautiful lawns, fine shade trees, and fruitful gardens. The town is studded with cottonwoods, and the sea of vegetation is in marked contrast with the brown sea of the open range that lies all around. The wells furnish ample water for this ornamental irrigation, and in addition scores of houses are supplied with their own water systems with the same never-failing, crystal-pure source of supply. Enteric diseases are unknown in Roswell and all the artesian region. The purity of the water, which is absolutely free from all surface contamination, is guaranty of that. Also the fine sewerage system in Roswell is supplied with water for flushing the mains from two artesian wells, put down and owned by the city. Artesian water is also a feature of the fire protection of the town, some 40 fire plugs being attached to artesian wells, and although the city fire department has one machine capable of throwing over 700 gallons a minute, the supply can never be drawn to its limit. For domestic and constructive purposes Roswell has a world of water, and the amount is constantly increasing as more wells are put down. The gutters running brimming full are a guaranty of that, along with the flashing fountains on the grounds of many private residences.