Identifier: annualreportofse973unit (find matches)
Title: Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior for the year ended June 30, 1897
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: United States Department of the Interior
Subjects:
Publisher:
Contributing Library: Clemson University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
arley, etc. Apples grow best in the uplands, and have becomeprofitable, while peaches and grapes grow to perfection in the lowervalleys. In the neighborhoods of Belen and Los Lunas these cropsgive a phenomenal yield, and it has been claimed that some of thelargest harvests in the world have been obtained here. The oats thattook the Worlds Fair prize for quality were raised near Belen, in thiscounty, and the same town took the first prize for wheat. The whole of Valencia County seems to be the natural home of thepotato. White or Irish potatoes grow wild in great abundance. Theyvary from one to three inches in size. As found they are somewhatirregular in appearance, with a pink skin and a white, crispy heart.The children of even well-to-do people eat them raw, and say they havean extremely good flavor. They grow in a rich, sandy loam of unknowndepth. There are 400,000 sheep, 100,000 cattle, and over 5,000 horses in thecounty. These find nutritious and abundant pastures on the wild mesas
Text Appearing After Image:
TERRITORY OF NEW MEXICO. 521 and plateaus. The Manzano Valley especially will always remain afavored cattle country. Springs abound, and while there are no riversor streams of sufficient importance to make a considerable area of thisland valuable for irrigation, still by a judicious development of theground or phreatic waters, this whole valley of more than 1,000,000acres can be made to yield a good revenue as a cattle country. Watercan be developed almost anywhere. A few miles west of the Eio Grande the coal measures begin, andextend almost in a continuous body to the western boundary, includingan area 100 miles long by 50 miles wide. Coal crops out on all thehigher mesas. Slate is found in the Manzano Valley and in the Zuiii Mountains. Inthe first location the mines are equal to the Michigan or Danish deposits.The lakes of brine in this valley are well known. Large beds of gypsum are found near El Kito adjoining the Atlanticand Pacific Railroad. This deposit is very pure, lies in re

Note About Images