"The climate is warm and pleasant; plowing and sowing can be done any time during the winter. This makes the farmer rather indolent, as he does not have to hurry as ours of the colder climates do.
"The products are wheat, corn, barley, beans, peas, onions, pepper, sweet potatoes and some few other vegetables. Many things more might be profitably cultivated, if once understood; but the people are satisfied with what they have, and manifest but little interest in new introductions.
"The fruits are grapes, in great abundance and of the best quality; pears, which the people dry in great abundance, price, ten cents per pound. They are excellent eating. Their apples are small seedlings, not worth eating. A few peaches of an excellent kind do well here. I have seen no other fruits. I have heard that strawberries and some other small fruits have been cultivated by foreigners, and they do extremely well.
Rude Agriculture.
"The mode of cultivation is with an old wooden plow, working their cattle by the horns. They scratch up the ground very poorly, afterwards doing much work with the hoe; they regulate their ground for watering by making small embankments around small, irregular plats, from thirty to fifty feet across, and flooding the land. I think this a poor way, as it causes their land to bake very hard; but this is the manner in which their fathers did it, so they think it is all right. They cultivate all open crops with the hoe, using the large, old-fashioned 'nigger' hoe. They cut their hay with the same tool. In Arizona we saw hundreds of tons, at the government posts, cut in this same way. They harvest with reap hooks and thresh with goats or flails.
Mechanics, Doctors and Lawyers.
"Mechanics are scarce. In this town of ten thousand inhabitants there is one blacksmith shop, three or four carpenter shops, two tailors, three or four shoe shops, one wheel-wright and one silversmith. And this is, as far as I have been able to learn, about the whole number.
"To compensate for this lack of mechanics, there is but one doctor and one lawyer; and the latter is supposed to be insane, as he has quit the practice, walks quietly around the town, says but little to anyone, is polite, dresses neatly and seems to mind his own business. My opinion is that he is the most sensible lawyer I have ever seen.
Limited Commerce.
"The commerce of the country is limited. The people sell their wines and dried fruits generally as soon as ready. They go to all the surrounding country; to Chihuahua as well as up the country to Santa Fe and Arizona. There are three Jew stores and one Mexican store. Their business is small.