Returning to Las Vegas; with its ten thousand inhabitants, its large floating population drawn by the medicinal hot springs, and the seat of the territorial Normal School. As a noted wool centre, and with its daily papers, good schools, and many churches, it is another alluring point. One feature of important interest is the new "Scenic Highway" that is in process of completion between Las Vegas and Santa Fé, across the Pecos Forest Reserve, which will offer some of the grandest views in any of the mountain regions of the West. It will be to Santa Fé and Las Vegas what the beautiful drive between Naples, Sorrento, and Amalfi is to Southern Italy. This scenic road will wind up to the Dalton Divide, nine thousand five hundred feet high, where Lake Peak, glittering with snow, Santa Fé Cañon, and other peaks and precipices and cañons, are all about, and the Pecos River is seen far below as a thread of silver. This drive will be one of the famous features of the entire West when completed. New Mexico monopolizes the greatest belt of coal deposits west of the Missouri, while Arizona has the monopoly in pine forests.
The reclamation work in the southern part of the Rio Grande Valley is now in successful process, and near Engle a reservoir forty miles in length will be established, having a capacity of two million acre-feet. It is estimated that a hundred and ten thousand acres of land will thus be put under irrigated agriculture which will yield marvellous returns in alfalfa, cereals, vegetables, and fruits.
The government has also purchased the system of the Pecos Irrigation Company, which is now transferred to the Reclamation Service of the United States. This is the largest irrigation scheme in New Mexico. It is located on the Pecos River, which is fed from springs many of which gush forth from the earth with such force as to indicate that their source must be in high, snow-crowned hills.
New Mexico's railroad facilities may be estimated from the fact that not a county in the territory is without a railroad, while many have the benefit of three lines. With twenty-five hundred miles of railroads within the territorial limits already in operation, it is confidently expected that this number will be increased to four thousand miles within two years, as much of this anticipated increase is already under construction. Of the present railways eleven hundred miles belong to the Santa Fé system alone. The matchless scenery of the Denver and Rio Grande route between Ontonito and Santa Fé offers the tourist one of the most enjoyable of trips through Española, Caliente, and other points of beauty with the mountain peaks of San Antonio, Taos, Ute, and others within the horizon, often appearing like islands swimming in a faint blue haze.
There is space and to spare in New Mexico. There are almost unlimited possibilities, with much to get and as much to give, and the latter is by no means less important in life than the former. Out of a total area of over seventy-eight million acres only about a quarter of a million are under irrigation agriculture, and the field for reclamation is as unlimited as it is promising. The land is fertile and the productions are abundant. The sky is a dream of color and of luminous beauty, and the climate is one of the most delightful in the entire world. Nor does New Mexico suffer from that which is the greatest deprivation of Arizona,—the lack of water. There is an abundance of the mountain flood waters that now go to waste which would store vast reservoirs; there is the flow of copious streams and large river systems, and there are artesian belts of water all ready for mechanical appliances. The Campbell dry culture, which is increasingly in use in the eastern part of Colorado, has been successfully introduced into New Mexico. Fruit-growing is already becoming an important industry, and the apple orchard, of all other varieties of horticulture, is the most successful. At the Paris Exposition in 1900 New Mexico made an exhibit of apples, and also at Buffalo in 1901, receiving from the former the award to rank with those of the best apple-growing regions in any part of the United States, and from the latter the first prize. Peaches, pears, and apricots grow well; the cherry does not thrive in New Mexico, but grapes are grown with conspicuous success.
The mineral resources of New Mexico are varied, and include gold, silver, copper, lead, and other minerals. In precious stones there is promise of untold development. The Tiffanys own large turquoise mines, whose supply, thus far, has proved inexhaustible; and the opal and the moonstone are found in many places. But it is as an agricultural commonwealth, and as the repository of vast coal belts, that New Mexico is chiefly distinguished.
It was early in February, 1880, that the first train over the Santa Fé railroad entered the territorial capital and initiated its transformation from the mediæval Spanish town to that which is, in part, the theatre of the progressive American life. In Santa Fé one of the landmarks pointed out to-day to the visitor is the old Santa Fé Trail, whose story was told so vividly, some years ago, by Colonel Henry Inman,[2] who has described the majestic solitude of this highway and has narrated the mingled experiences of the early pioneers and the soldiers who thus marched through the wilderness. History and romance mingle in the wonderful past of New Mexico, and it needs no sibyl of old to proclaim from the Mesa Encantada the promise of the future to this beautiful Land of the Turquoise Sky.