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their fine grazing lands, will ere long cause these counties to have a large population.

The valley of the Pecos below the stage station, between Fort Concho and El Paso, has but comparatively little irrigable land ; that is, as far down as the ford near old Fort Lancaster, below which we did not see the river. In two or three places, farms of three and four hundred acres can be made and irrigated, and small places of a few acres can be made along the larger portion of the way, but the irrigation would mostly have to be done by hydraulic rams, or what would probably be better, with pumps run by wind mills. Thus stock ranches can be made, and grain and vegetables for family use raised. The stream is deep and rapid, charged with yellowish-brown mud, and confined between perpendicular clay banks six to ten feet high. Hence a person may travel along the river for miles without seeing the water. Cattle cannot get to the water except in a few places at the distance of from eight to ten miles front each other. However, a few hours work with spade and shovel can obviate this, and make roads and paths to the water for cattle.

There is a large permanent spring of excellent water on the west side of the river, eight to ten miles above the ford, near old Fort Lancaster, now unoccupied and in ruins. The spring is at the base of a hill, amid small trees and bushes, where the road turns up and goes around a mountain.

COTTON.

This is the staple of the State, being grown largely throughout most of the agricultural region, except in the irrigated lands of the west, and there it does well, but the distance from market prevents its cultivation.

In 1870, the number of bales raised in Texas is reported to have been 350,658. This year there was probably an equal amount, and perhaps more. Averaging the bales at 450 pounds each, which is a low average, and the average price of the cotton at ten cents, which is also too low, then the sum received, or which can he received for the cotton crop, amounts to $15,779,610, which is a snug sum for the farmers of the State. If they raise their own bacon and breadstuff, and make their own butter, and most of them do, then, as a class, they are doing well, and better probably than any other class in the State. True, the State