of garbanzos planted has been as high as 375 sacks selling at from $5 to $7.50 per sack in U. S. currency, or a gross return of about two thousand dollars per acre. The facts seem to be that the average rate of yield is about 150 to 1, and that the average market price is somewhere near $5 per sack in gold. The Mayo is a very beautiful river, its waters clear and pure, and its little valley possesses some of the richest lands to be found. It is yet awaiting the influx of energy and capital, which cannot now be long delayed. From Navajoa, our journey takes us tober when, at San Blas, it measured 2160 feet in width and averaged 34 feet in depth, its current perhaps three and onehalf miles an hour. It is at this point that one first begins to get a faint idea of the great future awaiting this new empire on the west coast of Mexico. Leave the train at the station and ascend the hill nearby, and let us take our first look at northern Sinaloa and see for ourselves this magnificent panorama of the beautiful Fuerte valley. We ascend by a rugged and thorny path, and find ourselves at an elevation of about 500 feet, which gives a commanding view Everywhere one meets with the picturesque. The above scene represents wash-day in the Rio Praxtla almost due south some four hours' ride to the station of San Blas on the great Fuerte river, at which point the Southern Pacific Railroad intersects the line of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad (Stilwell Road.) This is the first real view of Sinaloa's greatest river, with its sources in the Sierras 350 miles east at altitudes of nearly ten thousand feet. The writer has seen the Fuerte River in the month of Oc of the country for fifty miles in any direction. Turning to the east, we see a series of foothills, covered with grass and brush gently undulating away as far as the eye can reach and merging mistily into mountain ranges and peaks. Turning slowly toward the north, our vision sweeps over ranges of distant mountains, down over the higher foothills to the undulating lower foothills through which the Southern Pacific Railroad winds its way to Fermenting the crushed mescal roots in the sun. Picturesque scene at Zaragosa Drying fibre on the wire lines in the sun. This is the cheapest curing process possible, requiring three to four hours' time and no machinery or plant. There is practically no cost in the curing of fibre Cattle feeding on the pulp of the fibre plant, left over after the stripping of the fibre leaf. One acre of fibre plants produces 15 tons of pulp, a fine cattle food, every year, on which to fatten ward San Blas from Navajoa.. So far the scene has not appealed very much save to the esthetic sense. One realizes that out over yonder lie fine forests of pine and oak and valuable hardwoods; mines of copper, silver and gold; deposits of lime, magnesite and other mineral values, and great stretches of excellent grazing lands, with occasional valleys of good agricultural lands, and also good fibre lands, but there is nothing to rouse special interest or enthusiasm. But let us keep on looking, turning constantly to our left and cattle westward. As our eye turns toward the Gulf of California, we see the glint of the waters of the Bay of Agiabampo, sixty miles to the north, and the eye rests on level coastal plains and beautiful fields. Nearer by, a few scattered chains of hills meet the eye, but they are not appreciable in the vast extent of level plain. Turning almost due west, we follow the windings of the great Fuerte river on its passage to the sea, and our eye is caught by the beautiful green of the delta lands lying between the two mouths of the river. Primitive in many directions, yet good roads abound. This photograph shows a ranch head quarters on Tavay, the main stage road junction Finally we turn almost due southwest, and then for the first time we get the full view of the great fan-like expanse of beautiful coastal plain lying on the south side of the Fuerte river, and extending 50 or 60 miles south to the Sinaloa river. We glance down at the lordly Fuerte river at our feet, and then out over the flat, level plain commencing within a stone's throw from us, and paint in our mind's eye the picture of the day when this magnificent river shall be diverted at San Blas and flow over this vast expanse of rich lands, a million or more acres in extent, and bless the settlers with its abundance. It seems to the looker-on as though this had been created by nature to order for man. The soil, water, topography, climate, harbor, the two trunk railroad lines, nothing is lacking. It needs not the eye of prophecy to foretell the future of this wonderful valley of the Fuerte. Given the factors of rich soil capable of growing almost all the crops of the temperate and semitropic zones, a million acres of level lands that look almost as though they had been graded by hand from the foothills to the sea, a large and inexhaustible river flowing into this plain from the mountains ready to be delivered right on the land, a fine deep water harbor, two main lines of railroads connecting directly with the United States, an equable climate, sound conditions of Government under which to live, and a strong and ever-eager market where good prices prevail. Two and two make four in mathematics, always has and always will. The problem here is as simple of solution. Nothing can stay development. It is inevitable. The only question involved is: "Who is going to get the immeasurable increase in values, the added wealth water will bring? Who is going to reap the millions? |