Mexico or any other country, the highest progress and prosperity can never be attained. To pass laws forbidding land to be held except in small parcels would doubtless be an arbitrary measure, which would meet with the violent opposition of a wealthy class, and probably be found impracticable. It would be a step too far in advance of the other highly respected civilizations, such as England and the United States, to meet with general favor. But the Mexican government can and ought to discourage future sales or grants of land to any but occupants, and such conveyances should be limited to the transferrence of ground in small lots.
One cannot rightly judge of Mexico by seeing certain localities only. Never was a country so widely different in different parts, not only in its construction by nature, but in its development by man. With so many varieties of soil and climate, local specialties are broadly marked. In one district the cultivation of corn predominates, in another that of pulque, and in another barley, which in the cities is the principal fodder for horses and cattle. The crops in certain localities are more dependent upon irrigation than the rainfall, the wet season on the table-lands north of the 20th parallel being of short duration, and periods of drought not unfrequently occurring.[1] Want of water, indeed, is the great drawback to agriculture on the table-lands; so fertile is the soil that production would be almost unlimited if systems of irrigation were established by means of artesian wells, and by damming up the barrancas of the sierras where suitably situated for the storage of water-supplies.[2] Neverthe-
- ↑ On the table-lands the rainy season lasts about four months, while in the southern states the rains fall during six and even seven consecutive months. In the tierra caliente, no meteorological law of regularity seems to rule, and heavy showers will fall at any time during the dry season which prevails elsewhere.
- ↑ Two crops of wheat and maize are grown annually on those portions of the central plateau where water can be obtained for irrigating purposes. More than half the surface of the country requires irrigation for the success of agriculture, and during the Aztec empire irrigating ditches were extensively used. Between Lerdo and Chihuahua water is reached at a depth of
