Today Arizona and New Mexico are the extreme frontier of the Republic. There has been only a limited development of the farming possibilities of the two Territories. because the sparse population. depending upon mining and cattle grazing. the first industries of a new country. has had little incentive to agricultural development. settlers have not been attracted there while there remained nearer to the older States of the Union the illimitable. fertile plains of the Mississippi Valley. Those lands having been largely settled and developed. the tide of immigration. the flood of homeseekers. must in the very near future spread over these Territories and develop their agricultural. as well as their mineral. resources. The growth and development of an irrigated agricultural region is always necessarily slow. tedious. and laborious. but once the costly works necessary to bring the water within reach of the arid soil have been constructed the tendency is to a constant subdivision of the lands Into small areas and the growth of only the more valuable crops. producing larger returns per acre and supporting dense populations. That Arizona Is not the hopeless and arid wilderness that it has been pictured to be by the gentlemen who are insisting upon the jointure of these two Territories is eloquently proclaimed by the fact that she has vast areas of timber lands practically untouched.
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immigration