vated land in the valley during ten years of revolution, in the face of an ever-increasing deficit. Its plans call for the ultimate construction of a reservoir to hold 1,840,000 acre feet of water and the expenditure of between $10,000,000 and $12,000,000. Nearly a million acres of hitherto untilled land will become as productive as any section of Mexico if these plans are carried The success of the enterprise, however, is contingent upon long continued peace and a permanent adjustment of the company's difficulties with the government.

One of the most successful irrigation projects, but one equally distinguished for its unique good fortune, is to be found in the northern district of Lower California. Here, thanks to the construction by American capital of the Imperial Valley canal, which runs part of the way through Mexican territory, some 200,000 acres of Mexican lands, formerly desert or overflow river bottom, receive 50 per cent of the water carried by the canal and the region has become one of the two chief cotton sections in the republic.

Despite the irrigation projects which have been mentioned, and a few other successful enterprises that might be added, the fact remains that Mexican agriculture still depends almost entirely upon the primitive irrigation methods practiced by native farmers, or upon a variable and disappointing rainfall, or in the case of favorably located bottom lands, upon uncertain seasonal floods for its success.

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Other Hindrances: Another retarding influence is the native method of farming. The typical Mexican small farmer still plows with a crooked stick or a one-handled plow drawn by oxen. A piece of brush serves as a cultivator, if indeed any attempt at cultivation is made. The grain crops are harvested with sickles, threshed on a smooth earth or stone floor, either by flails or the tramp of livestock, and winnowed by the wind." Even the large hacendados were formerly not much more progressive, in many sections, than the small peon farmer. Of late years, however, there has been some improvement in this regard, and the use of modern farm machinery--harvesters, mowers, tractors, and the like is becoming somewhat more common. The government has also sought to advance agriculture by the establishment of experiment stations and agricultural schools, and by the sale of agricultural machinery at cost to the farmers.

While official encouragement has thus been given-or at least announced-the repressive measures of the government have seriously retarded the industry. The practice of changing export and import duties by presidential decree has not tended in times past to create a spirit of confidence among Mexican farmers.1 Taxes and official graft in innumerable forms have also discour

1 For instance a decree of June 7 1921, prohibited the export of rice, oats, cocoa, rye, beans, and various other farm products because of a shortage of these commodities in Mexico.

aged investment. More than all else, revolution and banditry, with the inevitable destruction and seizure of crops, the confiscation of cattle, and the disruption of freight service, have worked a long continued hardship upon the agricultural industry.

Lack of markets and a proper marketing system and the inadequacy of transportation have also served as deterrent factors of the first magnitude. With it all, there is the peculiar psychology of the great mass of Mexican farmers who are content to raise only enough for their own limited needs, finding no incentive in the profit to be derived from more intelligent care and harder work. Coupled with this has been the attitude of the larger landholders, or hacendados, who cultivated only limited areas of their vast holdings and refused to dispose of the remainder.

The effect of these adverse influences-lack of rainfall, scarcity of capital, political hindrances, inadequate transportation and markets, primitive and unscientific methods of agricul ture, and the Mexican temperament-has aptly been summed up by Dr. T. M. Macklin in his report to the Doheny Foundation, as follows:

"Mexico embraces 490,838,647 acres. The total area under cultivation is 30,039,618 acres, or 6.12 per cent. Lands cultivated under rainfall conditions amount to 26,207,000 acres or 5.33 per cent. Lands farmed under irrigation comprise 3,832,471 acres or .79 per cent. Pastoral lands include 120,493,000 acres or 24.54 per cent of the total area. Forest lands equal 43,950,973 acres or 8.95 per cent. Of the remaining area perhaps 25 per cent can ultimately be cultivated under improved methods of dry farming and by the construction of irrigation works.

"From the figures available, it appears probable that not one-third of the best rainfall lands of Mexico are now utilized for cultivation and that not over one-twelfth of the irrigable area is now under irrigated farming. Virtually none of the 200,000,000 acres of land suitable for dry farming are utilized. When one considers the primitive character of the methods used in farming over the greater part of Mexico, it is not an exaggeration to conclude that from the standpoint of land resources Mexican agriculture has not developed 10 per cent of its possibilities.''

Under conditions of peace and with sympathetic cooperation between the foreigner and the Mexican government, the development of these latent agricultural resources offers a field of infinite possibilities to the American pioneer, whether capitalist or colonist.

LAND TITLES

The following extract on Farming in Mexico by William F. Vail, Director of Service of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico, in the journal of that organization for April, 1921, gives an excellent summary of the question of land titles in Mexico:

"Titles are as safe in Mexico as in the United States, if they are safe. That is, there are good and bad titles here as elsewhere and ordinary prudence and legal advice is necessary in making a real estate transaction.

Transfers are made under the old Spanish notarial system, slow, tedious and voluminous at times, but very exacting and safe. If the consideration is over fifty dollars, the deed must be executed in Spanish before a notary, who signs the same with two witnesses together with the grantor and grantee. All deeds must be recorded with the Public Registry of the district and state wherein the lands is located. Parties unable to appear in person before the notary may give a special power of attorney and the true consideration must be stated. The notary may not proceed with the execution of a deed until he has searched the records for twenty years. If the buyer is disposed to pay the costs he may cause the registries to be searched back to the primordial titles. Briefly, anyone getting a bad title in Mexico has himself to blame.

"Lands can be had from the Mexican government, but as a rule better lands and cheaper can be had from private owners. The government lands have been picked over for generations and even centuries and any good agricultural lands left in the hands of the government might be considered an oversight. Any reputable attorney can advise the procedure for securing government lands."

AUTHORITIES CONSULTED

The material used in the preparation of this report came largely from the files of the Doheny Foundation. The Report of Dr. T. M. Macklin was especially useful and from it came many of the tables here reproduced.

MINING

I. COLONIAL PERIOD

Place of the Industry: During the three hundred years of Spanish rule, the economic life of Mexico centered around the mining industry. Silver deposits were first discovered at Tasco, in what is now the state of Guerrero, in the year 1525. From that time forward the production of silver, with a slight development of gold placers, became the chief business of the Spanish conquerors. The latter, indeed, were indefatigable miners as well as soldiers, so that the history of the conquest became largely a history of the discovery and exploitation of mineral deposits.

When a new district was opened, a great rush took place similar to the Klondike and Goldfield stampedes of our own time; and where the deposits justified, thriving and permanent settlements were established, many of which to this day are still the chief centers of mining activity throughout the country. Indeed, one can scarcely find a city of any significance in Mexico, outside of the capital and a few seacoast ports, that was not founded as the result of a mining boom, perhaps three or four centuries ago, and that does not owe its continuance to the same inexhaustible ore deposits which gave it birth. Such was the origin of Zacatecas, Pachuca, San Luis Potosí, Parral, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Monterrey, and of a score of other cities that occupy the chief place in modern Mexican life.

But the mineral wealth of New Spain not only served to stimulate exploration and settlement; it also supplied the incentive for nearly all other forms of colonial activity. The crown, by various forms of taxes, derived the larger share of its Mexican revenue from the industry. The ranchers and hacendados relied largely upon the mining communities to furnish a market. for their products. The church depended upon tithes and contributions from those engaged in the industry for the erection. of its finest cathedrals and for many special endowments. Merchants, both in Spain and Mexico, looked to the mines as the chief outlet for goods and supplies. A very large share of the country's laboring population found employment in the industry, either in the varied activities of the mines proper or in the reduction works. The mine proprietors constituted the wealthiest class of colonial times and from among them the king created a number of Mexico's most distinguished families.

Mining Code: Because of the importance of the industry and the revenue derived from it directly or indirectly by the crown, an elaborate and in many respects very admirable code of laws regulated its affairs to the most minute detail. This code, which

The substance of certain portions of this article have been published in various numbers of the Mining and Scientifle Press, San Francisco, California.

in fact furnishes the basis of Mexican mining law today, consisted in colonial times of five parts, as follows:

The mining ordinances in effect in Spain prior to 1584.

The Code of Philip II, promulgated in the colonies in 1584. 3. Royal decrees of various dates, generally dealing with specific and sometimes purely local matters.

4. Regulations of individual colonies or provinces.

5. The systematized and scholarly body of laws issued by Charles III in 1783, commonly called the New Code.

Under the code of 1584, and in all the laws thereafter, deposits of gold or silver, whether located in public or private ground, were declared the property of the crown and thrown open to public denouncement. Anyone, accordingly, could prospect public or private land, without any hindrance or interruption from the owners....or from any other person whomsoever," subject only to the obligation of paying for such damage as his prospecting, or “trial pits," might cause. The process of denouncement was hedged about with certain technicalities which need not detain us here; but it is interesting to note that, under colonial law, a concession to the claim was not issued until the denouncer had sunk a shaft three estados, or approximately twenty feet, in depth. If this were not done within three months, the concession was forfeited and the claim again thrown open to denouncement.

An official inspection had to be made when the shaft was finished. At the conclusion of this examination the inspector stood at the mouth of the shaft and called three times for prior claimants to appear and prove their rights to the property. If none came, the proceedings were closed by throwing a handful of grass or a few stones into the open pit.

The unit of mining concessions was the pertenencia. rectangular in shape and varied in size under the different colonial codes. At all times, however, it was considered indivisible; and as its planes ran vertically, the boundaries of a claim, both above and below ground, were definitely fixed.

The law also contained very specific regulations to prevent the careless or reckless working of mines, and sought especially to minimize damage from flood or caving by detailed provisions for timbering, supporting pillars, and unwatering. It is scarcely to be inferred, however, that these elaborate precautions were always zealously or intelligently enforced by the officials charged with mine inspection.

Another interesting feature of colonial law, which has been abandoned and readopted with modifications more than once in later-day Mexican history, was the requirement that all claims must be worked or else became forfeited to the crown. The code of Philip II provided that four men, at least, must be kept employed on each pertenencia and that failure to comply with this requirement for a period of four successive months destroyed