Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

A COTTON FACTORY. 265
The soil though dry, is generous, and by the simple application of water is made productive. Irrigation therefore, is
extensively practiced on those elevated and thirsty plateaus.
In the neighborhood in which we encamped, were numerous
canals, which, gathering water from the only stream in that
part of the country, assisted in fertilizing many a broad acre
of the parching plains. As the soil would be utterly worthless for agricultural purposes without the application of water,
the poor husbancldmen are compelled to pay high rents to the
proprietors of the canals as well as to the landlords. We
were informed that two crops were gathered from the same
land every twelve months, as in the tierra caliente; but here
one of them was a crop of small grain. Wheat sowed in
November, is ready for the sickle in April; and corn is
planted immediately after the wheat harvest.
Soon after encamping, we observed that the inhabitants
of some rcane7os not far off, alarmed at the vicinity of
the dreaded voluntactios, were preparing to abandon their
homes. To these we immediately sent assurances of good
treatment, and offered a guard for their property if desired.
This tranquilized them, and they were soon induced to enter
our lines; bringing chickens, eggs, and what was most
acceptable, some dried fruit. Some of them were intelligent
people, and conversed freely about their government, with
which they expressed much discontent.
Between our camp and Saltillo, and located upon the
stream before mentioned, was a cotton factory; the only
establishment of the kind, I believe, in Northern Mexico.
Indeed, notwithstanding the adaptation of large tracts of