The state of New Mexico has a Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum out by the university district, east side of the city. You can get to it easily from the Las Cruces-El Paso highway. The state funds the museum and it is manned by volunteers, with very few paid employees working there. They have displays from all the way back to the early original native Indian inhabitants plus the later settlers (ranchers mostly). They now raise a lot of crop varieties here and pecan trees are everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cattle they have here are actually a cross between the Aberdeen Angus from Scotland and the Brahmin from India. It seems that the cross breed is perfectly suited to the climatic conditions here and does very well on the scrub grazing available. They also raise a lot of cattle that originated from the Texas Longhorn of the mid 1800's. There are a few of the originals in residence at the museum here, and "longhorn" is a very appropriate name for them. This one is small by most standards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was John Deere's 164th (?) anniversary of fabricating farm equipment when we visited here and they had a fairly sizeable display of various models of ploughs and harvesters to look at. Interesting to say the least. 

For more photos please see  http://globalodyssey.ca/p243633975