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The Upper Rio Grande provides some of the most ethnically distinctive scenes in American life. This long-lot surveyed section of the Rio Grande, between Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, is a classic example. The lots are surveyed perpendicular to the Rio Grande River, to maximize the number of people who will have access to the water. Their orchards are then stratified according to crops that need much water (planted near the river) to crops that require only occasional irrigation (when the whole field would be flooded). As a form of agriculture and economy, it makes vastly more sense than the systems of township and range surveying that were imposed by the United States government on much of the West.
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