Jay Wilbur and wife of the San Luis Potosi district of Old Mexico, visited Mr. Wilbur's brothers, Fred and Leon Wilbur in Tonkawa this week. They left Mexico only recently to visit their relatives and started Wednesday on their return trip. They left their children, who are grown men and women, in charge of the ranch, and while there is some sign of the rebellion in their neighborhood, they do not feel there is any real danger to non-combatants.

During President Taft's administration all American residents of Mexico were asked to make three copies of an invoice of their property, one copy to be filed with the State Department at Washington, one with the ambassador at Mexico City and one with the United States consul at Tampico. In case of any damage by reason of the insurrection, they will be reimbursed.

Mr. Wilbur went to Old Mexico eleven years ago, as an expert gardner for a Chicago firm of land bonders in the San Luis Potosi district. He bought land there, and moved his family to that country. Five years ago he came back here at the time of the death of his father, and that was his last visit to the United States until this visit.

His land his located 100 miles west of Tampico, on the El Salto River. This river has magnificent falls near Mr. Wilbur's land, and an American firm has received concessions from the Mexican government to utilize these falls to generate electricity for power. Electric tramways are being promoted and sugar refineries capitalized to use this cheap power. Fred Wilbur also owns land near these falls.

Mr. Wilbur raises a diversity of crops on his land. He raises sugar cane, corn, tomatoes, beans and bananas. He plants his corn in May and sets the tomatoes between the rows in September. He cuts the corn in October and November. The crop of tomatoes is gathered in January, February and March. The yield is from 300 to 400 bushels to the acre for which the contract price is $1.15 per bushel, delivered at the station. The boxes are furnished by the shipper. Mr. Wilbur planted 4 acres to string beans last season, and 60 days after planting he picked and marketed $1,636 (Mex.) worth of beans. All the labor is done by peons, who receive 62-1/2 cents (Mex.) a day, of 8 hours in the forenoon and 8 hours in the afternoon and board themselves.

The sugar cane does not have to be planted each year, but shoots up from the roots. It is the same with bananas. The plant resembles a canan, only larger. Of course the plants must be cultivated and kept free from weeds in order to insure a good crop. A plant will shoot up and bear a bunch of bananas, followed by another, and another in succession, until there are several in course of development from the same bulb.

The Americans are not liked by the natives, but there is an under-current that is growing for a more stable government. This dare not be expressed, for fear it might be construed that annexation to the United States is desired. The peons, who are the greatest sufferers from the present condition of affairs, are the bitterest against the Americans. They are kept in ignorance and poverty. There are no such things as free schools, and very few of the poorer class can read and write.

The wealthy merchants would like to have the United States government take charge of Mexico, but they dare not say so out loud. It is being whispered among them that they are ready for annexation. But the politicians have such influence over the peons, who have a vote, and also no aversion to sticking a knife into a person's back, that it is not safe to give utterance to such sentiments.

While the taxes are low, they are burdensome as nothing is given in return from them. The country is without roads or bridges except those which are built by private subscriptions. The taxes go to pay the officers.

Mr. Wilbur made the statement, on the street while here, that sugar cane is raised on the mountains. Some thought he must be mistaken for they had an idea that it was raised in the swamps. But it is a fact that cane is raised on the mountain sides.The seed is planted by means of running a crowbar into the ground and dropping the seed into the hole left when the bar is removed. Stoddard, the great traveler and lecturer, was also astonished to see farming operations being carried on at such heights. He tells in one of his lectures of his first sight of one of these elevated farms.

" 'What is that,' I presently inquired, turning my field glasses toward a mountain summit far above us. 'Can a farm be located at such a height?'

" 'Yes,' said our guide, 'it is a corn plantation, and a good one, too.'

" 'But how can it be cultivated?'

"'Well,' said the man with a twinkle in his eye, 'no one can really climb there to work it; but the owner plants it from a distance by firing the seed from a shotgun; and, when the corn ripens in the fall, he harvests the corn with a rifle. You see, the bullets cut the stalks, and, naturally, the ears of corn at once fall down the perpendicular cliffs.' "