THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 A. SKRIES OF 
 
 INTERESTING LETTERS 
 
 By WALTER 3* STEVENS, 
 
 SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE 
 
 ST. LOUIS GLOBE-DEMOCRAT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 1892. 
 
, a, n ?>C INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following letters appeared in the St. Louis Globe- Democrat 
 during the fall of' 1892. Mr. Walter B. Stevens, the Globe's 
 special correspondent, is one of the most acute observers and 
 interesting writers on western life and progress, and this series 
 of interesting letters, "Through Texas," has attracted widespread 
 attention, and has been read with pleasure and profit by thousands. 
 They present a graphic picture of Texas, its social and industrial 
 life blended into charming narrative. 
 
 There is no exaggeration of the State's resources; the letters 
 were not written to boom Texas; only for the information of. a large 
 and interested circle of readers. However, they may be made to 
 answer a double purpose, and those contemplating a change of 
 location, or desiring to settle in a new and growing country, will 
 find the facts on the resources of Texas, with which they are filled, 
 of great value. 
 
 With this object in view, the General Passenger Department of 
 
 Missouri Pacific Railway and Iron Mountain Route has had 
 them compiled and printed in this convenient form for distri- 
 bution, in order to meet the wide demand for them from all parts 
 of the country. Their reliability renders them indispensable to the 
 home-seekers, and makes them a valuable hand-book on Texas for 
 some time to come. 
 
 Additional copies can be obtained from the company's agents, 
 or by addressing 
 
 H. C. TOWNSEND, 
 General Passenger and Ticket Agent, ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 
oft Ubrazy 
 
 '. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 A SERIES OF INTERESTING LETTERS 
 
 FROM THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE 
 
 ST. Louis GLOBE-DEMOCRAT. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 A Story of Development from $4 an 
 Acre to $400,000 a Ranch. 
 
 The Profits of Horse Breeding A Bunch 
 
 of Galloways Coach and Percheron 
 
 Cyclone Cellar Building The 
 
 Funniest Thing in the State. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe- Democrat. 
 
 ANBOBN RANCH, TEXAS, 
 July 23. Henry B.Sanborn, 
 New Yorker, came to 
 Texas in 1875 to introduce 
 a certain manufacture of 
 barbed wire. Not long 
 after his arrival he bought 
 a piece of land in Grayson 
 
 ,j 4 . n rn-m +y The price was $4 
 
 an acre. Later on Mr. Sanborn bought other 
 pieces. He fenced them and put on stock. All 
 of this time he was carrying on his wire 
 
 agency and attending to his regular business 
 at Houston, hundreds of miles south. The 
 ranch was his recreation. It grew until in one 
 compact body there were 10,300 acres. Select- 
 ing the branches of breeding which interested 
 him most, Mr. Sanborn gradually improved 
 his stock until his coach and draft horses and 
 his thoroughbred bulls were known to all 
 Texas. This Sanborn ranch, developed from 
 a small beginning in the way described, has 
 just passed into the possession of a stock 
 company. The accepted valuation put upon 
 the property is $400,000. This is $25 an acre, or 
 $260,000 for the land and $140,000 for the stock. 
 The purchasers are Shannon C.Douglass,Judge 
 Charles L. Dobson and other Missourians. 
 Mr. Sanborn retains an interest and agrees to 
 give the ranch his personal attention for the 
 present. 
 
 A ranch of 10,300 acres must be traversed 
 to be appreciated. A man on a mowing ma- 
 chine stopped when he came to the end of the 
 half-mile swath to tell the way to the San- 
 born place. 
 
 "This, said he, "is part of it where we're 
 cutting and baling hay . You struck the ranch 
 about a half mile back. If you want to go to 
 
the house, keep right on down the road till 
 you come to a lane on the left. That is about 
 three-quarters of a mile. Turn up the lane 
 and go till you come to a gate on the right. 
 That's about half a mile. Turn in at the gate 
 
 ness. "The books," said he, "show that the 
 sales of stock for the year ending with the 1st 
 of this month amounted to $40,595.65. The 
 sales for the year ending July 1, 1891, 
 were $33,470.42; for the year ending July 1, 
 
 A $400,000 RANCH. 
 
 and follow the road. You'll come to the 
 house in about a mile. ' ' Half an hour after- 
 ward the team, by brisk driving and by per- 
 sistent refusals to let the young driver 
 try his Winchester on all of the turtle 
 doves sitting on telegraph wires, pulled 
 up beside the big white house 
 from the broad porch of which Mr. Sanborn 
 was monarch of all he surveyed until last 
 week he signed the title deeds. It took nearly 
 an hour of good driving to reach the house 
 after the eastern boundary was passed. And 
 the house and outlying farms and stables are 
 about half way on an east and west line across 
 the ranch. Mr. Sanborn can sit on his porch 
 and see the cars cross his line so far away they 
 look like toys. He can see them grow larger 
 until they stop at Sanborn station on his own 
 land. He can follow the long trail of smoke 
 for ten or fifteen minutes before the other 
 boundary is crossed. Then he can go to his 
 back door and just distinguish his own cattle 
 
 THE GALLOWAYS. 
 
 looking about as large as ants three and four 
 miles away in the direction opposite from the 
 railroad. That is what a 10,000- acre ranch 
 means. 
 
 The books of the Sanborn ranch have just 
 been summarized for the benefit of the new 
 ipany. With the figures before him, Mr. 
 Sanborn frankly gave an insight into the busi- 
 
 1890, they were $23,302.96, and for the year 
 ending July 1, 1889, .they were $34,308.26.' ' 
 
 "What does the other side of the balance 
 sheet show, Mr. Sanboru ? ' ' 
 
 "The expenses of operating this place have 
 run from $12,000 to $15,000 a year." 
 
 "How many men do you employ ? ' ' 
 
 "From eight to fifteen.' ' 
 
 The men, Mr. Sanborn explained, were em- 
 ployed chiefly in taking care of the stock. A 
 considerable quantity of hay is cut. On the 
 whole ranch the tilled land is only about 300 
 acres. This land is rented to farmers on 
 shares, one-third of the crop being taken for 
 rental. 
 
 "That rented ground, taking one year with 
 another," Mr. Sanborn said, "has paid 10 per 
 cent and over on a valuation of $25 an acre." 
 
 Last year his share of the crop on this rented 
 land yielded him about $4 an acre. At a time 
 when there is so much talk about "per capita," 
 farm mortgages, corn burning and that range 
 of themes, the figures from Mr. Sanborn's 
 books are very interesting. 
 
 In the way of "cow stock," the pride of the 
 Sanborn ranch is a herd of pure bred Gallo- 
 ways. Short legged, long haired, black as the 
 waxy soil after a wetting, hornless, shaggy- 
 headed, the Galloways make a striking picture 
 on the pasture scape when the grass is turning 
 brown. They feed close together and they 
 keep moving. Their restless energy is one 
 thing that strongly commends them here. 
 The Texas cattlemen want a brute that will 
 rustle for its living when the grass is short 
 and the northers come. 
 
 "The Shorthorn," Supt. Shero said, "will 
 get discouraged when the season is ba*d. He 
 must be helped out with a little feed. The 
 Hereford will hump up and lose flesh when 
 the cold strikes him. But the Galloway will 
 keep going and hunting something to eat. 
 After a hard season the weaker of these herds 
 will get down in the mud sometimes, and 
 
-ft 
 
 won't have ambition enough to get up again 
 without help. You never see a Galloway get 
 in that fix; he is always able to take care, of 
 himself. That is one of the big points in his 
 favor for Texas." . 
 
 On the Sanborn ranch black cattle are not 
 raised for beef. The strain is too fine and 
 expensive. Thoroughbred Galloways are 
 grown and sold to head the. herds of Short- 
 horn and Herefords on other ranches. The 
 cross gives the breed which finds its way into 
 market. It produces an animal with finer 
 hair, longer legs and greater weight than the 
 Galloway, but the strength of the strain shows 
 itself in the black hide and the hornless head. 
 
 The short legs and big bodies make the 
 Galloway the most deceptive looking of "cow 
 brutes." On the Sanborn place it is very 
 easy to get a bet on the weight of a given 
 Galloway, and it is easier to lose it. .Once 
 upon a time Dr. Grant, of Sherman, a man 
 with a fund of information on Texas horses 
 and Texas cattle, encountered the deception. 
 He had a dispute with Mr, Sanborn about the 
 weight of a young Galloway they had been 
 looking at. 
 
 "I'll bet you a hat you can't guess the 
 weight of that brute within 300 pounds,' ' said 
 Mr. Sanborn. 
 
 The Doctor smiled sarcastically, looked the 
 Galloway up and down and from end to end. 
 " Six hundred pounds,' ' he said. 
 
 That evening the bet came up for further 
 discussion at the house. 
 
 THE IMPORTED PERCHERON. 
 
 Supt. Shero, when he heard of it, said to the 
 Doctor: "I'd like to bet a hat that is a bad bet, 
 Doctor." 
 
 Dr. Grant tapped his thinker, and with in- 
 creased sarcasm said: "This head might be 
 found in a Penitentiary, but never in an 
 asylum." 
 
 The boys were told to cut out the particular 
 Galloway, and get him on the scales. He 
 weighed 1130 pounds. Dr. Grant looked at 
 the indicator and then at the brute. "I 
 wouldn't have believed there could have been 
 so much meat in that much hide,' ' he said. 
 
 When the artist caught the Galloways for 
 the illustration they were bunched together 
 so closelv that their sides rubbed. The bunch 
 
 was making the double motion of the funnel- 
 shaped cloud. The individual brutes were 
 moving round and round in a close circle, and 
 the bunch itself was drifting slowly along the 
 wire fence, all grazing. 
 
 "You'll have to get 'em quick," said Mr. 
 Shero from his horse, "or they'll be off," and 
 
 FORGERON. 
 
 so the drifting and at the same time revolving 
 bunch was caught on the double movement, 
 with heads and bodies and tails all mixed up. 
 " That is the way those brutes feed, close to- 
 gether, just as you see 'em," Mr. Shero ex- 
 plained. There is no other cow native on the 
 broad Texas prairies quite like the Galloway. 
 The Polled Angus are somewhat like the Gal- 
 loways in appearance. They are black and 
 hornless, but they have longer legs, finer hair 
 and more range of body. That is where the 
 Durham blood comes in. Mr. Sanborn says 
 the Polled Angus is a breed made originally 
 by crossing the Galloway and the Durham. 
 
 The raising of Galloways is only a side issue. 
 It is as a horse ranch that the Sanborn place 
 has made its fame. Mr. Sanborn has tried 
 several experiments. He indulged in thor- 
 oughbreds for a short time, but discarded 
 them. This Texas climate puts fire into a 
 naturally sluggish strain. It makes of thor- 
 oughbreds an animal which is a holy terror 
 in horse flesh, spirited and excitable almost 
 beyond training. With trotting stock better 
 results have been obtained. " It is as natural,' ' 
 said Mr. Sanborn, with a laugh, " for a horse 
 raiser to drift into trotting stock as it is for a 
 cotton .dealer to get in the way of selling fu- 
 tures, or for a grain buyer to add option 
 trading to his business." And so Mr. 
 Sanborn has drifted into the breeding of trot- 
 ters to the extent of having a $25,000 stallion, 
 Prinmont, at the head of a stable and a lot of 
 youngsters which show better than 2:40 
 without training. But the breeding of trotters 
 is not the legitimate field of the ranch. Coach 
 and draft horses are the two branches to which 
 the most of the land, the most of the attention 
 is devoted. The barns and stables hold the 
 sires of the scores of colts which beside their 
 dams make interesting pasture scenes. 
 
 " This seems to be the natural home of the 
 horse." Mr. Sanborn said. "Horses can 
 
-6- 
 
 stand in Texas what would kill them North. 
 We ride and drive and work horses in this 
 region in a way that would be impossible 
 elsewhere. The climate develops the lung 
 power and staying qualities." 
 
 This remark was fairly well illustrated a few 
 minutes later. Supt. Shero and one of his 
 assistants rode into a big pasture and pro- 
 ceeded to round up a buncli of mares with 
 their coach strain progeny for inspection. A 
 2-months colt in Texas is wilder than an In- 
 
 A TEXAS CYCLONE CELLAR. 
 
 dian. Apparently some of the youngsters 
 took the visit of the superintendent as the 
 suggestion for a frolic. With heads and tails 
 up the colts started and the dams followed 
 with maternal devotion. The sun was blazing 
 down from right overhead. The mercury was 
 away up in the nineties. Across the pasture, 
 a mile wide, up and down and round and 
 round went mares and colts, superintendent 
 and assistant in a mad chase. When, in about 
 fifteen minutes, the drove was corraled where 
 two wire fences angled, there was some puf- 
 fing, a good deal of perspiration, a lost hat, 
 but no suffering. The superintendent treated 
 the chase as quite an every- day affair. A lit- 
 tle later mares were grazing and colts were 
 nipping and kicking at each other as if noth- 
 ing had happened to make them tired. 
 
 The head of Forgeron looks out of his stable 
 window in the initial of the date line of this 
 letter. He is a black French coach stallion, 
 with a pedigree a great deal longer than those 
 which qualify Sons of the American Revolu- 
 tion. Forgeron comes from the home of his 
 ancestors France but he has been in Texas 
 long enough to be naturalized. It is one of 
 the inconsistencies of this natural horse- 
 breeding climate of North Texas that the 
 horses raised here can stand anything, but 
 the horses brought here from the North have 
 to undergo a more or less critical period of 
 change before they become adapted to the 
 conditions here. This lesson of acclimating 
 is what the horse and cattle raisers of Texas 
 paid a big price to learn. The time came when 
 they wanted something better than ponies and 
 long-horns. They did as they usually do in 
 everything. They plunged on fine stock. 
 They bought from the breeders up North fine 
 horses by the car-load, and fine bulls by the 
 
 train-load. They unloaded them in Texas 
 and turned them loose, only to add large items 
 to loss account at end of the year. It was 
 one of many costly experiments which have 
 taught Texas wisdom. After that Texas 
 breeders adopted a different policy. They 
 brought few and the very choicest of animals, 
 some from the North, some from foreign coun- 
 tries. They housed and cared for these 1m- 
 portations carefully. On this basis they built 
 up their own breeding establishments. No 
 Texan now goes North for stallions or bulls 
 except for high-priced individuals with which 
 to infuse new blood on his own breeding 
 ranch. The system has undergone entire 
 change. 
 
 The Percherons are the emphatic features of 
 the Sanborn place. They are strong in num- 
 bers, strong in weight and strong in every 
 way. There is, it seems, a good, profitable 
 demand for good draft horses. 
 
 "Don t you find this general application of 
 electricity to street cars is cutting down the 
 demand for horses and reducing the prices?" 
 
 Mr. Sanborn shook his head and replied: 
 "No; we have seen no effect on the demand 
 for horses from the use of electricity. The 
 horses we breed are taken for express busi- 
 ness, fire departments and heavy work. But, 
 speaking generally, I don't think that horse- 
 raising will be affected seriously by the use 
 of electricity for motive power. If they use 
 electricity for cars, they must have horses to 
 haul the coal to the power house. Where 
 horse power is dispensed with in one place it 
 is called into service in others. The country 
 needs more and more horses." 
 
 THE JENNETS AND THEIR YOUNO. 
 
 Now and then, in Texas, there can still be 
 seen a brand which marks the whole flank or 
 shoulder of a horse. Some of these hiero- 
 glyphics look as if they had been made with a 
 butcher knife while the animal was struggling 
 for liberty. Slashes 18 inches long, with 
 ridges of hair only partially hiding the scar, 
 tell bow things were done at one time. On the 
 Sanborn ranch the branding is reduced to the 
 briefest possible record. It is also made a 
 part of the pedigree system. To find names 
 for colts coming by the hundreds every year 
 would be too great a tax on ingenuity. The 
 youngsters are numbered as they come. The 
 numbers, in as small figures as can be distin- 
 guished, are branded upon the shoulder. The 
 
-7- 
 
 colts are recorded by the same numbers in the 
 pedigree book. Among so many it is impos- 
 sible to distinguish in the usual way, by colors 
 and marks. And so the entry is limited to 
 "Colt, No. blank; dam, No. blank." This is 
 brevity. The brand on the shoulder identifies 
 the colt with the corresponding number in the 
 record book. The number of the dam affords 
 the means of tracing back the pedigree on 
 that side. It is all very simple. "No. 1076, 
 got by 65, dam 107," for instance, tells the 
 story. If anybody wants to know more, he 
 turns to No. 76 and No. 107 in the record and 
 thus traces back to the beginning. Pedigree- 
 keeping of late years has grown into cumber- 
 some proportions in the live- stock business. 
 By a combination of pedigree and brand, Mr. 
 Sanborn has got rid of about nine-tenths of 
 the labor. He has developed a system which 
 meets all of the practical purposes of pedi- 
 grees. For accuracy the small brand beats 
 the description by natural marks all to pieces. 
 "We have about everything in our favor in 
 North Texas for horse breeding," Mr. San- 
 born said in the course of a conversation on 
 the business. "Our climate, water and grass 
 are all right. Our chief concern in breeding 
 
 RANCH PETS THE CHINA GEESE. 
 
 here is in regard to temper. We study that 
 with a good deal of care. Much in the way of 
 results depends upon that. By having regard 
 to temper in breeding we find we can greatly 
 reduce tho work of breeding and training. We 
 can add to the value of a horse by increasing 
 his amiability. On this place we have been 
 making a study of this feature of breeding, 
 and in our crossing keep it in view as one of 
 the most important conditions. We find that 
 by this study and practice we can obtain con- 
 trol of the question of temper and make a 
 horse of just about the temper we want. I 
 
 regard this as one of the chief considerations 
 in horse breeding. Yet it is often overlooked. 
 The horsemen will often have in view various 
 other points and combinations in dam and 
 sire, but he will ignore the question of temper. 
 Here we have enough sires to choose from, 
 and can pick to produce good temper." 
 
 There are two curiosities on the Sanborn 
 ranch, one living, the other inanimate. In 
 his rambles the superintendent, Mr. Shero, 
 once discovered a pair of China geese. He 
 brought them to Sanborn, and they have the 
 
 WAITING TO BE LAUGHED AT. 
 
 run of the barn yards, beating watch dogs out 
 of sight, the superintendent says. The China 
 gander, unlike his American cousin, doesn't 
 eat. He has an enormous nose, a double beak 
 as it were, and a great head. He carries that 
 head as high as a very long and a very 
 straight neck will let him. Whenever he sees 
 anybody who is strange or anything which is 
 unusual, he sounds a screeching note of 
 alarm. Geese saved Rome, or some other 
 ancient city, according to history. The San- 
 born geese look to be capable of betraying 
 horse-thieves, if they ever have the oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 John Howard, speaking of and for Texas, 
 once proclaimed that there wasn't a cyclone 
 cellar in the State. John Howard isn't often 
 inaccurate, but in this instance he had over- 
 looked the wonderful piece of architecture at 
 Sanborn. 
 
 The United States weather service 
 has recently determined, by an elaborate cal- 
 culation, that Texas, of all of the Western 
 States, has the smallest percentage of cy- 
 clones. In fact the percentage is so small that 
 Gen. Greeley recently stated in an address to 
 a scientific society in Washington that Texas 
 might almost be said to be free from these ter- 
 rible visitations. Notwithstanding this scien- 
 tific fact, Texas people at one time had some- 
 thing of a scare about cyclones. Looking out 
 upon the limitless prairies, people said to 
 themselves, after reading of disasters out- 
 side of their borders: "Well, we'll 
 catch it next. If Kansas and Mis- 
 souri and Iowa and Nebraska have 
 cyclones, we may as well expect them. " Com- 
 ing from the East, Mr. Sanborn had the East- 
 ern idea of the universality of cyclone dan- 
 gers in the West. When he laid out the ranch, 
 
he didn't stop until he had built a cyclone 
 cellar that is a corker. The cellar is about 
 half above and half under ground. It has an 
 arched roof, and the material is of masonry 
 braced with iron rods an inch and more in 
 thickness. The walls and arch are of 18 inches 
 of solid masonry. The outer surface is plas- 
 tered with cement. After waiting- for a rea- 
 sonable time to see a cyclone wear itself out 
 on the massive, tomb-like structure, Mr. San- 
 born turned the cellar into a dairy house, and 
 it makes a very good one. 
 
 The China geese and the cyclone cellar are 
 curiosities. But they are not the most 
 humorous things on the ranch. That dis- 
 tinction belongs to the jackasses. Texas is a 
 wide state and she has room for many things 
 that are comical. But there is nothing fun- 
 nier than a big group of jacks or jennets and 
 their offspring. Two or three of the big 
 pastures of the Sanborn ranch are given up to 
 these useful but not beautiful animals. Long 
 ears are not an indication of stupidity. They 
 are the badge of patience. They go with a 
 deep and all-pervading spirit of investigation. 
 
 To stop in the vicinity of these animals is to 
 offer an opportunity for better acquaintance. 
 
 They cease grazing, big and little come for- 
 ward to within easy speaking distance, as- 
 sume a stare of patient interrogation, and 
 wait to be laughed at loud and long. The off- 
 spring of jack and jennet seems to come into 
 the world full-grown as to ears, half-grown as 
 to legs and about one-eighth grown as to 
 body. The result is an exaggeration of the 
 grown up oddity. The expression on the 
 countenance is a combination of intelligence, 
 innocence and inquiry, with a suggestion of a 
 considerable capacity for devilment. 
 
 W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 Two Pioneering- Phases of the Great 
 Cotton Problem. 
 
 The Sherman Experiment tips and 
 Downs of Oil Making -The Largest 
 Cotton-Seed Mill in the World- 
 Southern Bags for North- 
 ern Grain. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 SHERMAN, TEX., July 24. There was a time 
 when Texas did not encourage manufactur- 
 ing. Two Ohio men who came down to fur- 
 nish the skill for a new enterprise were hung 
 for their hardihood. That was the Tellico 
 incident. Some of the leading citizens of Cen- 
 tral Texas got together and agreed that Tex^s 
 
 should make her own lumber, grind her own 
 flour and spin her own cotton. They selected 
 Tellico for the location of lumber, flour and 
 cotton manufacturing. They deputized the 
 Hon. Thomas W. McRae to go North and buy 
 the equipment. They contracted with the 
 Ohio men to come down and set the mills go- 
 ing. Mr. McRae started North with the money 
 to buy saws, stones and spindles. On 
 the way he met the eminent statesman of 
 that day, Robert Tombs. Mr. Tombs per- 
 suaded McRae that wild land in North Texas 
 was a better thing than cotton manufactur- 
 ing. Mr. McRae invested in 200,000 acres 
 of land instead of in looms. The Ohio men 
 came down according to contract and went 
 to Tellico to set up the mills. There were 
 no mills to set up. Without waiting to inves- 
 tigate the stories these men told, a mass 
 meeting of Texans decided that the strangers 
 must be abolitionists and hung them. After 
 life was extinct papers arrived from the capi- 
 talists who had planned the mills showing the 
 arrangement under which the men had come. 
 Only one of the promoters of the Tellico man- 
 ufacturing scheme, Judge A. B. Norton, of 
 Dallas, is still living. There are many Tex- 
 ans, not old men, either, who remember very 
 well the unfortunate mistake that was made 
 in the reception of the skilled labor from Ohio. 
 
 Things have changed since then. The man 
 who will come to Texas now and start a new 
 industry will get backing and a banquet in- 
 stead of a rope with a slip-knot. At Sherman 
 the people are a little prouder to-day of a six 
 months' manufacturing experiment than of 
 any other one thing within their community. 
 The experiment is in the manufacture of 
 seamless bags. Raw cotton at the rate of five 
 bales a day is taken from the farmers' wagons 
 at one end of the factory. Finished bags at 
 the rate of 3000 a day are shipped out at the 
 other end. Sherman put $1CO,000 into this 
 experiment. Supt. Jaques is an Englishman. 
 Asst. Supt. Fairbanks is a Northern man. 
 A fine brick building, with room for double 
 the present capacity of looms, was erected in 
 the outskirts of the city. It is one- story, with 
 great windows letting in all the light and air 
 there is. It stands in the midst of an orchard. 
 Provision is made for pumping in cold air in 
 summer and warm air in winter. The very 
 latest machinery and contrivances, such as 
 automatic feeders for the furnaces and a su- 
 perb electric light plant, are included in the 
 equipment. Labor is saved at every turn. In 
 the cotton room, where the raw material is 
 received, a picking and breaking machine re- 
 duces the staple to sheets. Then comes the 
 carding engine, with its myriads of little 
 teeth, straightening out the fiber. Six rolls 
 pass into one, and are mixed and long drawn 
 out. Next comes a twisting together of 
 strands and more drawing out to get the fiber 
 
so distributed that its greatest strength may 
 be obtained. Again and again the strands 
 are mingled and twisted and drawn 
 out until the string which comes from the 
 last mixing represents a portion of each of 
 seventy-two rolls. The next step is the spin- 
 ning. Three rolls of the string are strung into 
 warp yarn at the rate of 7% inches of yarn for 
 each inch of the rolls. And now come the 
 looms. By a peculiar double up-and-down 
 movement of the loom, the long seamless bag 
 gradually evolves from the mingling of the 
 countless threads and the flying shuttle 
 when the desired length is reached the shuttle 
 is stopped for a few movements of the loom 
 and then another bag with seamless bottom 
 and seamless sides is begun. The bag comes 
 from the loom completed, with the exception 
 of the turning down of the top edge and a 
 seam by machine to prevent raveling. 
 
 space and power to the manufacture of coarse 
 cotton cloth. Only 10, 11 and 12 per cent of 
 the weight of the raw cotton is lost in the pro- 
 cess of manufacture, even counting the bale 
 bagging and ties. Cotton costs at the factory 
 5c and 5%c in these ruinous days. At present 
 prices the thirty bales of bags a day pay a fair 
 return on the investment. But the Sherman 
 people have discovered that the addition of 
 100 wage-earners to their population of con- 
 sumers is a good thing all around. They are 
 very well satisfied with their experiment. 
 
 The man who shipped the first cotton-seed 
 oil cake to Great Britain lives in Sherman. 
 His name is Capt. Thomas Forbes. He was in 
 the cotton business in New Orleans many 
 years ago. At that time the use of the cotton 
 seed for oil and cake was scarcely known. 
 Somewhere up the country a big planter oc- 
 
 THE NEW COTTON BAG FACTOEY. 
 
 The superintendent of the Sherman factory, 
 after only six months running, lays down the 
 bags of Manchester, N. H., beside those from 
 his own looms, and invites comparison by 
 microscope. 
 
 "I will leave it to any unprejudiced person 
 to say if our bags do not show better cotton 
 and better workmanship," he said. Drawing 
 through his fingers a fragment from a roll 
 until the fiber slowly parted, he added: 
 "There; you can't beat that staple anywhere. 
 It is ove'r an inch long. The finest cotton in 
 the United States grows along Red River from 
 Sherman to Paris." f> 
 
 The Sherman bag factory has been running 
 six months. Its product has gone as far East 
 as Cincinnati, as far North as St. Paul. The 
 officers of the company are satisfied. The or- 
 ders ahead call for steady running until Octo- 
 ber. The company will either double the ma- 
 chinery for bag making or apply the surplus 
 
 casionally ground a few hundred bushels of 
 seed in a rude way, and sent it in the form of 
 oil cake down to New Orleans. "I had seen 
 some of these small lots of cake," said Capt. 
 Forbes, " and it struck me the cake might be 
 used to fatten cattle in Great Britain. An En- 
 glish gentleman was visiting in New Orleans 
 about that time. I told him of the cake and 
 what I thought could be done with it. He 
 said he had never seen anything of the kind, 
 and was quite curious about it. I told him 
 I'd send over some, but when I came 
 to get the cake I discovered that it was harder 
 to do than I had thought. By picking up a 
 small lot here and a small lot there, I collected 
 forty or fifty tons and sent it over. The busi- 
 ness proved to be very profitable. Some of 
 the scientific men on the other side took hold 
 of the cake and analyzed it. They said, ' Here 
 we can get more oil out of it than the Yankees 
 do. ' So they got up machinery, subjected 
 
 
the oil cake to another process and then fed 
 the cake to their cattle. It was in 1846 I made 
 this first shipment of oil cake to Great Britain. 
 The business was even at that time profitable. 
 But it is only in the last fifteen years or so 
 that the oil and cake from the cotton seed has 
 come into such general use. When I first 
 came to Texas to live there wasn't a bale of 
 cotton shipped out of the State. Now Texas 
 sells 2,000,000 bnies. " 
 
 " And the great addition Texas has made to 
 the cotton supply is the cause of the low prices, 
 isn't it, Captain?" 
 
 "Partly that is the cause. But people don't 
 use as much cotton as they did. The cotton 
 
 Mr. Tassey started in a very modest way. The 
 first thing we knew about him he was making 
 oil out there. He kept on independently in- 
 creasing his plant and business. After he had 
 made an eminent success of it we formed a 
 stock company and backed him with all the 
 money he wanted. But J. C. Tassey is en- 
 titled to the credit of giving Sherman the larg- 
 est oil mill in the South and the largest cotton 
 gin in the world. And now we are building 
 an entirely new mill, which will have a front 
 of 300 feet and will contain the finest machin- 
 ery that can be devised. We are building with 
 brick and stone and in the most substantial 
 manner. But brick and stone and machinery 
 
 THE LARGEST COTTON-SEED OIL MILL IN THE WORLD. 
 
 goods made now lasts longer than that manu- 
 factured formerly. That is one of the princi- 
 pal reasons why there is overproduction of 
 cotton now. ' 
 
 The largest cotton- seed mill in the world is 
 rising from its foundations on the prairie east 
 of Sherman. It will eat up 432 tons of cotton- 
 seed in twenty-four hours. That means the 
 seed which grows with over 800 bales of cotton. 
 A half ton of seed to a bale of cotton is the 
 average . Something more than a dozen years 
 ago a young Pittsburger, who had had a good 
 schooling in machinery and its uses, came to 
 Sherman and started a little seed mill in the 
 outskirts of the city. 
 
 " That, " said banker Randolph, one of the 
 solid capitalists of Sherman, " was almost be- 
 fore we, who had been here a lifetime, knew 
 there was such a thing as oil in cotton seed. 
 
 do not make a successful cotton-seed mill. 
 That takes brains. We rely on Mr. Tassey to 
 furnish them. ' ' 
 
 The banker's reference to brains is full of 
 meaning. There has been a great deal of 
 money made in the cotton- seed oil manufac- 
 ture in Texas. There has been a great deal 
 lost. A few years ago, after a very good sea- 
 son for the business, there was 'in epidemic of 
 oil mill investment in the State . Every large 
 town in the cotton producing parts of Texas 
 had its mill. There were no fewer than thirty 
 of these enterprises. A bad year sent two- 
 thirds of them to the wall. Last season was a 
 good one for those mills which survived in 
 Texas. And now there is another epidemic of 
 oil mill building likely to be followed by an- 
 other assortment of wrecks. In the manu- 
 facture of cotton- seed oil men play for big 
 stakes. Few products are so fluctuating in 
 
- 11 - 
 
 price as those which come out of a cotton- seed 
 oil mill. The Sherman mill has sold oil at 55c 
 and oil at 20c. It has sold oil cake at $20 a 
 ton and oil cake at $10 a ton. 
 
 ' ' The size of the cotton crop, ' ' Mr. Tassey 
 explained, in the course of an interesting con- 
 versation about this peculiar industry, " has 
 nothing to do with it. The market is specu- 
 lative. In 1882 we had a good year, one of 
 the best. In 1887 we had a fairly pros- 
 perous season. Last year was good. The ele- 
 ments of uncertainty in the business are men. 
 Last year, for example, we had good crops in 
 this country. In Europe the crops failed. 
 There was a great demand for our oil cake for 
 feeding, and we sold at profitable prices. 
 Practically all of the oil cake goes abroad. 
 This year Europe has good cereal crops and a 
 good root crop. She will not need so much 
 oil cake as she did last year, and she will not 
 pay so much for what she does take. There 
 are ether conditions which enter into this 
 business. A big corn crop in this 
 country means a big hog crop. That 
 means lots of grease and less demand 
 for cotton-seed oil. The most of our oil prod- 
 uct goes into the manufacture of compound 
 lard. When the hog crop is large the oil man 
 has to scratch his head to think how he will 
 pull through. We have to commence buying 
 and working up cotton-seed before we know 
 what the hog crop is going to be and what the 
 demand for oil will be. Thus, before we know 
 what our margin will be we are in the midst 
 of our season. Then there are years when the 
 seed rots on our hands. For some climatic 
 reason the seed will not keep some seasons as 
 it does others. I have seen $150,000 worth of 
 seed lost by Texas mills in a single year, just 
 because it would not keep until it could be 
 worked up. " r 
 
 ' ' Does cotton seed grade like cotton ? ' ' 
 
 " The staple has little to do with the seed. 
 The seed on the Texas uplands is not as good 
 as that raised in the Mississippi bottoms. It 
 is not as rich in oil. But beyond these differ- 
 ences there is not much relationship between 
 the staple and the seed. ' ' 
 
 "How much of the cotton seed raised in 
 Texas goes to the oil mills , Mr. Tassey ? ' ' 
 
 " Not to exceed 20 per cent. But all goes 
 that can be handled profitably. At least one- 
 third of the seed must be saved over for the 
 next year's crop. You know the planter is 
 obliged to save not only enough for seeding 
 once, but also enough for a second seeding. 
 Cotton must be replanted occasionally. Then 
 there is a good deal of seed at such a distance 
 from mills that it will not pay to haul and 
 ship. About 20 per cent I think is all there is 
 of the cotton seed raised in Texas which can 
 be handled with profit to the raiser and to the 
 mills. Last year, with some of the Texas mills 
 closed by the trust, there were still enough 
 running in Texas to take all of the seed 
 
 that could be handled profitably in this 
 State. ' ' 
 
 ' 'What will these twelve or fifteen new mills 
 do?" 
 
 Mr. Tassey shook his head. 
 
 "If the mills don't make money, their com- 
 petition will make better prices for the planter, 
 won't it?" 
 
 * ' That is a mistake . It isn ' t for the interest 
 of the farmer to have too many seedmen 
 handling his crop. Taxes, interest and other 
 expenses increase with the number of mills. 
 That means an increased burden for the in- 
 dustry to carry. There is only about so much 
 seed to be ground up. The more mills and the 
 more investment the less there is left for the 
 farmer. If you argue, as the men with ma- 
 chinery to sell are telling, that more mills 
 will increase the amount of seed bought and 
 manufactured into oil, you reach the same re- 
 sult. There is a market for about so much oil 
 and cake, and when there is increased pro- 
 duction the prices go down and there is less to 
 be paid to the farmer for his seed. There are 
 mills enough now to do the business. The 
 increase of mills will, it seems to me, mean a 
 decrease in the prices paid for seed. The 
 machinery men figure out a different show- 
 ing, but they are interested in equipping as 
 many mills as they can." 
 
 "But you are building a large mill, Mr. 
 Tassey ? ' ' 
 
 " We are not building to increase our ca- 
 pacity, but to increase our facilities for hand- 
 ling and to reduce cost. We expect to manu- 
 facture what we do now, but we expect to do 
 it in much less ame. Quick handling of the 
 seed is necessary to success with it. We shall 
 cut down the chances of loss from seed spoil- 
 ing on our hands, and we shall get our prod- 
 uct into market quicker. That is the idea on 
 which we are constructing our new mill." 
 
 All is not gold that glitters in the cotton- 
 seed oil business. For instance, there is the 
 oil-cake feeding in this country. Some Texas 
 cattlemen builded great expectations on the 
 results of the early experiments. 
 
 "Under present conditions there is no mon- 
 ey either to the mill or to the cattlemen in 
 feeding cake here," Mr. Tassey said. " I be- 
 lieve that every cattleman who has taken it 
 up and followed it has lost. Two years ago 
 cattle which were fattened on oil cake yielded 
 a profit. That was on account of the high 
 price of beef cattle. Last year the balance 
 was the other way. There were men who fed 
 3,000 head of cattle here, but they made noth- 
 ing." 
 
 " How was that, Mr. Tassey ? ' ' 
 
 " The range men got it all. The men who 
 fed paid $16 a ton for their meal. They sold 
 their cattle at 2%c and 3c fattened. The 
 trouble was they put the cattle in at $20 a 
 head from the range. That was too high to 
 
-12- 
 
 ieave a margin of profit at the low price for 
 beef cattle. The year before that the feeders 
 put in their cattle at $20 or $25 from the 
 range, paid about the same price for meal as 
 last year, but sold for 4Kc. That gave a mar- 
 gin of profit." 
 
 " So far as the fattening goes, oil cake is all 
 right?" 
 
 "Cotton-seed meal and hulls make the finest 
 fattening food that can be given cattle. At 
 the average prices they will fatten cattle 
 cheaper than corn at 20c a bushel. But there 
 must be a better balance between range and 
 fed cattle than there has been to make this 
 kind of feeding profitable." 
 
 Returns from the cotton acreage of North 
 Texas show a decrease of 25 per cent as com- 
 pared with last year. For the rest of the 
 State the decrease is not quite so much. The 
 average for the whole State is about 20 per 
 cent. This reduction of acreage is in a degree 
 more apparent than real. Last year's cotton 
 crop in Texas was extraordinary in acreage 
 and yield. The reduction of 25 per cent this 
 year is in reality only about 10 per cent under 
 two years ago. Low prices and the agitation 
 over the cotton grower's condition prompted 
 the North Texans to cut off one-fourth of their 
 cotton ground and put it into corn and other 
 grain. 
 
 But Mr. Tassey doesn't believe the Texas 
 cotton- grower's condition is as bad as it has 
 been pictured. "Last year's cotton crop," 
 he said, "was marketed at only about 8 per 
 cent below the average price *or ten years. I 
 mean that in North Texas the man who picked 
 and sold his cotton immediately came within 
 8 per cent of the average price for the whole 
 ten years preceding." 
 
 Some surprise was expressed at this as being 
 rather inconsistent with the popular im- 
 pression about the hard lot of the cotton 
 farmer. 
 
 " I am not talking about the man who held 
 on to his cotton until it went down 
 to 6%c and 6c," Mr. Tassey continued. 
 And then he made another point even 
 more surprising. He said: "We figured 
 this out, taking all of the recent twenty years 
 except 1881, which we left out because it was 
 exceptional on account of a very small crop 
 and very high prices. But our cotton rais- 
 ers more than made up for the 8 per cent loss 
 in average price by the increased yield per 
 acre. Cotton in North Texas when sold right 
 after picking paid more per acre the past sea- 
 son than the average cotton crop for ten 
 years. The average yield was from 15 to 20 
 per cent better than the average for nine or 
 ten years. Most of those who sold promptly 
 got 8c. We bought cotton here right 
 along up to the time our gin burned 
 in October and we did not pay 
 under 8c. Of course, those who held cotton 
 
 and saw it go down to 6>c and 6c were badly 
 hurt. Some farmers held on, hoping for bet- 
 ter prices, and got pinched. 1 he merchants 
 were hurt worse than the farmers. They were 
 left with the declining cotton on their hands. 
 They were forced to ask extensions from those 
 with whom they dealt North. They pleaded 
 the low price of cotton and said the farmers 
 could not pay up, and out of all this talk 
 grew the impression that the actual cotton 
 grower was a great deal worse off than he 
 really was. You can easily figure how much 
 the grower can afford to stand in de- 
 crease of price if he gets 15 to 
 20 per cent increase of yield per acre. 
 Then there is the matter of supply. The de- 
 cline in what the farmer buys has been much 
 more than in the cotton he sells. Clothing, 
 sugar, coffee, machinery, all have decreased 
 in price in greater percentage than cotton has. 
 The fact is the cotton-grower's condition in 
 Texas is better than is generally supposed. 
 The bad impression is largely due to the mer- 
 chants who got caught by the decline of cot- 
 ton, and who, in asking extension from 
 Northern creditors, made it appear that the 
 farmer had lost money on his crop and 
 couldn't pay. I didn't say there is money in 
 cotton at present prices, but the Texas farmer 
 who sold promptly did not lose money last 
 
 "Don't you think the Texas farmer will be 
 better off with less cotton and more corn?' ' 
 
 "Cotton is the selling crop for Texas farmers 
 for this reason. A large corn crop down here 
 makes a cheap corn crop. An increase of 100 
 per cent in the Texas corn crop will depreciate 
 the price 50 per cent. Cotton, in 1883, the 
 year of a great crop, sold for 8%c. It has de- 
 preciated but 25 per cent since, taking the 
 lowest price. As I said before, the Texas 
 farmer made more money last year per acre 
 on cotton than he has made in the average of 
 the ten previous years. When we raise a large 
 corn crop we can't feed it all. Corn, oats and 
 hay have only a local market. The cotton 
 crop has the world for a market. It will hold 
 its price better than any of these other 
 products.' ' 
 
 "What the South mostly needs," said Mr. 
 Tassey, "is manufactures of cotton. I could 
 talk to you all night about that, or I could 
 tell you my opinion in a sentence. To put it 
 the shortest way I would say, 'For a man of 
 enterprise with sufficient experience and cap- 
 ital, who wants a stable, legitimate business, 
 the manufacture of cotton goods in the South 
 presents to-day the finest opportunity in the 
 United States.' I don't say it is a field for an 
 old fogy with set notions, but for a man with 
 good business ideas and energy. Cotton manu- 
 facturing is a business that is bound to come 
 South. We shall have to begin with coarse 
 goods. That was what New England 
 did. Great Britain thought years ago 
 
that coarse cotton goods couldn't be 
 made in New England, but American mills 
 succeeded. Now they are making the finer 
 goods, not the finest, but finer grades. The 
 history of cotton manufacture in New England 
 will repeat itself in the South. New England 
 manufacturers think we haven't the labor. 
 We shall have it. We shall educate labor to 
 the work, just as was done in New England. 
 We have got to start in with the coarser goods. 
 We shall manufacture just as cheaply from 
 the labor standpoint. We shall have the ad- 
 vantage of saving the cost of transportation 
 on the raw material all the way to New Eng- 
 land, and for our local market we shall save 
 the cost of the transportation of the manufac- 
 tured goods from New England to Texas. The 
 manufacture of cotton goods is certain to 
 come to the South." W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS, 
 
 The Progress of the "Nester" Across 
 the Panhandle Pastures. 
 
 Symptoms of a Healthy Reaction The 
 
 Story of the Cowman's Bluff 
 
 A Prairie-Dog Problem. 
 
 Special correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 IN THE PANHANDLE, TEXAS, August 2. 
 The Panhandle has raised another grain 
 crop. The figures are not all in. But the 
 estimate at the Fort Worth Board of Trade 
 is a crop of 6,500,000 bushels of wheat. 
 Oats and barley will go 3,000,000 more. 
 As for the corn, that is beyond guessing. 
 Gen. Clark, of the Fort Worth Board of 
 Trade, said : "The corn crop of Texas this year 
 will be phenomenal. We have thousands of 
 
 been threshed out 30,000 bushels of oats, and 
 there will be 70,000 bushels of corn. The rest 
 of the country does not know how rapidly 
 Texas is forging ahead as a grain State, Not 
 one out of a hundred Texans appreciate what 
 is going on in this direction. Who ever heard 
 of Texas barley? Last winter a Fort Worth 
 man went around and induced some of the 
 farmers to try barley. One of them, a Mr. 
 
 GATE WAI AX THE F ANHANDUi TilJB FuBT 
 BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 Clanahan, put in 500 acres. He has har- 
 vested his crop, and it yields him $24 per 
 acre, or $12,000 on his experiment. A malt- 
 house is being built at Fort Worth, 
 and 500,000 bushels of barley are wanted 
 for the first year. The Hoxie farm will 
 put in 500 acres of this new grain for Texas 
 next season. The average yield of barley in 
 
 THE PANHANDLE "NESTER. 
 
 acres that will give seventy-five bushels to 
 the acre. ' ' 
 
 On the Hoxie farm, near Taylor, in William- 
 son County, Central Texas, there have Just 
 
 the experimental fields this year has been 
 fifty bushels, and the St. Louis price is being 
 paid in Fort Worth; where the grain is wanted 
 for home consumption. 
 
This is not a good grain year for Texas. It 
 is the poorest in five years. In the Panhandle 
 the wheat crop is spoken of as a failure. That 
 is because the Panhandle farmer considers 
 anything less than twelve bushels a failure. 
 The season has been erratic in Texas as it has 
 been in other parts of the country. Some 
 farmers have got eight bushels ; some have 
 got fifteen bushels. Here and there a report 
 of the threshing shows twenty and twenty- 
 five bushels. But the average is lower than it 
 has been for the five years which have elapsed 
 since the discovery of the grain-growing ca- 
 pacity of the Panhandle. And so these farm- 
 ers call it a failure. 
 
 That jog of Texas which runs up north be- 
 tween Indian Territory on the east and New 
 Mexico on the west is the Panhandle proper. 
 It is larger than most States. By common 
 consent the name has been extended to the 
 great body of chocolate-colored loam which 
 constitutes the red lands. The Panhandle, as 
 originally applied, was a day's ride from 
 
 there are three flouring mills and three eleva- 
 tors. One of these mills turns out 500 barrels 
 of flour a day. A new mill of 200 barrels 
 capacity and a new elevator of 100,000 bush- 
 els room are nearing completion to help take 
 care of a crop which is a failure. Last year 
 these mills at Wichita Falls ran night and day 
 from harvest to harvest. And then enough 
 wheat to have kept three such mills running 
 was shipped away. In two months last year 
 the farmers of adjoining counties received 
 $750,000 at Vernon for the wheat they hauled in. 
 "In 1867," said Mr. L. P. Goodell, a Fort 
 Worth business man, " I went into Minnesota. 
 When I came to Texas I thought I had never 
 seen two countries look so much alike as Min- 
 nesota and the Panhandle, before either had 
 been developed. You know they used to say in 
 those days we couldn't raise anything in 
 Minnesota, just as they said only five years 
 ago no crops would grow in the Panhandle.' ' 
 
 Here was a strong motive for the assertion 
 that the Panhandle would not grow crops. 
 
 HARVESTING ON THE KNOTT FARM IN THE PANHANDLE. 
 
 Fort Worth. The Panhandle as comprehend- 
 ed to-day is reached a couple of hours after 
 leaving " The Fort. " And then the traveler 
 is in it for the rest of the day and most of the 
 night. 
 
 The revolution in the Panhandle has been a 
 quick one. The first thresher brought into the 
 new wheat country was an old ten horse-power 
 from Illinois. It is still running near Wich- 
 ita Falls. The man who came on with this 
 thresher says that the first year after his ar- 
 rival he didn't find a field which j'ielded less 
 than seventeen bushels an acre. He did the 
 threshing for a whole county. That was six 
 years ago. This season it was possible to see 
 eight reapers marching en echelon across one 
 wheat field in the same county. The 
 farmer who furnished such a pageant had 
 1,500 acres in wheat out of 4,000 acres 
 for which he paid $10 an acre. Up and down 
 the Wichita Valley, which is part of this new 
 wheat country, can be seen ascending the 
 smoke of a score of steam threshers, although 
 this is a failure season. At Wichita Falls 
 
 When the Comanche moved out of this region 
 the cowman moved in. He had great in- 
 fluence in Texas at that time. He could go to 
 Austin and convince the State government 
 that whole counties in the Panhandle should 
 be classified as grazing land. The law of the 
 State limits the buyer of agricultural land to 
 a section, a mile square. But it allows the 
 buyer of grazing land to buy in his own name 
 seven sections upon extremely favorable 
 terms, and it doesn't raise any technicality if 
 every member of the family also takes seven 
 sections. The cowmen took possession of the 
 Panhandle. They bought in blocks of seven, 
 at 50c and $1 an acre. The school lands which 
 they couldn't buy they leased from the State 
 and fenced in with their great pastures. Then 
 came along the man with a hoe. He looked at 
 the red lands, chocolate-colored when moist 
 and like brick dust when dry. He manifested 
 an inclination to stir up the soil and see what 
 it would do. The cowmen resente.d this as an 
 intrusion. They called the man with the hoe 
 " a nester.' ' That was because he would buy 
 
- 15- 
 
 a piece of the school land and settle right 
 down in the middle of a big pasture, making 
 it necessary to allow roadways and to build 
 gates for him. As the Comanche felt 
 toward the cowman, so the cowman 
 felt toward the nester. But it was 
 evolution. The cowman might frighten the 
 nester away to-day. The next day there were 
 two men with hoes looking over the same 
 wire fence. The two men might be induced 
 by argument to believe that there was noth- 
 ing in it for them. On the third day four men 
 with hoes were at the barbed-wire fence. The 
 cowboys whooped it up pretty lively for the 
 original nester. The cowman argued and 
 made discouraging laws for the two nesters. 
 When the four man with hoes arrived, the 
 cowman hired smooth talkers to help con- 
 vince them that agriculture was impossible 
 in the Panhandle. Perhaps this is the only 
 
 THE 500-BARREL MILL AT WICHITA PALLS. 
 
 new country where such efforts were made to 
 keep people out. Men received salaries to tell 
 newcomers that farming was impossible. 
 They made it their business for pay to dis- 
 courage immigration. Strangers on the trains 
 and in the new towns were sought out. They 
 were told that nothing would grow, and if 
 anything did grow the prairie dogs would 
 eat it up. This wasn't a very good article of 
 logic. Perhaps the man with the hoe thought 
 so. At any rate. he wasn't altogether con- 
 vinced. He hung around. He said he'd give 
 the red land a whirl. As for the prairie 
 dog, the man with the hoe said that while 
 waiting for his first crop he would make war on 
 that festive little animal which sat upon its 
 hind legs and laughed a file-scraping "he-he- 
 he""athim as he went by. If the tickling of 
 the soil hadn't turned out better than the war 
 on the prairie dcg, the Panhandle wouldn't 
 be crossed and cris-crossed by wheat fields 
 to-day. The idea of the man with the hoe was 
 to sell the skins of the prairie dogs to the glove 
 manufacturer and the canned meat to China- 
 men. The New York glove manufacturer ac- 
 cepted one consigment of skins and quit. 
 The Chinaman declined the meat with a "no 
 moochee." The prairie dog industry sudden- 
 ly and severely languished. 
 
 But the experiment with the soil that was 
 altogether different. The Wichita Valley is a 
 part of the Panhandle. From the Wichita 
 River stretches a bottom several miles wide 
 and as level as the famous Red River Valley 
 of the North. In this valley was made the 
 notable experiment which knocked out the 
 cowmen's double-barreled argument. John 
 Howard put in 400 acres of oats, corn and 
 millet. The result was a crop which startled 
 the whole Panhandle. The prairie dogs 
 didn't eat half an acre of the 400. In fact 
 they showed their disgust at the turned-over 
 sod and moved on, thereby setting the cowmen 
 
 THE MAN WITH A HOE. 
 
 a lesson. Not one prairie dog is seen now 
 where there were a thousand before. The 
 season following the object lesson everybody 
 went to planting. The 400 acres bought for 
 $5 an acre was sold for $13. It was divided 
 into smaller farms and sold again for $20. A 
 couple of years after the experimental crop 
 came the discovery that the red lands with a 
 world of gypsum underneath was a natural 
 wheat country. That settled the issue be- 
 tween the cowman and the man with a hoe. 
 In the picturesque language of a pioneer, 
 "it decided that the Panhandle was to be 
 no longer the land of the longhorns and 
 
-16- 
 
 THBOUGH TEXAS. 
 
 Twenty -Bushel Wheat in Place 
 Twenty- Acre Cow Brute. 
 
 of 
 
 A Cattle King's Testimony Panhandle 
 
 Surprises The Romance of 
 
 Grain Farming. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 N THE PANHANDLE OP 
 TEXAS, AugUSt 3. 
 
 Charles Goodnight is 
 the greatest of the 
 Panhandle cattle 
 kings. His ranch, is 
 far beyond the red 
 lands where wheat 
 grows. It is up in 
 the Panhandle prop- 
 er, upon the Staked 
 Plains. But the tide 
 of farming immigra- 
 tion has flowed al- 
 most to the Goodnight pastures. 
 
 "Can a farmer make a living as far West as 
 this?" Mr. Goodnight was asked. 
 
 The cattle king was here even before the 
 Comanches went out. He has seen some thirty 
 summers come and go in the Panhandle. He 
 deliberated a little before answering the ques- 
 tion, and then he said: 
 
 acre. He has seen the free grass disappear 
 and the wire fences extend like a great web 
 all over the plains. He has had to drive his 
 herds hundreds of miles to the nearest ship- 
 ping point. He now has a railroad station in 
 his front door yard. When he gets on the 
 cars at Fort Worth he rides through a succes- 
 sion of towns and cities which five years ago 
 had no existence, or at best were only trading 
 posts. 
 
 Twenty bushels of wheat to the acre is what 
 the Panhandle farmers claim this land will 
 produce in good seasons. John W. Carhart, 
 one of the leading men of Clarendon, sat upon 
 the vine-covered porch of the Goodnight place 
 and said : " The poorest yield of wheat around 
 Clarendon last year was 12 bushels to the 
 acre. I remember one field of 160 acres which 
 gave 3000 bushels. The average crop is about 
 20 bushels. But I think the best results will 
 be obtained out here on the edge of the Staked 
 Plains by combining some stock-raising with 
 farming. There is a belt of country extending 
 fifty miles east from the eastern verge of the 
 plains. It has a southeastern exposure. There 
 are vast numbers of springs. One county, 
 Donley, has at least 1000 of them. This belt 
 presents the finest conditions for doing farm- 
 ing that I know of anywhere. I am from the 
 dairy region of Wisconsin, and I know just 
 what that development has been. I can say 
 that I believe in this spring belt along 
 
 "Yes, a farmer can make a living out here. 
 But he can't make money. He may, by hard 
 work, do a little better some seasons than a 
 living, but he can't get rich. The only way a 
 farmer can do well here is to combine stock- 
 raising with his farming.' ' 
 
 "Mr. Goodnight, how much pasture land do 
 you allow for each animal ? ' ' 
 
 " Twenty acres. " 
 
 Mr. Goodnight has seen land in the Pan- 
 handle go from nothing to 60c an acre. He 
 has seen the 50c land advance to $3 and $5 an 
 
 the Staked Plains, which, ten years ago, we 
 were taught to believe was a desert. There 
 are finer conditions for dairying than Wis- 
 consin possesses. This short dry grass gives 
 a butter that is better flavored than any you 
 ever tasted. People from the blue grass and 
 clover dairying country say so. And the con- 
 ditions are such that butter can be made 
 easier here in this clear dry atmosphere. 
 The creeks of the springs region are set with 
 grapes and plums. Ten thousand gallons of 
 wine goes to waste. In the season when 
 
grapes are ripe the ground along the creeks is 
 blue. Plums are hauled into Clarendon by 
 the wagon load. I don't know of a season 
 since I have been here that this natural fruit 
 has failed.' ' 
 
 The Panhandle is full of surprises, and Mr. 
 Carharc's testimony to the existence of this 
 natural dairy country on the edge of the 
 Staked Plains is one of them. 
 
 This transformation of the Panhandle is an 
 agricultural revolution. The wonder is that 
 so little has been said about it. When the 
 wheat producing quality of North Dakota 
 lands was discovered the whole world was 
 told. Dalrymple's farm was talked about, 
 described in print and painted on canvas. 
 The Red River Valley of the North became a 
 place for pilgrimages. Well, there is a Red 
 River Valley of the South, and how many 
 people know of it, except as a region where 
 the slaves of King Cotton toil sixteen hours a 
 day with the hoe, the cultivator and the 
 patient mule? But that is not the Red River 
 Valley of the South, of which the Panhandle 
 
 supply. So it appears that the four succes- 
 sive good crops of wheat in the Panhandle 
 were not accidents. 
 
 Wheat-raising is as easy as improved meth- 
 ods can make it in the Panhandle. At Vernon, 
 one of the smartest of these brand new cities, 
 there were sold last season 547 self-binders. 
 The steam threshing outfits are now sweeping 
 through the fields. It takes a force of twenty- 
 five men and ten teams to run one of these 
 outfits, while steam-power does the actual 
 threshing. The wheat-raiser has nothing to 
 do but to open the gate when the outfit ar- 
 rives and to take care of the grain as it comes 
 from the spout in a golden stream. It matters 
 not to the threshing boss whether the grain is 
 in shock or in stack. Not one in twenty of 
 the Panhandle grain-growers puts the sheaves 
 in stack. Perhaps it would be better for 
 the grain if it was done. But the 
 threshing outfit includes the men and 
 teams to gather in the grain from 
 the shock. The extra charge for threshing 
 in that way is only 2c a bushel on wheat and 
 Ic on oats. So the Panhandle farmer relieves 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF GRAIN-GROWING. 
 
 is part. A geological map of Texas has as 
 many colors as Joseph's coat. Just below the 
 western half of the Indian Territory this map 
 shows a great patch of the color of brick dust. 
 It is "the red lands" in scientific lingo. The 
 red lands is a natural wheat country, as much 
 so as the Red River Valley of the North, and 
 the dead levels of the eastern half of North 
 Dakota. There is more of the red lands in 
 square miles than there is of the North Dakota 
 wheat region. Chemistry explains the prac- 
 tical results of wheat- growing in the red 
 lands. The gypsum and the other properties 
 which wheat wants are here in extraordinary 
 
 himself of one of the most tedious features of 
 grain raising. The threshing boss, like Miles 
 Standish, knows every man in his army and 
 divides up the work with system. Eight of the 
 ten teams haul the sheaves from the field to 
 thresher. To one team is assigned the duty of 
 keeping water in the boiler, and to another is 
 given the work of hauling fuel. A most im- 
 portant part of the outfit is the boarding 
 house on wheels. It is an airy-looking struct- 
 ure. The sides are open and the roof is of 
 canvas. A cook stove occupies a corner, and 
 the table accommodations seat the whole 
 party. Most of the threshers are farmers' 
 
- 18 - 
 
 lads from the surrounding country. They 
 make quick and merry work of what used to 
 be the most anxious event of the year on the 
 grain farm. The new way is a great change 
 from the old. There is no more rallying 
 of neighbors to exchange threshing work. 
 Housewives do not work a week preparing for 
 the threshers and another week clearing up 
 after them. The farmer counts his bushels 
 and pays at the rate of 8c for wheat and 4c 
 for oats. The threshing outfit does the rest. 
 
 such manifestations of popular sentiment. A 
 faint echo of the whoop reaches ' ' the chuck 
 wagon' ' on the other side of the field handy to 
 the water. The cook and his assistants 
 quicken their movements between the stove 
 and the table. The boss looks at his watch 
 and at the sun. He takes a hasty survey 
 of the field. He gives no signal. Every man 
 sticks to his post and the work goes on. A 
 quarter of an hour passes. The warning 
 whoop is heard again. Once more the boss 
 
 PANHANDLE PRODUCTS AND THE MEN WHO GROW THEM. 
 
 When the sun is nearly overhead a shout 
 goes up from some part of the busy scene. It 
 is a genuine Texas whoop, high-keyed and 
 piercing. Then another answers. From 
 away down in the field where a wagon is load- 
 ing comes a third yell. And after a few 
 moments a whole chorus arises. All of this 
 is by way of intimation to the boss that noon- 
 time approaches. He is a wise boss who heeds 
 
 looks at his watch. Then he walks over to the 
 engine and the whistle answers the whoop 
 with a toot. Work stops instanter. Steam is 
 turned off. The belt is dropped. Teams are 
 unhitched. There is a race across the field for 
 the chuck wagon. Some men are at the table 
 as soon as they can climb into the wagon,, 
 Others move with more deliberation, stop- 
 ping to feed a team or tc wash, tnemaIvfi> 
 
-19- 
 
 There is a good deal of human nature in a 
 threshing outfit. Meantime the first comers 
 sit about the loaded, smoking table, but not 
 so much as a crust of bread is broken. The 
 lines along the board fill in. Still nobody 
 starts. Now and then a warning cry of 
 "Chuck in" is heard, but nobody 
 "chucks in." All are seated but one 
 man engaged on a more elaborate toilet 
 than the others have made. "Chuck in!" 
 ' ' Chuck in ! " comes the warning again. ' ' Go 
 ahead ! ' ' responds the dude as he raises a 
 piece of looking glass and moves his head to 
 one side and then the other. The threshers 
 rake him at his word and bread is broken all 
 along the table. A good commissary is as im- 
 portant as the water in the boiler for a thresh- 
 ing outfit. When darkness comes the thresh- 
 ers lie down upon little heaps of straw in the 
 stubble, with the Milky Way for a coverlet. 
 Out-of-door sleeping is no hardship in the 
 
 land on shares. From that we made enough 
 to buy two sections of land at $5 an acre. On 
 that land we made $6,000 worth of crops. We 
 have sold our land for $20 an acre and are 
 going into the next COUP Ly to get cheaper land 
 and start again. Wa are worth $15,003 
 apiece, and every dollar of it except the $9 
 that was in the party when we came here has 
 been made in the Panhandle. Noboby could 
 get me to leave the Panhandle. ' ' 
 
 It is four parts romance and luck with one 
 part work, this grain growing in the Pan- 
 handle. With six mules and a gang plow the 
 farmer turns a wide strip of the red lands 
 every trip across the field. There were sold 
 108 of these big gang plows in a single Pan- 
 handle town this season. And with these 
 went 260 drills. The Panhandle farmer 
 quadruples the work of the old single furrow; 
 he rides his drill and his work is done until 
 the ripening grain calls for the binder, which 
 
 A PANHANDLE CIVILIZEB. 
 
 Panhandle country. Thousands do it as a 
 matter of comfort and preference. No dew 
 worth mentioning falls. A steady dry breeze 
 blows from the South. Such a thing as a cold 
 caught in this way is almost unknown. The 
 largest cattle king in the Panhandle 
 has an upper room in his house with three 
 sides left open, and there he spends the most 
 of his summer nights. All through the Pan- 
 handle cots and shake- downs may be seen 
 outside of the houses. Camping is a luxury in 
 this climate. 
 
 While his men ate a threshing boss told his 
 story. "My name is Heagle," he said, "and 
 I am from Algiers. One day ten of us came to 
 Wichita Falls. We couldn't speak a word of 
 English. We had just $9 among us. Our in- 
 tention was to go to Wilbarger County, but 
 the Wichita River was up, and while we waited 
 for it to go down we arran ?ed to take some 
 
 drops the sheaves by half dozens. Shocking 
 is the only hand work. Then comes the 
 threshing outfit, leaving to the farmer noth- 
 ing more to do but to haul his product to the 
 nearest town. With such methods explained 
 the stories told on the Panhandle are not so 
 incredible. For instance, it is related that 
 one man and a boy 16 years old produced 
 10,000 bushels of grain in a single season. 
 Such methods and such a country where the 
 gang plow can run every month in the year, 
 tell the reason why there is no more "dollar 
 wheat." It isn't option trading that is 
 knocking the bottom out of prices. The Pan- 
 handle has only just begun. It hasn't struck 
 its gait as a grain-producing region. Five 
 years hence, look out for the Panhandle. 
 
 The people of Wichita Falls preserve three 
 pictures illustrating their three eras. In the 
 first picture there are two log houses on a 
 
-20- 
 
 prairie. That was the first era. On the sec- 
 ond picture is a single street, a row of saloons 
 and a group of cowboys. That is the second 
 era. The third picture is a bird's-eye view of 
 a well-built city of 4,000 people, with a big 
 court house and a bigger school house, 
 church spires, mills and elevators, $7,000 resi- 
 dences, a wholesale grocery doing a business 
 of $50,000 a month, and other things to 
 match. The three eras are embraced in a de- 
 cade. 'In 1887 Wichita Palls had 400 voters . 
 In 1889 she had 800 voters. In 1892 she has 
 1,600 voters. Five years ago a good month's 
 business for the railroad station was $5,000. 
 Now it is from $50,000 to $80,000. The idea of 
 making the school house larger than the court 
 house is purely Panhandle. The court house 
 hobby may not be of Texas origin, but it 
 finds strong development here. A Texas 
 county seat which hasn't a big court house 
 isn't satisfied until it gets one. And the more 
 brick and mortar and cupola that can be 
 heaped up the happier is the community. 
 There probably isn't another State in the 
 Union which has so many court houses and 
 so much money invested in court house 
 architecture in proportion to wealth and pop- 
 ulation. But the Panhandle is New Texas. 
 When Wichita Falls got ready to build some- 
 thing to astonish the natives, she put up a 
 $25,000 school house on a fine square in the 
 very center of the city. She provided for nine 
 months of free school. After that she built a 
 substantial Court House, but it isn't as large 
 as the school house. The Panhandle theory is 
 that if the school house is large the com- 
 munity will not need such a fine court house. 
 There are parts of Texas where not so very 
 long ago it took nerve to advocate free schools 
 for more than three months. It takes nerve 
 now in the Panhandle not to advocate free 
 schools for nine months. 
 
 The Panhandle abounds in ambitious towns. 
 Just beyond Wichita Falls is Iowa Park. Less 
 than five years ago two Iowa msn came down 
 here prospecting. One of them, Mr. Kolp, 
 had been Speaker of the Iowa House of Rep- 
 resentatives. The other, Mr. Kennedy, had 
 been a member of the same body. They found 
 a body of school lands, 17,000 acres, which 
 belonged to Tarrant County. This tract they 
 acquired at from $4 to $6 an acre. In 1888 
 they laid out a town. Four years ago there 
 wasn't a house on the site, and now there are 
 1,200 people, with a mill, a couple of elevators 
 and brick business blocks. The grain elevator 
 is as much a feature of these Panhandle towns 
 as it is of the North Dakota community. Ver- 
 non, Quanah, Childress, Memphis, Claren- 
 don, Washburn, Amarillo, and even the 
 smaller towns between have prepared to han- 
 dle grain. Many of these towns are even 
 younger than Iowa Park. Several are healthy 
 infants of two years' and eighteen months' 
 growth. W. B. 8. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 How the Newest City of the Panhandle 
 Got a Move on Itself. 
 
 A Lone Court House Tarrant County's 
 
 Campaign of Education Old Texas 
 
 Greer County to the Front. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 IN THE PANHANDLE OP TEXAS, August 5. 
 Amarillo is the newest of the Panhandle 
 cities. The waiter at the Hotel asks you if 
 you will have your eggs ' standing up. ' ' 
 You pay the gentlemanly " barkeep ' ' 15c 
 for a glass of pop if the imposing analysis of 
 the water scares you. The water comes 
 from a depth of over 200 feet, and is raised 
 by windmills, which on the plains can be 
 guaranteed to run twenty-three hours out of 
 the twenty-four, and about 364 days in the 
 year. The water looks and tastes all right. 
 Nobody ever experienced any ill results from 
 it. But in an evil hour somebody had it 
 analyzed and paraded the analysis in big 
 type as a thing to be proud of. When the 
 newcomer reads all about the potassium and 
 the sodium and the sulphur he steers forth- 
 with for one of the six saloons in a single 
 block of the main street, and invests 15c 
 in a quarter-of- a- cent's worth of pop. The 
 saloon business is a great industry in 
 Amarillo and will continue to be so long as 
 the saloon trust continues. 
 
 Young as she is, Amarillo has had two 
 sites. The original town company located 
 on a slope two miles west of where the town 
 now stands. About 1200 people established 
 themselves there. As is usual in Texas and 
 some other countries, the first thing the new 
 community did when it felt its strength was 
 to vote about $25,000 for a court house. 
 This was expected to anchor the county seat 
 and the town for all time to come. The 
 Court House was built, and a good one it is 
 for the money. 
 
 But a man who owns a pasture of 250,000 
 acres decided that the town had been put in 
 the wrong place. It was in "a draw." The 
 right location was two miles further east on an 
 eligible elevation. To the proposition to move 
 the town said "no." The pasture man went 
 ahead and laid out a new site. He built a 
 hotel that was bigger and cost 50 per cent 
 more than the Court House. For a few weeks 
 there was an interesting game of tug between 
 Court House and hotel two miles apart. Ac- 
 cording to Texas tradition the Court House 
 should have won. A county seat is located by 
 vote on a specified section of land for five 
 years, and there it must stay till the last day 
 of the fifth year. The pasture man was from 
 the North. He said he was willing to spend 
 
-21 - 
 
 $100,000 to put Amarillo where it belonged, 
 and he did it. After he had built his big hotel 
 big for this region he bought the hotel in 
 the original Amarillo, put it on wheels, moved 
 it over to the new site, located it across a 
 little park, and called it the annex. The 
 pasture man's father-in-law is an Illinois 
 barb- wire millionaire. He came down 
 and looked on. He said he didn't 
 know much about town-site wars, 
 but he would back the new location. The 
 pasture man dug wells and built houses. 
 Every week or two he drove over to old Ama- 
 rillo, bought a store, put it on wheels and 
 hauled it over to new Amarillo. There was 
 no shouting or hurrahing. But month by 
 month the old town melted away and the new 
 town grew. To-day the Court House is all 
 thatmarks the original site. It stands alone on 
 the prairie. It can't be moved under the law. 
 
 eral miles of mains. Amarillo, to begin with, 
 was essentially a stockmen's town, but the 
 inevitable man with the hoe has ar- 
 rived and js disposed to see what he can do. 
 The Campbellite minister, who moved to the 
 Panhandle from near Sedalia, Mo., a garden 
 spot if there is one on the footstool, came 
 into town one day this week with beards of 
 wheat all over him. 
 
 "What have you been doing, brother?" a 
 church member asked. 
 
 ' "Threshing my wheat," replied the minis- 
 ter triumphantly. 
 
 ' ' How much did it go ?" asked the member. 
 
 " Sixty bushels, ' ' said the minister. 
 
 "Wha-at?" ejaculated the brother. 
 
 "I mean sixty bushels on the eight acres, " 
 explained the minister, with a laugh. "But I 
 lost at least two bushels an acre by letting it 
 get too ripe. I'm not discouraged. I raised 
 
 AMARILLO SKETCHED FROM DEPOT. 
 
 If it could be, the father of the new town would 
 have moved it long ago. The county officers 
 walk two miles to the Court House and back 
 again every day. As they go over in the morn- 
 ing they often see a beautiful mirage houses, 
 trees, lakes and the shadows of a city. When 
 they get to the Court House the vision fades 
 and there is nothing but bare prairie and the 
 holes where the houses stood. 
 
 The end of the fifth year approaches, and the 
 fate of the lone Court House is already deter- 
 mined. A square in the center of new Ama- 
 rillo has been set apart for a new and larger 
 county seat anchor. The old Court House, 
 brick, mortar and all, will be put on wheels 
 and hauled to the new town. When wings 
 shall have been added it will become a 
 college. 
 
 The pasture man is self-willed, but he is 
 something of a philanthropist. He has given 
 the new town a water works system with sev- 
 
 this in a bad season on ground which had the 
 sod turned only last year. I'm going to sow 
 again this fall. We'll raise wheat in Potter 
 County yet. I'm told there are 50,000 bush- 
 els of wheat that would be marketed right 
 here in Amarillo if we only had a mill." ^ 
 
 The Frying Pan ranch comes right up to the 
 edge of Amarillo. In it are 250,000 acres. The 
 owner has recently said to his agent : " I won ' t 
 stand in the way of settlers. They can have 
 the land if they want it. When Texas land 
 was selling at $2 an acre and money could be 
 borrowed at 6 and 8 per cent, I was a buyer. 
 Now that land is worth $4, I am a seller. 
 I have made more money, perhaps, than I am 
 entitled to." During the summer this man 
 has sold over twenty sections - of 640 acres 
 each in various counties of the Panhandle 
 for $4 an acre. There came an order this week 
 from Denver for a section at $2.50 an acre, to 
 be within ten miles of Amarillo. The real 
 
22- 
 
 agents couldn't fill it. Amarillo is 
 Spanish. It should be pronounced Am-a-re-o. 
 The inhabitants are Americans, and they ad- 
 here to the American pronunciation. 
 
 Up and down the Panhandle the Texans are 
 praying that the title of Greer County may be 
 vested in the United States. This may sound 
 strange to those who know how proud 
 Texans are of their State's bigness. Greer 
 County is either the southwestern corner of 
 Indian Territory, or else it is the elbow of the 
 Panhandle. The United States claims Greer 
 
 portunity for a question about which fork 
 was treated as the main river. So long as no- 
 body wanted Greer County land neither the 
 United States nor Texas manifested much in- 
 terest in settling the fork problem. But after 
 the Comanches were corraled on a reservation 
 and the cowmen divided up, the Panhandle 
 squatters began to drift in between the forks 
 of the Red. 
 
 The American creates government wherever 
 he goes. No matter how new or isolated the 
 settlement, the next thing after the staking 
 out of the claims is the erection of some form 
 
 COWBOYS AT LUNCI1. 
 
 county. So does Texas. She has recognized 
 the county organization which the squatters 
 have set up. In conventions and in other 
 formal ways Greer County is conceded repre- 
 sentation. But this is pending a decison as 
 to the ownership. All Texas maps show the 
 State line running around to the north of 
 Greer. All United States maps trace the Texas 
 boundary south of Greer. The sole question 
 is which is Red River? Red River divides In- 
 dian Territory from Texas. There is no dis- 
 pute as to where the river runs un- 
 til the forks are reached. Texas insists 
 that one fork is the main river. 
 The United States considers the other fork the 
 main river. And it makes just the difference 
 of Greer County which is right. Greer lies be- 
 tween the forks. Forty-six years ago the in- 
 dependent Republic of Texas was annexed to 
 the United States. Nobody at that time had 
 ever heard of Greer County. The issue of the 
 forks of Red River had not been raised. Some 
 time in the remote past a boundary commis- 
 sion went up Red River. The work was done 
 in such an ill-defined way that it left the op- 
 
 of organization which will give semblance of 
 stability to title and which will insure law 
 and order. Foreign anarchists and Socialists 
 run up against this strong American trait and 
 surprise themselves. The squatters in Greer 
 County did not stop to ask "under which 
 king." They set up an organization and chose 
 a county seat. Many of them being from 
 Texas, and Texas being willing, they attached 
 themselves for the time being to Texas. 
 
 This Greer County is an exceedingly well- 
 favored country. It has as good soil as the 
 Panhandle wheat belt, and it is better watered 
 than some parts of the Panhandle. It has 
 raised this year 2,000,000 bushels of wheat, 
 and the three new mills and the three new el- 
 evators which form an impressive group at 
 Quanah, in the Panhandle, are a tribute to 
 Greer County's growing importance. Quanah 
 is named for the Comanche chief, and with 
 Vernon, shares the most of the Greer County 
 trade. If the United States gets Greer the 
 squatters will accommodate themselves to the 
 homestead law and get 160 acres apiece. If 
 Texas sustains her claim, the farmers con- 
 
-23- 
 
 tributing this crop of 2,000,000 bushels of 
 wheat will be entitled to buy on the easy terms 
 of the Texas land law 64C acres apiece. That 
 is the reason the Panhandle towns hope the 
 United States will win. They want a country 
 of 160- acre farms right beside them to show 
 how much better is the policy of small farms. 
 And the most of the Panhandle lawyers say 
 there is no doubt the United States will prove 
 the South Fork is the main river and that 
 Greer County is outside of Texas. - To-day, 
 where the Denver road crosses Red River, just 
 beyond the corner of Greer, there is not a 
 drop of water in sight only an expanse of 
 fiery red silt and sand half a mile wide be- 
 tween low banks. But a storm on the plains 
 or in the mountains may send 7 feet of boil- 
 ing red mud rolling down the channel in a few 
 hours. So it depends on temporary circum- 
 stances which is Red River and which is the 
 fork that doesn't count. A settlement of the 
 
 meadows give place to pastures bounded only 
 by the horizon. At Calef, fourteen miles 
 north of Forth Worth, there are just five 
 houses in sight on perhaps 10,000 acres 
 of land. This is not the red 
 lands or the Panhandle country. It is Tar- 
 rant County, of which Fort Worth is the seat. 
 Tarrant County is where the idea of smaller 
 farms and more people is being agitated with 
 a great deal of vigor. Somebody asked Mr. 
 Peter Smith, the ex- May or of Fort Worth, 
 how much land a certain resident of the coun- 
 ty had. "He hasn't much," Mr. Smith re- 
 plied; "only about 1,000 acres." That illus- 
 trates the Texas idea of a small farm. Upon 
 the public domain the United States considers 
 160 acres enough for a homestead. Texas kept 
 all of her land when she became one of the 
 States in 1846, and she gave it away or sold it 
 in great blocks for many yoars. Having grown 
 somewhat economical, Texas now sells only a 
 
 A GROUP OF COWBOYS. 
 
 boundary dispute will come before the end of 
 the year it is thought. People who con- 
 tribute 2,000,000 bushels of wheat to the 
 visible supply must be given a political status. 
 They may count in Oklahoma's early claim 
 for statehood. 
 
 The traveler leaving Fort Worth for the Pan- 
 handle country rides almost due north for a 
 couple of hours. He sees wheat fields stretch- 
 ing away in the distance. Great straw piles 
 loom up like pyramids. The steam threshers 
 toot a cheerful salute as the train rushes by. 
 One of these threshers turned out 1611 bush- 
 els of wheat on Wednesday, and then broke 
 its own record on Saturday with 1624 bushels. 
 This kind of work was made possible by wheat 
 giving twenty-five bushels to the acre. After 
 the wheat fields come natural meadows, on 
 which the baled hay is piled up as high as a 
 horse and left almost wholly unprotected, 
 with a firm faith in favoring weather. The 
 
 section of agricultural land, or 640 aciv^, to 
 one person four times what the General Gov- 
 ernment allows. There is one man in Tarrant 
 County who has 9,000 acres. He has fenced 
 his farm, but he cultivates only 200 acres. 
 There are others who haven't quite so much, 
 but they have enough to make Tarrant County 
 look like a grazing country, whereas "the fact 
 is," said Gen. Clark, of Fort Worth, "we 
 have as fine farming land as can be found any- 
 where." 
 
 The man with the 9,000 acres has declared 
 his willingness to cut this farm up and sell it 
 in alternate blocks. The Fort Worth Board of 
 Trade is carrying on a campaign of education 
 to make this change from pastures to farms 
 general. According to the census figures Tar- 
 rant County has added only fifty-eight to her 
 agricultural population in ten years. Fort 
 Worth grew 16,413 in the decade, but the 
 county outside of the city practically stood 
 still. The people in the city have reached a 
 
24 
 
 logical conclusion that their future growth 
 depends upon a change in the agricultural, or 
 rather non- agricultural, conditions of the 
 county. Hence the campaign. Like most oth- 
 er campaigns of education, this is not alto- 
 gether encouraging. Texans let go of land, 
 even when they are land- poor, with reluct- 
 ance. A man who has 5,000 acres worth $12 
 now, and that is about the Tarrant County es- 
 timate of the big pastures; can hardly bring 
 himself to sell 2,500 acres at $12, though it is 
 made clear to him it will bring in people and 
 make the remaining 2,500 worth $24. 
 
 THE LONE COURT HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. 
 
 The Panhandle, in spite of the progress of 
 the man with the hoe, has the pasture prob- 
 lem to deal with. There isn't much doubt 
 what the final result will be. Until he got the 
 Cor-.-- he out the cowman did not rest, and 
 Wi . _.ae same aggressive, not to say extermi- 
 nating spirit, the farmer is now camping on 
 the trail of the cowman. The famous red 
 lands stretch from the Red River southwest. 
 A tongue reaches the Concho. The main body 
 extends on the northwest to Clarendon. But 
 still farther into the Panhandle the man with 
 the hoe has pushed his way. He may not find 
 natural wheat country all over Northwestern 
 Texas, but he has the faith of a pioneer that 
 he can raise something, 
 
 The land which the cowman got at 50c and 
 $1 is now worth from $6 to $10 an acre at a 
 distance of five to seven miles from town. 
 Within three and four miles of town it is 
 worth $10 and $15 an acre. The State, at the 
 instance of the cowman, classed it as grazing 
 land. The man with a hoe, after five years' 
 cropping says that 75 per cent of it is farming 
 land and only 25 per cent pasture. 
 
 "This is land," said John Howard, of 
 Wichita Falls, "which, with average seasons, 
 will pay for itself, for the labor and for the 
 seed in two years. That is something I don't 
 believe can be done in any other State in the 
 Union. What I've done others will do. I've 
 given an Iowa man a three years' lease on 
 some land of mine. He fences, improves and 
 has all he can raise for three years. At the 
 end of that time the fencing is mine. If he 
 puts up a house I pay him for 
 that. With the kk,d of crops we 
 have had for five years that man will 
 make enough to pay him for his labor and 
 to buy him some land at the end of the three 
 years. This plan gives a man from the North 
 a chance to try the country and see if he likes 
 it. Texans won ' t take the land on such terms , 
 but Northern men will. The latter don't like 
 to go in debt and are timid about settling here 
 permanently without a trial. By giving the 
 entire use of the land for that term of years 
 we interest a tenant in cultivating it 
 well." 
 
 It isn't much wonder that Northern men 
 hesitate to take the Panhandle on faith. A 
 few years ago the banner wheat county of 
 this region was known far and wide as 
 " Wicked Wilbarger.' ' Civilization goes with 
 wheat. Judge Orr and some associates went 
 down to Austin and persuaded the State 
 authorities that Wilbarger should be classed 
 as agricultural lands. Two or three other 
 counties in the Panhandle were equally sue - 
 cessful. The result was the selling of their 
 lands in single sections, thicker settlement, 
 more wheat and less wickedness. It was 
 ' Wicked Wilbarger' ' showed 55.28 per cent, 
 increase of population by the new census. 
 Adjoining counties of the same kind of land 
 were not so fortunate. At Austin the cowmen 
 were too quick for the man with the hoe; the 
 land was classed as grazing and sold in blocks 
 of seven sections. There the fight against the 
 pastures Is still "on* 
 
 TVc 3, 9.. 
 
THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 The First Round-Up for Law and Order 
 in the Panhandle. 
 
 A Hundred Killings Tascosa's Grand 
 
 Jury Memories of Boot Hill The 
 
 Great X. I. T. Pasture 
 
 Disintegration. 
 
 Special correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 N THE PANHANDLE OF 
 TEXAS, August 7. 
 There hasn't been 
 an interment on 
 Boot Hill for more 
 than two years. 
 Things have changed 
 since Henry King 
 died. Tascosa, once 
 " the toughest town ' ' 
 of the Panhandle, 
 has a big new Court 
 House. If the ghost 
 of Billy the Kid 
 could come back it 
 
 would find but one familiar Landmark Boot 
 Hill. The Denver train steams into and out 
 of Tascosa about the hour that graveyards 
 yawn. Not a single pistol shot disturbs the 
 slumbers of the passengers. 
 
 came to Tascosa a hundred miles and more to 
 get supplies. And they didn't leave without 
 having had what they called " a wide time. ' ' 
 Tascosa was the meeting point where 
 troubles were settled long-before a stone court 
 house with a cupola was thought of. The 
 feuds of the ranches, the disputes between 
 cowboys and gamblers, the rivalries over 
 favors of frail creatures, all came to an issue 
 at Tascosa. And when the arbitrament of 
 navy sixes had been pronounced there was an 
 addition to be made to the population of Boot 
 Hill. The pessimists say that epitaphs lie. 
 The records on the head boards of Boot Hill 
 faithfully record history. Boot Hill is a sight- 
 ly knoll a little way out of Tascosa. Only 
 those who died with their boots on were en- 
 titled to a place on the hill. Life was too 
 practical in the Panhandle to encourage the 
 erection of elaborate monuments- A board 
 was deemed sufficiently permanent. On it 
 was inscribed enough to remind the friends 
 and to warn the enemies of the deceased. 
 Many of the boards have fallen down or have 
 disappeared. Perhaps they lasted long enough 
 to serve their double purpose. 
 
 Perhaps it was grand juries and courts. 
 More likely it was wheat- raising and the man 
 with the hoe which wrought the revolution in 
 the value of human life. But to-day no man 
 need carry a gun on his hip in the Pan- 
 handle. There is a detachment of rangers 
 
 ^^^-^SK^^ 
 
 A WICHITA FALLS MELON FIELD. 
 
 Tascosa, Mexican by name and American by 
 adoption, is one of the oldest settlements in 
 the Panhandle. For years it was the outfit- 
 ting post of a great cow country. Ranchers 
 
 up here. The officer in command is Lieut. 
 Britton. 
 
 "We haven't much to do now," the Lieu- 
 tenant said, as he leaned on the gate of tbe 
 
corral, "beyond helping the Sheriff to over- 
 take fugitives from justice. We make scouts 
 cover the country to see what is going on and 
 occasionally we are called on to run down a 
 murder. But the work is nothing like what 
 it was a few years ago. There is no train rob- 
 bing. We haven't had a case of shooting out 
 the lights in a long time. Now and then a 
 cowboy conies to town and gets full. Perhaps 
 he will begin to make a noise. We go to him 
 and take him by the arm and tell him it won't 
 do. He usually quiets down and that is all 
 there is of it." 
 
 There is still some big ranching in the Pan- 
 handle. From the northern boundary of the 
 State one fence extends 210 miles due south. 
 This isn't as great as the distance from St. 
 Louis to Chicago, but it is a good part of it. 
 This single fence belongs to one company. It 
 bounds the east line of the possessions of the 
 X. I. T. There is another fence on the west 
 side, and there are cross fences dividing this, 
 the largest fenced pasture in the world, into 
 divisions. On each division is a big house, a 
 superintendent and a force of men. It re- 
 quires 125 men to run this ranch. The small- 
 est of the pasture divisions contains 470,000 
 acres. Last year 50,000 calves were branded 
 on this ranch. Yet the chief owner in this 
 magnificent property "wishes he had never 
 seen a cow brute." His name is Farwell, and 
 he is a merchant prince in Chicago. Years 
 ago, when Texas had more land than any- 
 thing else, she proclaimed through the 
 newspapers that she would give so 
 many million acres of land for a State 
 Capitol so big. It was a novel .proposition. 
 Takers were found in the Farwells,of Chicago; 
 Abner Taylor the present Congressman, and 
 his father-in-law, Mr. Babcock, an Illinois 
 banker. These gentlemen built a Capitol of 
 the length, breadth and height specified in 
 the bond, and they got their pay in this Pan- 
 handle pasture, 210 miles long. Texas lands 
 went up and down and up again while the 
 Capitol was building. The then unfenced and 
 unstocked pasture was worth at one time 
 twice what the Capitol cost. It was worth at 
 another time, when the bottom fell out of the 
 cattle business, less than the Capitol cost. It 
 would sell now for enough to build half a 
 dozen capitols. 
 
 The "nester" has not yet tackled the 
 Capitol syndicate land, but there is hardly a 
 Texas pasture east of the 210 miles fence in 
 which farmers have not found foothold. Cow- 
 men can acquire great blocks of land, but 
 they often have to inclose with their pur- 
 chases the school sections, for the use 
 of which they pay rental. The nester 
 comes along' v and begins farming on 
 one of the school sections. Whenever 
 the school section is wanted for agricultural 
 purposes the cowman's lease expires. For the 
 nester' s accommodation the pasture owner 
 
 must put in gates and allow roadways. This 
 is one way in which the disintegration of the 
 large pastures begins. Texas has had a land 
 policy full of inconsistencies. Some of these 
 results may be seen in a ride through the Pan- 
 handle. For example, between Vernon and 
 Wichita Falls the wheat fields extend on 
 either side of the Denver road as far as the 
 vision reaches. East of Wichita Falls the 
 right of way is bounded by wire fences, and 
 beyond is the virgin prairie, with here and 
 there a fresh breaking or a new house. The 
 difference is that in one case the farmer got 
 in his work at Austin, and in the other the 
 cowman had the ear of the Administration. 
 In one case the county was classed as agri- 
 cultural. In the other, although the land 
 was of precisely the same character, the 
 decision was "grazing." One man could 
 buy a single section only of agri- 
 cultural land. He could obtain seven sections 
 of grazing. And so one county was turned 
 into wheat fields and another into pastures. 
 East of Wichita Falls the railroad runs through 
 a pasture of 17,000 acres good for twenty- 
 four bushels of wheat in the average season. 
 This pasture might, for all of the purposes of 
 town growth and railroad traffic, have been a 
 desert. But it has passed into the hands of a 
 Nebraska man and an Iowa man, and they 
 are turning it into farms at $8 and $10 an 
 acre. North of Wichita Falls and Iowa Park 
 lies a barrier in the form of a pasture of 25,- 
 000 acres. This pasture comes down to with- 
 in three miles of the Falls. It belongs to Dan 
 Waggoner and Burke Burnett, the cattle 
 kings. Burnett's home is in Fort Worth. 
 Waggoner has a fine stone mansion prettily 
 located on an elevation above the railroad at 
 Decatur. The people of Wichita Falls and 
 Iowa Park are grumbling mightily. " Of 
 what use is it," they say, " to ship four car 
 loads of melons a day or to grind nearly 
 1,000 barrels of flour every twenty-four hours 
 if progress is to be barred by such a bar- 
 rier?" Beyond the pasture lies that part of 
 the Indian Territory known as the Fort Sill 
 country, the home of the Comanches. En- 
 vious eyes are upon the Waggoner pasture 
 and upon the Fort Sill country, " Take the 
 farmers out of this region," say the Iowa 
 Park people, " and property wouldn't be 
 worth lOc on the dollar. Double the number 
 of farmers and property will be worth 150c 
 on the dollar of the present valuation. The 
 way to boom the town is to say nothing about 
 it but to settle the farms." 
 
 There is room in the Waggoner pasture for 
 500 farmers. People would pay $10 to $15 an 
 acre for the land if they could get it. Before 
 the country, in other directions from Wichita 
 Falls, was developed, the Waggoner pasture 
 wasn't worth over $3 or $4 an acre. The set- 
 tlement of the Waggoner pasture would 
 double the population of Iowa Park in 
 
-27- 
 
 two years. Thus the issue of anti-pas- 
 ture grows in the Panhandle. The Waggoner 
 pasture is mentioned only as an illustration. 
 All through the Panhandle this issue exists. 
 It is greater than any other question. County 
 elections turn upon it. Until three years ago 
 the cowmen controlled the Panhandle politics. 
 They elected County Commissioners and dic- 
 tated assessment and taxation. They let the 
 farmers' improvements bear the burden, 
 while the big pastures which were increased 
 in value by such improvements beside them 
 were taxed only as wild land. The opening 
 of roads was retarded. The contest was and 
 is a lively one. Self-interest of the cowmen 
 is arrayed against self-interest of the farm- 
 ers. Neither is blame- worthy. A few years 
 ago twenty men named the officers and shaped 
 the policies of four of these wheat-growing 
 counties. But big pastures don't go with big 
 towns. And this is the era of farm-making J 
 and town-building in the Panhandle. 
 
 Who would have dreamed that the cowman 
 and Comanche would ever lie down together ? 
 The cowman dispossessed the Comanche. He 
 drove him from the Panhandle into a res- 
 ervation. And now the Comanche is in 
 the pay of the cowman to help stay 
 the progress of the farmer. The Fort 
 Sill country is so near that the 
 Comanches trot their ponies down to Wichita 
 Falls in a day. It is the cream of the Indian 
 Territory in the opinion of the Panhandle 
 farmer. But while other reservations in the 
 Territory are being broken up and thrown 
 open to white settlement, the Fort Sill coun- 
 try remains closed. The big man among the 
 Comanches is Quanah Porter. Quanah has a 
 farm and plenty of horses. Ho has taken sides 
 with the cowman, his old enemy. When it is 
 necessary to send a squad of Comanche chiefs 
 to Washington to tell the Great Father the Co- 
 manches want to lease their lands to Dan Wag- 
 goner and the other cattle kings for 6c a year 
 per acre, Quanah is the shrewd Comanche who 
 rounds up the squad and has charge of them. 
 Quanah is a politician. He is not much of a 
 chief by inheritance or by war-path record. 
 But he is a very smart Indian politician. 
 When Mackenzie killed 3600 Indian 
 ponies down at the mouth of 
 the Tule and hustled the Comanches 
 back on their reservation after their last 
 breakaway he picked out Quanah and put him 
 at the head of the whole outfit. By virtue of 
 this commission from the great " long gun, ' ' 
 and by the exercise of a good deal of practical 
 politics, Quanah has remained boss of the 
 Comanches to this day. Something happened 
 not long ago which nearly ended Quanah' s 
 usefulness with his people. The boss gath- 
 
 ered together a lot of big men of the tribe and 
 took them down to Fort Worth on a junket. 
 The cowmen wanted a job put through, it 
 matters little what. The Comanches were 
 corraled in the best hotel in the fort. The 
 next morning one of them was dead. He had 
 blown out the gas. The chief's body was 
 taken back to the Fort Sill country. 
 There was great lamentation. Many ponies 
 were killed for use in the happy hunting 
 grounds. Braves gashed their breasts and 
 squaws howled. Suspicion of foul play 
 fell upon Quanah, and in the ex- 
 citement of grief there was strong sentiment 
 in favor of sending Quanah to join the de- 
 parted. But his white friends stood by the 
 boss. Time effaced the memory of the afflic- 
 tion. To-day Quanah is more a boss than 
 ever, and he stands in with the cowmen to 
 their great satisfaction and his own material 
 
 FORMER OWNERS OP THE PANHANDLE. 
 
 benefit. The Panhandle farmers say there is 
 room for 50,000 people, without crowding, in 
 the Fort Sill country. They say that if the 
 title to Greer is vested in the United States, 
 that new country bordering the Comanches 
 reservation on the west will have 100,000 
 people in ninety days. And they also say 
 that the United States land policy of 160 
 acres, enough for a homestead, would put 
 10,000,000 in Texas by the time the popula- 
 tion of the whole country reaches 100,000- 
 000. Perhaps they are right. Oklahoma was 
 settled in a day. The Cheyenne and Arapa- 
 hoe lands were filed on in another day. South 
 of them lie the Fort Sill country, Greer 
 County and the Panhandle. Southwestward 
 the star of empire takes its way. W. B. 8. 
 
THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 Strange Sights and Stranger Tales of 
 the Transpecos Country. 
 
 A Monument Not Made -with Hands The 
 Mystery of Diablo Canyon Mountain 
 Kangaroo -The Ancient Irrigators 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 SIERRA BLANC A, TEX., August 13. After the 
 tireless American tourist has exhausted the 
 rest of the continent, he can come to the 
 transpecos country and find brand new 
 wonders. Beyond the Pecos River lies a part 
 of Texas as large as all New England, leaving 
 off Maine. It has more mountains than peo- 
 ple, and it is full of strange things. Five or 
 six miles north of the little station of Van 
 
 travel the 740 miles from East Texas to West 
 Texas to se3 it and other works of nature in 
 the transpecos country. 
 
 At a somewhat greater distance from the 
 railroad is the Diablo Canyon. The Pueblo 
 shrugs his shoulders .when he talks of the 
 Diablo Canyon. It is in the wildest and rug- 
 gedest parts of the mountains. More ante- 
 lope can be seen in the canyon than anywhere 
 else in the country. There are literally thou- 
 sands of them. This is because all life 
 in the Diablo Canyon is sacred to 
 the Indians, and white men almost 
 never penetrate the mysterious pre- 
 cincts. These antelope have not been dis- 
 turbed. Anywhere outside of the canj^on the 
 antelope is the Indian's meat. Within the 
 canyon sanctity permits no kiUing. As a rule 
 the Indians do not visit the place. But in the 
 tribe are several who seem to have been ini- 
 tiated into an order or mystic body. These 
 
 THE CACTUS GARDEN AT SIERRA BLANCA. 
 
 Horn is something worth coming miles to see. 
 A ledge of blood-red sandstone overhangs 
 the ravine. It projects outward from 50 to 
 150 feet and is from 100 to 200 feet above the 
 bottom. Under this massive roof one can 
 walk for five or six miles. An army could be 
 sheltered there. At the upper end of this al- 
 most enclosed ravine rises a natural monu- 
 ment. It is of rock, built up strata upon strata 
 to the enormous height of 300 feet. That 
 is more than half of the height of the Wash- 
 ington Monument. This strange freak looks 
 like an old tower. The stratification .gives it 
 all of the appearance of rock laid course upon 
 course by human hands. The base is 100 feet 
 square and the top tapers to about 50 feet. 
 Some day there will be pictures of this monu- 
 ment in the guide books, and people will 
 
 have the right of entering the canyon. They 
 exercise a kind of guardianship over it. White 
 men do not visit the Diablo Canyon because 
 they can find no water in or near it. Yet there 
 is water. Springs abound, and the location 
 of them is a secret the Indian holds. The wa- 
 ter from these springs runs a short distance 
 and then sinks into the ground. That is a 
 great trick with the water courses throughout 
 this region. White men and all but the ini- 
 tiated, may pass within a few feet of one of 
 these springs and never suspect its presence. 
 The water is covered entirely over from its 
 source to its place of disappearance in the 
 earth with dry hides. Upon the hides dirt has 
 been scattered and grass sown. This work 
 was done long ago by the initiated to pre- 
 serve the sacredness of the canyon, and it has 
 
-29- 
 
 proven effective. The initiated members of 
 the tribe can go to these springs. None oth- 
 ers can find one of them. The Diablo Canyon 
 
 There are nuts and grains in the transpeoos 
 mountains. White men have never found 
 them. The Indians can go to them at any 
 
 IN THE GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 is seven or eight miles long, surrounded by 
 precipices and reached only by difficult trails. 
 It is thirty miles from the railroad. 
 
 time and can obtain subsistence where white 
 men would starve. Cactus growth takes on 
 its most fantastic forms in this region. There 
 
-30- 
 
 are cactus trees and cactus shrubs and cactus 
 plants. At a little distance some of these col- 
 lections look like well-kept gardens. The 
 cactus seems to have been set out by human 
 design in regular rows and squares. But a 
 nearer view shows that nature's orderly in- 
 spiration has done it all. At the station of 
 Sierra Blanca specimens of the different varie- 
 ties of cactus growth have been brought from 
 the mountain" sides and grouped. They are 
 not only of all forms and sizes, but of many 
 colors, and alike only in the possession of the 
 sharp needles. 
 
 There is something besides mountain and 
 cactus in the transpecos country. Coming 
 out of the Davis mountains is Toy ah Creek. 
 It is a sparkling mountain stream, 15 to 20 
 feet in width in places, making a succession 
 
 on rheumatism and gout, and have wrought 
 cures. The elevation is high. The climate is 
 dry. It tones up weak lungs and enables the 
 asthmatic to whoop and enjoy life. Here are 
 salt-water bathing and mountain air com- 
 bined. Yet the man who wishes to enjoy the 
 combination must sleep out of doors or take 
 a tent along. There are no accommodations. 
 Nature has created an extraordinary variety 
 of conditions for a great sanitarium and pleas- 
 ure resort, but no one has had the enterprise 
 to build a hotel. This Toyah Creek and the 
 lake are only a dozen miles south of Pecos 
 City. They are to-day just as nature made 
 them, save for the partial use of the creek 
 water for irrigating. 
 
 The transpecos country has its living as 
 well as its inanimate freaks. Upon the large 
 
 THE CABBIZO MOUNTAINS, NOBTH OF VAN HOBN. 
 
 of deep pools and dashing over falls until it 
 reaches the more level country. There it 
 forms a beautiful lake two miles wide and 
 four miles in length. On the creek are half a 
 dozen irrigating canals taking out water to 
 irrigate from 5,000 to 10,000 acres of land. 
 This creek is full of fish, including what is 
 called trout in this country, but what is not 
 like any trout in Northern mountain streams. 
 In season the creek and lake are covered with 
 game ducks and other water fowl of every 
 description. The lake is salt, in spite of the 
 mountain feeder. It has a smooth beach and 
 a hard , bottom. It is free from holes 
 and is a most perfect bathing place. 
 There are springs all about which possess 
 a whole apothecary shop of medical quali- 
 ties. Some of these springs have been tested 
 
 table in the room, at Dallas, where the Texas 
 and Pacific World's Fair exhibit is being pre- 
 pared, two curious animals have their tem- 
 porary home. They are " most amoosin lit- 
 tle cusses." In the transpecos country, 
 from which these animals were sent a few 
 days ago to Mr. Roessler, they are known as 
 mountain kangaroos. There are others where 
 these came from, but the man who catches 
 them will have to be quicker than the Irish- 
 man was with the flea. The name is well 
 bestowed. They are kangaroos, but of lilipu- 
 tian mold. Their bodies are about 4 inches 
 long, with reddish brown fur on the back and 
 the most delicate white fur on the belly. 
 They have hind legs 7 inches long, nearly 
 twice the length of the body. The front legs 
 are about one inch long. The tail is 7 inches 
 
-31 - 
 
 long, and has quite a bushy covering at the 
 end. On the tail and the hind legs these 
 little kangaroos sit, and use the 
 fore legs for hands. Their movement 
 is by jumps, and they go like lightning. All 
 that one sees is a red streak. Strange to tell, 
 the little fellows take to tameness and civili- 
 zation very kindly. They are rarely caught, 
 owing to their ability to get away. But once 
 caged they become domesticated in a few 
 hours. All that they want to make them per- 
 fectly happy is something to do. And therein 
 they set a fine example for Texas politicians. 
 Mr. Roessler puts a pint of grain at one end of 
 the large table and a large paper funnel at the 
 other. In half an hour the two kangaroos will 
 move the heap of seed across the table and 
 store it in the paper funnel. As they squat 
 beside the grain they seem to be eating it, but 
 instead of pouring it into their mouths with 
 their paws they tuck it away in two pouches, 
 one on either side of the head, and when 
 loaded they jump across the table at a pace 
 which would have turned Mark Twain's frog 
 green with envy, and unload it in the hiding 
 place. As often as the grain heap is replen- 
 ished these indefatigable workers will remove 
 it to the improvised store house. 
 
 These mountain kangaroos of West Texas 
 live in the dryest places and altitudes of from 
 3000 to 5000 feet. They make their nests or 
 homes on the ground, usually about the roots 
 of a tree. They use sticks and put them to- 
 gether so nicely as to make a solid little 
 structure. Mr. Roessler has searched the 
 books and found no description of his new 
 pets. That in natural history which most re- 
 sembles the little kangaroo of the transpecos 
 is the jerboa of Africa. 
 
 The Pecos valley is being bored full of arte- 
 sian wells and gridironed with irrigation sys- 
 tems. Half a dozen years ago this was the 
 Death's Valley of the cattle drive. The cow- 
 boys knew it to their sorrow. Coming up from 
 South Texas with their yearlings and 2-year- 
 olds bound for the ranges of Colorado, Wy- 
 oming and Montana, the cattlemen were 
 forced to follow the Pecos River. There was 
 no other route. The only water was in the 
 river and the grass for a long way on either 
 side was trampled out or gnawed to the roots. 
 So the herds zigzagged up the valley, drifting 
 off as far as they dared to go without water 
 for feed, and then angling back to the river, 
 in an almost parched condition. 
 
 "I remember it well," said one of these 
 same cattlemen, who is now selling town lots 
 and improved farms at Eddy. "In 1886 our 
 outfit tried to drive out of Texas by this 
 route to Montana. We never had such a time 
 in our lives. We lost between 500 and 600 
 head. It was leave the river and drive to the 
 hills for feed ; then leave the hills and drive to 
 the river for water. Other outfits fared worse 
 
 than we did, getting through with losses of 5000 
 and 6000. The valley was strewn with dead 
 el 3k." 
 
 Lehold the transformation. All of the way 
 up the valley from Pecos City in Texas to Ros- 
 well in New Mexico not 100 people were liv- 
 ing. And now the Pecos Valley is well on the 
 way to achieve a population of 200,000 or 
 300,000 inhabitants. Irrigation is doing it. 
 Perhaps, after all, this isn't so wonderful. 
 When the pioneer surveying party went over 
 that part of the valley near Delaware Creek, 
 running the lines for a big canal, they found 
 the ground plan of an ancient city. The 
 streets were laid with cobble stones, and are 
 there to-day. They are extensive enough to 
 show that a large community must have been 
 served by them. The adobe houses which 
 
 EXTINCT GEYSER IN PECOS VALLEY. 
 
 lined these streets have melted away under 
 the storms of perhaps half a dozen centuries, 
 but no one who walks the streets can doubt 
 that the populous city once existed. This an- 
 cient site is some miles north of Pecos City. 
 Forty miles south of Pecos City another party 
 of surveyors came upon an ancient canal. 
 That canal is now in use as part of a system. 
 Mr. O. W. Williams says the lines of the an- 
 cient canal are as accurate as any engineer 
 could make them to-day. The ancient city 
 and the ancient canal tell the story. Hun- 
 dreds of years ago, before Columbus came, 
 this Pecos Valley was settled and irrigated by 
 people who lived in cities and knew how to 
 run levels. History is only repeating itself 
 on a grander and a modern scale along the 
 Pecos. 
 
 Up and down the Pecos Valley are mounds. 
 If the few inches of soil is scraped off there is 
 uncovered a mass of broken rock and black 
 ashes. The rock is reduced to about the size 
 of macadam. It looks as if it had gone through 
 a mighty crusher. Some of this broken rock 
 is granite. There is no other granite found on 
 the surface for hundreds of miles around. 
 Some of the fragments are lava. The ashes 
 are like the scoriae of volcanic action. The 
 centers of the mounds are hollow. At the ris- 
 ing town of Eddy the enterprising people 
 have made streets of the contents of these 
 
-32- 
 
 mounds, and though they have dug down 
 considerable distances they have found the 
 same curious mixture of broken rock and 
 ashes as far as they have gone. The local 
 theory is that each of these mounds is an ex- 
 tinct geyser. Mr. G. O.^Shields, of Eddy, has 
 made something of a study of the mounds. 
 He says " the country is full of them." They 
 are found along the Pecos and up its tributa- 
 ries. Mr. Shields says that they bear every 
 appearance of having been active within a 
 comparatively recent period, perhaps not 
 longer than a century. It may be there are 
 geysers still spouting in the mountains and 
 that may explain the mystery of the Diablo 
 Canyon, which all Indians venerate as the 
 abode of spirits. W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 An Ancient People Whose City Was 
 Bnilt When Columbus Came* 
 
 The Story of the Tihuas Their Glorious 
 Deeds in War A Sacred Tradition 
 Which Was Not A Secret- 
 Mining in West Texas. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 YSLETA, TEX., August 14. This nation is 
 about to celebrate "The Discovery of 
 America." Yet it has voters to whom the 
 
 men and their generals. It is much more 
 than 400 years next October since they 
 took up their residence on the border 
 of the Rio Grande in Texas. The com- 
 munity has its leading citizens and they 
 talk freely and interestingly. They say 
 that originally they came from the Colorado 
 River of the West. Two branches of quite 
 a nation moved eastward at the same time 
 to find new homes. One settled at Ysleta, in 
 what is now Texas; the other at Ysleta, in the 
 present New Mexico. They had government 
 and they built cities. The Texas Ysleta 
 prospered best. Apaches and Comanches 
 viewed the new-comers as intruders and 
 tried to drive them back. They besieged the 
 upper colony, and Ysleta in Texas was 
 obliged to send a military force to help out 
 the brethren. That force remained, and the 
 descendants are still living in the Ysleta of 
 New Mexico. These people are now called 
 Pueblos. Their distinctive name as a tribe or 
 nation was Tihua. Ysleta was originally Chi- 
 hua. For 100 years war was waged against 
 the Indians who sought to drive back the 
 Tihuas. Then the Spaniards came in and 
 overran the country. The Tihuas accepted 
 the conquest. But submission was not be- 
 cause of superior military prowess. It 
 was for a religious reason. For a time the 
 relations ran smoothly. The Spaniards mis- 
 took the nature of this people. They thought 
 they were too tame to fight, and they became 
 oppressive. The Tihuas arose in revolution 
 and drove the Spaniards out of New Mexico 
 
 THE CHISAS MOUNTAINS, TEXAS. 
 
 coming of Columbus was only an incident. 
 Before the Spanish conquest Ysleta was a 
 city. The Ysleta people had their politics, 
 t f heir history, their government, their states- 
 
 and Texas. After that for a hundred years there 
 was war between the Tihuas and the Span- 
 iards. The latter, with better armament and 
 with increased forces, gradually worsted the 
 
-33- 
 
 former. But this time there was no submis- 
 sion. The Tihuas fighti ig stubbornly with- 
 drew from their ancient city of Chihua, gave 
 up their fields and vineyards and their elabo- 
 rate irrigation system and moved eastward, 
 
 A HOME OP THE TIHUAS. 
 
 even across the Pecos River. They built new 
 towns, and made a stronghold in the Hueco 
 mountains. Hueco has been Americanized 
 into Waco. In Hueco Mountains the last battle 
 with the Spaniards was fought. And when 
 the so-called "conquerors' ' tired of trying to 
 subdue the Tihuas the latter, many of them, 
 
 have given the United States soldiers by their 
 wily ways and desperate tactics this victory of 
 the Tihuas appears the more remarkable. 
 According to the story told at Ysleta by the 
 local chroniclers of the Tihuas, the Apaches 
 surprised and murdered two of the Pueblos at 
 what is now Carrizo Station, on the Texas and 
 Pacific Railroad. The Tihuas mustered their 
 fighting strength and their best officers took 
 the field. By a series of forced marches and 
 by brilliant maneuvers they drove the 
 Apaches, between 300 and 400 strong, into 
 the Hueco Mountains, and finally into a great 
 cavern. There they penned them in. Sixty 
 of the Apaches died of starvation. In a series 
 of desperate sorties 75 per cent were killed. 
 Enough got away to carry the news to the 
 tribe. In the language again of the interpreter* 
 "The Apaches never monkeyed with the 
 Tihuas after that." 
 
 These Pueblos have been given the reputa- 
 tion of being patient and peace-loving by the 
 historians and ethnologists. They have been 
 credited with being submissive almost to the 
 degree of accepting tyranny in preference to 
 strife. It would appear that this trait has 
 
 A VEHICLE AND GRANARY IN ANCIENT YSLETA. 
 
 moved back to their beloved Ysleta, repaired 
 the ditches and remade the city. This is 
 history, not as will be found in the books, 
 but as it is told to-day by the best men of 
 Ysleta, than whom the United States has no 
 better assimilated citizens. Until twenty 
 years ago the Tihuas fought the Apaches, 
 their hereditary enemies. Peace was estab- 
 lished as the result of a brilliant campaign. 
 In the language of the interpreter, the Tihuas 
 "did them up in great shape." When it is re- 
 membered how much trouble the Apaches 
 
 been overdrawn. Army officers say that the 
 Tihuas will fight. They have tried them as 
 trailers and scouts in the Indian campaigns 
 and have found them full of strategy and grit. 
 Next to the Apaches the Comanches ranked in 
 savage valor. Yet the Tihuas forced an un- 
 derstanding with the Comanches and estab- 
 lished a boundary which neither crossed. 
 After the Hueco tragedy the same kind of a 
 treaty was made with the Apaches. 
 
 The cave in which the Apaches perished 
 is treated to this day as a place to be 
 
-34 
 
 avoided. No Indian will enter it. They say 
 the spirits of the starved and slaughtered 
 Apaches still linger there. The visitor can 
 hear in one corner three distinct raps. They 
 seem to come from another part of the cave. 
 When the sound is followed to what seems to 
 be the source it is heard again, but coming 
 fro n somewhere else. These three raps can 
 be heard at intervals. Sometimes they seem 
 to come from above and sometimes from be- 
 low. They are such raps as might be made by 
 striking the rock sharply with a hammer. 
 After the raps comes a whistling or hissing 
 sound. Nobody has ever been able to account 
 for the rappings. All Indians of whatever 
 tribe give the cave a wide berth. The location 
 of this mystery is northeast of El Paso about 
 twenty-five miles. 
 
 closely resemble the doctrines of the Christian 
 religion. Cuetzalcoatl taught the art of work- 
 ing silver. He educated the Aztecs in agri- 
 culture, trained them in the weaving of 
 cloth, gave them forms of worship, and incul- 
 cated the idea of making sacrifices only of 
 flowers. And when the god had thus finished 
 his work he sailed eastward on a raft of 
 snakes, promising to return some time. 
 When the Spaniards landed, their cross-em- 
 blazoned banners, tlieir religious customs and 
 their manners brought back the memory of 
 the god of air. The natives were sure that 
 Cuetzalcoatl had come again. They made 
 haste to welcome. They submitted to Span- 
 ish domination until it grew tyrannical. Cor- 
 tez got in his cruel work before the mistake 
 was discovered. 
 
 AX ANCIENT PEAR TREE AT YSLETA. 
 
 And now for the explanation of the submis- 
 sion of these people to the Spaniards, an act 
 on which is based misapprehension of their 
 character. Not long ago a gentleman familiar 
 with Aztec lore visited Ysleta in Texas. He 
 brought together the chief men of the Tihuas 
 and made them a speech. In the course of 
 the remarks, which were interpreted sentence 
 by sentence, the visitor told the legend of 
 Cuetzalcoatl. The purpose was to judge of 
 the effect of the narrative upon the Tihuas and 
 to determine their possible relationship to the 
 Aztecs. Cuetzalcoatl was the Aztec god of air. 
 His functions were those of a priest. Many of 
 his teachings, as described by the Aztecs, 
 
 Thus the story of Cuetzalcoatl v,-as narrated 
 to the Tihuas of Western Texas for the first 
 tim3 by a white man. In the audience were 
 men of great ago. Their excitement increased 
 as the narrative progressed. As soon as the 
 end was reached there was a commotion. 
 The listeners looked at each other and then 
 at the speaker. They conversed together in 
 an excited manner. They turned to the inter- 
 preter and wanted to know where the white 
 man had learned what he had told. Then they 
 said that the .story of Cuetzalcoatl \YIIS one of 
 their most sacred memories, and they did not 
 dream it was known to any but themselves. 
 Finding that he knew so much, the Tihuas 
 
-35- 
 
 told many things going to show their common 
 origin with the Aztecs of Mexico and Yucatan. 
 They told of the sacred fires which had been 
 burning centuries for the return of the god. 
 They confirmed the theory that it was the be- 
 lief in the return of Cuetzalcoatl which had 
 prompted their submission to the Spanish 
 yoke. 
 
 These Tihuas pay taxes and vote; they fulfil 
 all of the duties and exercise all of the privi- 
 leges of American citizens. At the same time 
 they preserve the old forms and offices of 
 Aztec self-government. But the latter is now 
 social rather than political. The Aztec gov- 
 ernment is a reminiscence. The real govern- 
 ment is American. 
 
 Perhaps the Tihuas are the original long- 
 horns. "X" is interchangeable with " hu " 
 in the ancient spelling and pronunciation. 
 
 With this borne in mind it is not difficult to 
 see a close relationship between Tihuas, pro- 
 nounced Te-waus, and Texas. The deriva- 
 tion of Texas has given the scholars of the 
 Southwest a great deal of trouble. The his- 
 tory of the Tihuas may have a bearing on the 
 controversy. 
 
 These mountains of Texas look as if they 
 ought to contain rich ores. In their continu- 
 ation to the northward are prosperous min- 
 
 trict. The Carrizo mines are six miles from 
 Allaraore Station. There is a district called 
 the Diabolo north of Van Horn. Precious min- 
 erals are also found in the mountains 150 
 to 200 miles south of Pecos City. The Frank- 
 
 OX THE PLATFORM AT WILD HORSE, TEX. 
 
 lin district has been protpected in a small 
 way. Very little has been done in develop- 
 ment. In the Carrizo district the ores which 
 have been found are usually green copper, 
 with silver varying from $30 to $150 a ton. 
 
 THE CHURCH AT YSLETA, THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. 
 
 ing camps. To the south are located some of 
 the famous mines of Mexico. Yet up to date, 
 Texas as a mining country for the precious 
 metals, is almost a terra incognita. There 
 has been some prospecting, and there is some 
 mining going on in Western Texas. There 
 may be a great deal more. North of El Paso 
 is the Franklin district. Fifteen miles south- 
 west of Sierra Blanca, where the cactus gar- 
 dens cover the mountain side, is a second dis- 
 
 In this district there are numerous prospect 
 holes, but no mines in operation. The Dia- 
 bolo Mountains are the palisades of Texas. 
 Seen from the car window the palisades ap- 
 pear to be about 150 feet high. But at a dis- 
 tance from the railroad these palisades tower 
 magnificently to the height of- 1,000 and 
 1,500 feet above the surrounding country. 
 In the Diabolo Mountains the Hazel mines are 
 situated. They are worked by 200 men, and 
 
quite a little town has come into existence 
 eight miles from Allamore Station. The ore 
 is what is known as tetrahedrite, or gray cop- 
 per. It carries from 100 to 1,600 ounces of sil- 
 ver to the ton. Much of the silver found is 
 wire. The percentage of copper is about 20. 
 There are any number of. prospect holes in the 
 district around the Hazel mines. Southwest 
 of Sierra Blanca the trail winds its way 
 through the natural cactus gardens to the 
 Bonanza mines. The product is a combination 
 of silver and lead. It is 35 to 40 per cent lead, 
 and furnishes from 40 to 150 ounces of silver 
 to the ton. This district is within six miles of 
 Etholen Station. It is worked only in a small 
 way. 
 
 In Presidio County, a long distance south of 
 the districts just mentioned, are located the 
 Presidio and Cibolo mines at Shafter. They 
 have been worked for several years. The ores 
 are galena, sulphurets and chlorides of silver 
 mixed more or less with iron. They give 200 
 to 500 ounces of silver to the ton and are 
 accounted very valuable mines. 
 
 Ores have been found in many places in the 
 mountains of Western Texas, but the mining 
 industry is in its infancy. .W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 The Story of Three Men and Their Three 
 Millions Investment. 
 
 Where Jay Gould Found Health and a 
 
 Railroad Holy River Irrigation 
 
 Made Easy for Beginners A 
 
 Woman's Expensive Desert 
 
 Land Entry. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe Democrat. 
 
 IN- THE PECOS VALLEY, August 15. Two 
 years ago there was a piece of land 400 miles 
 square without a rod of railroad. From the 
 center it was possible to journey 200 miles in 
 any direction and not read " Look out for the 
 locomotive." Nowhere else in the United 
 States was this true. One man had a ranch 
 house here. His cattle roamed over several 
 thousand hills and yielded little profit. An- 
 other man came. He had made a snug for- 
 tune as superintendent of iron works at Mil- 
 waukee, had swelled it by fortunate invest- 
 ment in iron lands in the Lake Superior re- 
 gion ; still further increased it by the building 
 ef a Colorado railroad, and was receiving 
 $1000 a month from his interest in a single 
 Colorado mine. The third man was a news- 
 paper editor and publisher. He had lived fif- 
 teen years on hope in this region. His sole 
 capital was experience. These three men 
 
 pooled their brains, their capital and their 
 experience. They acquired the land. They 
 made a whole river their servant, taking 
 every drop of water out of the channel. They 
 built a railroad a hundred miles long. 
 Around a 850,000 hotel and a $30,000 court 
 house they laid out a city. " The timidity of 
 capital" is talked about. The proposition 
 which these three men laid before the world 
 has absorbed $3,000,000. And the ditching 
 and planting and building go on with su- 
 preme faith in the ultimate result. 
 
 This Pecos Valley enterprise is a part of 
 "Through Texas," although the lands and 
 the headquarters of the grand scheme lie in 
 the southeastern corner of New Mexico. Far up 
 in the mountains of New Mexico the Rio Pecos 
 has its rise. It crosses the line into Texas 
 near the corner of the Territory and con- 
 tinues on its course through Western Texas to 
 its junction with the Rio Grande. At the 
 crossing of the Texas and Pacific Rail- 
 road and the Rio Pecos, the new railroad of 
 the Pecos Valley has its connection with the 
 world. It comes down the Pecos Valley from 
 Eddy, in New Mexico, a distance of ninety 
 miles. 
 
 The soil of the Pecos Valley is dark, with 
 some gravel here, some gypsum there and 
 occasional alkali beds. It is the same soil 
 which in the Rio Grande and other arid valleys 
 looks hopeless until water is turned upon it, 
 and then, behold ! It becomes Paradise. 
 When the three men began the grand work 
 <>f Ira.nsformatlon in the Pecos Valley this 
 land was rated by the Government at $1.25 
 :iu acre, and there were no takers. A dam 
 was built over the river from side lo side, to 
 catch the entire flow. It is 50 feet high and 
 1150 feet long. Just above the shrewdly 
 chosen location the river comes down and 
 strikes with its full force a high limestone 
 bluff. It turns sharply and meets the dam 
 with the current almost destroyed by 
 the bluff. Around the end of 
 the dam, hewn out of this solid 
 limestone bluff, 30 feet wide ani 25 feet deep, 
 is the channel through which th3 water is led 
 off into the great irrigating canal. Heavy 
 gates set into the rock bottom and sides con- 
 trol the water as perfectly as if this was the 
 lock of a canal. The lake made by the dam is 
 seven miles long and two miles wide, holding 
 in reserve 1,000,000,000 gallons of water. 
 There is the inspiration of the 100 miles of 
 railroad, the large hotel, the town, the land 
 which nobody would take at 81 25 now worth 
 all of the way from $5 to $50 an acre in short 
 of the whole $3,000,000 investment. 
 
 But the $3,000,000 doesn't represent the 
 end. The plans of the founders of this ambi- 
 tious city and irrigation scheme contemplate 
 the expenditure of $2,000,000 before they are 
 anywhere near complete. After that it is ex- 
 pected the enterprise will carry itself. 
 
-37- 
 
 The water in the canal flows gently with a 
 fall of 18 inches to the mile. In the river 
 channel the fall is 18 to 20 feet to the mile. 
 It doesn't take very far to carry the water 
 back from the river so that the whole valley's 
 width, a dozen miles or more, is under the 
 water level. The water coming down the 
 headway hewn in the solid rock rushes 
 through a dozen narrow gates into the canal. 
 The engineers say that in each gate can be 
 placed a turbine wheel which will develop 
 1000 horse-power. The power can be carried 
 by wire down the valley and will supply a 
 city of 50,000 people with all they need for 
 light manufacturing. In this water to 
 be supplied for irrigation is car- 
 ried a red rich silt which will fertilize 
 wherever the water moistens. This silt is 
 equal to the best manure, and in twenty-five 
 or thirty years will give the whole valley an- 
 other top soil. Another dam twenty miles 
 further up the river is included in the plan of 
 further improvement. This will give a reser- 
 
 have a total length of over 100 miles, and the 
 branches have as much more. The digging 
 still goes on. 
 
 Mr. Gould came up the Pecos Yalley awhile 
 ago. He saw the dam, the town, the canals 
 and the brand new farms. As he went about 
 he asked so many questions that the repre- 
 sentative of the company was almost floored. 
 Before he left the valley Mr. Gould made Mr. 
 Hagerman, one of " the big three ' ' an offer 
 for the railroad. Mr. Hagerman replied, " It 
 is not for sale at any price , Mr. Gould . ' ' Be- 
 fore he moved on his special car in search of 
 health and more railroads the magnate put 
 on a piece of paper his opinion to this effect : 
 
 "I am impressed with the wonderful rich- 
 ness of the soil, with its peculiar adaptation 
 to irrigation. With an ample supply of water 
 it will not be long before it becomes one of 
 the richest valleys in the United States. 
 What I was particularly interested in is the 
 effect of the pure, dry air on bronchial 
 troubles. Speaking from personal experience, 
 
 THE BIG FLUME ACROSS THE PECOS. 
 
 voir eight times as large as the present one. 
 The Pecos is a queer river. Every drop in the 
 channel is cut off by the dam. Yet half a mile 
 below there is a running stream, and six 
 miles below the dam the river is booming 
 along merrily. It is replenished by enor- 
 mous springs which boil up from the bed and 
 sides. One of these streams pours out a vol- 
 ume of water greater than the City of Denver 
 uses in twenty-four hours. 
 
 The canal is 45 feet wide at the bottom, and 
 carries 7 feet of water. It is as large as the 
 canals used for transportation purposes in the 
 eastern part of the United States. Four miles 
 below the dam the canal divides, the larger 
 branch crosses the river it has just robbed on 
 a monster flume 40 feet above the river bed, 
 and continues down the valley sixty miles or 
 more. The larger canals in the system now 
 
 there is no better region than this for persons 
 thus suffering. The effect is immediate and 
 improvement rapid.' ' 
 
 The streets of Eddy are full of people who 
 have come to the Pecos to prolong life. This 
 is a climate so dry that to die means to dry 
 up, not to decay. Delicate lunged men 
 whose days were numbered in the North are 
 down here selling goods, practicing the pro- 
 fessions and making farms. With one lung, 
 with even a piece of a lung, if it is not too 
 small, one may enjoy life, liberty and the 
 pursuit of happiness in the Pecos Valley. It 
 is a novel community. Some men have come 
 to save themselves. Other men have come to 
 save their wives. Parents whose little flocks 
 have begun to dwindle in the ruthless North 
 have brought what they have left in the hope 
 that the dreaded disease may not claim all. 
 
-38- 
 
 In and about Eddy are a former railroad 
 builder from Chicago, a retired army officer, 
 two doctors from Fort Wayne, Ind., a retired 
 merchant from La Crosse, Wis., another doc- 
 tor from Van Wert, O., an Oakland (111.) mer- 
 chant, a nephew of the late William H. Sew- 
 ard, Lincoln's Secretary of State, an English- 
 man and a Scotchman of means, a New 
 Yorker, a civil engineer from St. Louis and a 
 real estate man from the same place. ^ 
 
 As evidence of the remarkable dryness of 
 the climate, it is told a quarter of beef may be 
 hung up out of doors. The surface will crust 
 and the meat will be fresh until eaten. 
 
 But it isn't true that everybody in the Pecos 
 Valley has come for health. Occasionally 
 there is a man who has found this a place to 
 
 of new land last February and March are 
 alive and doing well. Three car loads of these 
 rooted cuttings Mr. Greene bought at $18 a 
 thousand and set out. To be exact, the total 
 number of settings was 212,500. Too much 
 water is the danger in irrigation. The great 
 vineyard has been irrigated only twice this 
 season, but the stirring cultivators are going 
 continuously. Many of these little vines, 
 scarcely more than a finger's length when set 
 out in March, have bunches of grapes this 
 year. 
 
 Mr. Greene is one of the big three founders 
 of the Eddy enterprise. He was a newspaper 
 man at El Paso when he became interested 
 here. His little paper was struggling. The 
 editor was making a study of irrigation. The 
 
 PROPAGATING HOUSES AT THE GREEXE PARK. 
 
 make money. One such drew $25,000 in a lot- 
 tery. He invested in a stock of lumber. Last 
 year he cleared up $25,000, and this year he 
 says he will make $50,000. 
 
 Irrigation is an art. It is something more 
 than turning water upon land. The Pecos 
 Valley presents at least one striking proof of 
 this. A year ago a colony of Swiss was 
 brought over and settled some miles south of 
 Eddy. They had means. Some of them were 
 sons of well-to-do families ; they were given 
 this start in life in a new country in the hope 
 that they would do better than they had done 
 in the old. When they came these Swiss were 
 very fresh. They unbuckled every strap from 
 bit to crupper when they unharnessed their 
 horses. They managed to stir the soil, sowed 
 their grain, let the water loose, and then sat 
 down on the shady side of the houses to drink 
 bottled beer and wait for the harvest. To- 
 day the station of Vaud, named after a 
 province of Switzerland, stands in the midst 
 of a waste of drowned- out crops. The new- 
 comer, entering the Pecos Eden by way of 
 Vaud, wonders if this is what he came to see. 
 Faith is only restored by a visit to the Greene 
 vineyards, where 95 per cent of the nearly 
 250,000 grapevines planted on 520 acres 
 
 more he studied irrigation the greater grew 
 his faith in it and the less he cared for his 
 advertising columns. He visited the Pecos 
 Valley in his pursuit of irrigation experience, 
 and linked his fortunes w T ith Mr. Eddy, the 
 ranchman, and Mr. Hagerman, the railroad 
 builder. Of the three Mr. Greene was the one 
 who could talk. It fell to him to fill the posi- 
 tion of promoter. He went to Chicago with 
 not much more than the clothes on his back, 
 took a bare room and put a little furniture in 
 it to reduce the cost of living. Before the 
 bonds were placed Mr. Greene was in straits 
 for foodA But his persuasive tongue and his 
 thorough acquaintance with the possibilities 
 of irrigation won. He now lives at the high- 
 est-priced hotel in New York v/hen he is in 
 the East looking after financial matters. He 
 travels in a private car when he comes West. 
 A single bond deal recently netted him $90,- 
 000. 
 
 But large profits are necessary to carry on 
 such irrigation ideas as Mr. Greene fosters. 
 In the suburbs of Eddy this man has a nur- 
 sery, propagating houses and an outfit for 
 creating a park. As the beginning he is lay- 
 ing out 240 acres with winding drives, shade 
 and fruit trees and lawn. This he will keep 
 under control until well established. Then 
 
-39- 
 
 he will divide it into residence sites and sell 
 to those who do not know so much about irri- 
 gation as he does. When trees and grass are 
 once well started the rest is easy. When the 
 240 acres are in a forward state Mr. Greene 
 will add to it another addition similarly im- 
 proved by irrigation. This collection of resi- 
 dence sites is called Greene Park. But the 
 park and the 520 acres of grapes are only two 
 
 he has any payments to make. The alfalfa 
 will be paying handsomely by that time. 
 Mr. Greene further proposes to loan the buyer 
 money to make improvements. That is if the 
 buyer has $500 or $1000 and wants as much 
 more to put into improvements Mr. Greene will 
 loan it and take a lien on the property. Some 
 of these forty-acre tracts already have their 
 twenty-acre patches of alfalfa. Raw land, 
 
 THE GATEWAY TO THE CANAL. 
 
 of the projects of Mr. Greene. In the valley 
 a company, of which he is the head, has 1920 
 acres at one place and 3,000 acres at another. 
 This is some of the land nobody would take 
 from the Government. It is now reached by 
 the laterals of the great canal. The whole 5,000 
 acres is being divided into forty- acre tracts. 
 Mr. Greene clears the land of the mesquite 
 roots, plows and ditches it. Twenty acres of the 
 forty goes into alfalfa. Ten acres, half of the 
 remainder, is set out to fruit, a choice assort- 
 ment. When the alfalfa is well rooted and 
 the fruit trees begin to bear Mr. Greene will 
 sell these forty acre tracts. He knows by ob- 
 servation that the beginner with irrigation 
 makes many blunders. He proposes to put 
 each forty acres beyond the critical period 
 and to assure the purchaser a good start be- 
 fore he sells. The price of the forty acres 
 thus started will be $60 an acre, one-fourth 
 cash, the balance in two, three and four 
 years. 
 
 "The point is," said Mr. RusseL, who looks 
 after Mr. Greene's interests, "the purchaser 
 get two years' cutting of the alfalfa before 
 
 without anything upon it, is worth $25 to $40 
 an acre." 
 
 This is what water for irrigation does. The 
 company which has dammed the river and 
 dug the canals owns the water and sells it at 
 $1.25 an acre for the season. An owner of 
 forty acres of land, therefore, has $80 a year 
 water rent, but on the payment of it he is as- 
 sured perfect control of his crops if he knows 
 how to irrigate. 
 
 Mr. Greene has spent over $150,000 in im- 
 proving and preparing his lands since the 1st 
 of December. His pay-roll ran up in one 
 month to $12,750. One of Mr. Greene's 
 minor enterprises is an addition of town lots, 
 on each one of which he starts by irrigation 
 twenty fruit trees before he sells. Scattered 
 through the addition are eight little parks, 
 each of which Is being supplied with shrub- 
 bery. 
 
 Near where the Eddy ranch house still 
 stands is the suburb of La Huerta, covering 
 1500 acres. It is divided into five-acre tracts, 
 each one leveled, divided into alfalfa, garden 
 and .fruit, and improved to suit the 
 
-40- 
 
 taste of the owner. Each five-acre tract 
 means the site of a fine home. 
 Land in La Huerta is worth $100 an 
 acre. In the gardens of La Huerta are shown 
 some of the examples of what irrigation can 
 do. In an orchard of last year's planting the 
 tape line shows the growth this season on 
 apple trees to be from 20 inches to 37 inches. 
 On apricot trees this season's growth is 5 feet 
 and 6 inches. A plum tree shows 23 inches 
 growth, and a peach 38 inches. Such were 
 the measurements when this was written. 
 When it reaches the reader a few days hence 
 
 there the white walls of the Hagerman man- 
 sion are rising. 
 
 Hagerman is a fine type of the self-made 
 Western man. Greene is fond of irrigation 
 per se, and has studied out all the details of 
 it. Eddy's mind runs to broad acres and the 
 number of them. Hagerman 's inclination is 
 toward construction. His chief interest is in 
 the dam, the canals and. the railroad. The 
 three founders of the enterprise move well 
 abreast. They all take pride that isn't meas- 
 ured by dollars in the work. They let nothing 
 come in the way of success. Awhile ago some 
 
 MEASURING GROWTH BY IRRIGATION. 
 
 there will be considerable more growth. There 
 was nothing fabulous about Jack' s bean stalk 
 if it had been planted in the Pecos Valley and 
 irrigated. 
 
 The founders of Eddy and the Pecos canal 
 system have evidently come to stay. They 
 are not boomers who expect to sell out and 
 move on. The lavish manner in which Mr. 
 Greene has spread out his profits in park and 
 vineyards and forty-acre farms has been men- 
 tioned. All he has is here. Mr. Eddy, the 
 original ranch-owner, who first dreamed of 
 the possibilities which have come to pass, has 
 built a home in interesting contrast with 
 the old ranch headquarters. Upon an eleva- 
 tion overlooking the city and the valley Mr. 
 Hagerman is constnicting the finest stone man- 
 sion ever built upon a desert- land entry. The 
 site is far above the level of the canal so far 
 that nobody thought of taking possession of 
 it, even though a city was growing in the val- 
 ley below. Mrs. Hagerman entered the 640 
 acres, a mile square, under the desert-land 
 law. Water is taken up the height by hy- 
 draulic rams and stored in a reservoir. And 
 
 people up the valley held water rights which 
 the company wanted. 
 
 " How much will it take to buy them out?" 
 Hagerman asked. 
 
 After some figuring the reply was, " At least 
 $250,000." 
 
 " Buy them out," was the order. 
 
 Hagerman has a bull-dog tenacity for hold- 
 ing on. He is reticent. An expression of 
 sentiment from his lips is a rarity. The other 
 day he* rode out with the manager of the 
 company, viewing certain improvements and 
 authorizing in his matter-of-fact way ex- 
 penditures here and there. Toward the end 
 of the drive the magnate and the manager as- 
 cended an elevation. The whole scene was 
 spread before them the city, the farms, the 
 railroad, the canals. The manager stopped 
 the team, and in silence a long look was 
 taken. At length the manager asked: . 
 
 " How does it strike you Mr. Hagerman ?" 
 
 "Mr. Clark, it touches me right here," re- 
 sponded the man of few words, and he put his 
 hand on his heart. 
 
 It cost Mr. Hagerman $11,000 to get the 
 water up to Mrs. Hagerman's desert-land en- 
 
-41- 
 
 try. He is spending $50,000 on the stone 
 mansion. That is pretty good evidence of an 
 intention to stay. 
 
 Alfalfa! alfalfa! It is the open sesame of the 
 Pecos Valley. You see it everywhere, and 
 hear about it after dark when you can't see it. 
 The landholder who hasn't a patch of alfalfa 
 is unhappy. Alfalfa is aggressive; it chokes 
 out all weeds; when it is once well rooted it is 
 there to stay, with an occasional wetting from 
 the ditch. The alfalfa growers have never yet 
 overstocked their market. They get '$12 a 
 ton sometimes more, sometimes a little less, 
 but always a handsome profit. They cut it 
 three and four times a year, and get from one 
 to two, and sometimes two and a half tons to 
 the acre each time. Alfalfa is clover, and its 
 blossom furnishes the flavor for a honey that 
 is nectar. One man in the Pecos Valley has 
 grasped the situation. He has surrounded his 
 house with colonies of bees which improve 
 the shining hours upon the alfalfa fields of his 
 neighbors. The days on the Rio Pecos "Holy 
 River," so named by a priest in the Cortez 
 following who came here and found the na- 
 tives keeping alive beside it the holy fire for 
 
 that is done there will be 200,000 acres of 
 alfalfa growing along the Pecos. What in the 
 world will be done with it ? The busy thinkers 
 have already figured on that proposition. 
 They say that alfalfa will not go below $8 or 
 $10 a ton. Last year the cattlemen near the 
 
 THE EDDY RANCH. 
 
 valley drove their steers into pens, fed them 
 alfalfa from November to February, and put 
 them into market rolling fat, thereby compet- 
 ing with the corn-fed steers of Kansas. These 
 steers were worth from $14 to $17 taken from 
 the range. Fattened on alfalfa they sold at 
 $35 to $50 a head. They ate two tons of alfal- 
 
 THS PECOS VALLEY AT THE DAM. 
 
 the return of a dimly remembered Messiah- 
 are long and cloudless. Bees do not need the 
 aid of lightning b ugs to lengthen their hours of 
 labor. In a few years half of this Pecos Valley 
 will be in alfalfa, and then what train loads of 
 honey will leave it for the Eastern markets! 
 
 Before they stop digging ditches the men at 
 the head of the enterprise say they will bring 
 the water to 400,000 acres of land. And when 
 
 fa. There is the basis on which it is figured 
 that alfalfa will always be worth at least $8 a 
 ton along the Pecos, for 300,000 cattle and 
 100,000 sheep range within fifty miles of the 
 valley. At $8 a ton for alfalfa the farmer can 
 pay for labor and water rental and net $40 per 
 acre . Such are the alluring figures presented 
 with great confidence by those who have faith 
 in the future of the holy river. W. B. S . 
 
-42- 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 Queer Industries in the Heart of the 
 Late Great American Desert. 
 
 A Canaigre Farm Nature's Salt Works 
 
 Cactus Rope How One man 
 
 Kept Tab on Irrigation A 
 
 Great Show. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 IN THE PECOS VALLEY OF TEXAS, August 18. 
 The traveler in this region will occasionally 
 come upon a group of tents, a portable en- 
 gine, a little mill, a great heap of tangled 
 roots and a curious looking product spread 
 out on sheets to dry. This is the canaigre in- 
 dustry. Indians have known, perhaps for 
 centuries, the uses of canaigre. Americans 
 have within a year or so discovered that it 
 can be made an article of commerce. And 
 now canaigre root, ground and dried and put 
 up in sacks, is shipped out of the Pecos Val- 
 ley by the carload. It goes abroad. From 
 the rapid development of the industry it ap- 
 pears that there must be a good margin of 
 profit. 
 
 every pound that can be turned out. Canaigre 
 root as it flourishes in the valley is gathered at 
 a cost of $4 to &6 per ton. An acre of can- 
 aigre in the wild state will yield six to eight 
 tons. The curing is simple. When the out- 
 fit exhausts one locality it can strike tents, 
 pick up the engine and mill and move to a 
 new field. The cured product is worth $80 a 
 ton in Europe. The demand seems to be per- 
 manent and the margin of profit is good. One 
 man in the Pecos Valley has gone into the 
 business on a permanent basis. He has a 
 canaigre farm of 640 acres a mile square. 
 From such experiments as have been made, 
 this canaigre farmer believes he will obtain 
 ten to twenty tons of roots from an acre by 
 cultivation. Beets give a tremendous yield 
 on this irrigated land. As much as twenty 
 six tons of boots to the acre was produced last 
 year. There is reason to believe that canaigro 
 roots will do almost as well. Heaped up the 
 canaigre roots look not unlike a crop of bsets. 
 They grind easily and dry quickly spread out 
 on sheets under the blazing sun. After that, 
 all that remains to be done is the sacking. 
 The product is ready for market. The canaigre 
 industry is using up the wild root faster than 
 it reproduces itself. Unless there is cultiva- 
 tion the industry can not but be short-lived. 
 
 THE OIABLO MOUNTAINS AT VAN HORN. 
 
 Canaigre is a close relative of the sour dock 
 which is found in the fields of the North. 
 Above ground the canaigre makes only a 
 moderate show of stalk and leaves. Below 
 ground it spreads itself and grows until it de- 
 velops roots as large as a man's arm. It has 
 been growing wild in this Pecos Valley ever 
 since white men knew anything about the 
 country. But it is recently that those who 
 deal in such things have learned that it con- 
 tains four times as much tannin as anything 
 else that vegetates. Mr. Donald Allen, the 
 Superintendent of the Pecos Valley Railroad, 
 called the attention of exporters to this prod- 
 uct, and now there is a profitable market for 
 
 This Western Texas is a great country for 
 new industries. It is even proposed to utilize 
 the cactus, which grows in great variety and 
 luxuriance on the mountain sides. One kind, 
 called the Spanish bayonet, is 3 feet high. It 
 is a broad-leaf plant. Another and shorter 
 variety is the mescal plant. From this the 
 Mexican makes his mescal, a fiery liquid, 
 which will nerve the drinker to rob the dead 
 or run for Congress if he takes enough of it. 
 The leaves of these varieties of cactus have 
 been worked up into fiber which makes good 
 rope. Some of the products of the cactus 
 fiber from Western Texas have been prepared 
 for exhibition at the World's Fair next year. 
 
-43 
 
 A part of the leaf is left as it grows and the 
 other end is shown in the condition of fiber. 
 The contrast is striking. The trunk of the 
 Spanish bayonet contains good paper stock. 
 These varieties of cactus grow wild , and the 
 enterprising people of the transpecos coun- 
 try are beginning to wonder if cultivation 
 will not add to their value. A cactus farm 
 would be a novelty, but it is not 
 
 ing water, but it struck petroleum, 80 feet of 
 rock salt and other things. The boring 
 stopped for awhile. Colorado City offered its 
 hole for sale, but found no takers. After 
 awhile somebody thought of making use of 
 the salt. The hole was bored deeper. It 
 struck fresh water which arose to within 200 
 or 300 feet of the surface and dissolved the 
 rock salt. A pump was put down. A wind- 
 
 THE CANAIGRE INDUSTRY. 
 
 an impossibility. The cactus fiber in the 
 manufactured state looks very strong and dur- 
 able. The only question is about the cost of 
 getting the fiber out of the thick pulpy look- 
 ing leaves. Machinery, it is claimed, can be 
 devised to do the work. Industrial uses for 
 the cactus are novelties. When drouth comes 
 and grass dies the lives of herds are often pro- 
 longed in Southwest Texas by the use of cac- 
 tus for forage. A starving longhorn cow, 
 with an expression of desperate determina- 
 tion, will gingerly mouth and at length mas- 
 ticate a piece of cactus, thorns and all. But 
 the humane cowman cuts the cactus and gives 
 it just enough roasting with a quick fire to 
 burn the thorns before feeding. There is bet- 
 ter forage than cactus, but the latter will, on 
 pinch, keep life in the hide. The Panhandle 
 cowman says a cactus patch is considered a 
 very desirable thing on a Southwest Texas 
 ranch. 
 
 Texas cattle are licking Texas salt by the car 
 load. Five or six years ago the people 
 of Colorado City, away out on the 
 rugged bluffs of the Colorado River, 
 felt that they had reached a degree of 
 advancement which justified municipal airs. 
 They thought they ought to have a City Coun- 
 cil. When they got that, they discovered that 
 their water supply wasn't what it ought to be. 
 There came in a class of high-toned settlers 
 who weren't satisfied with whisky and water, 
 but wanted all water, and good water, too. 
 The City Council in due deliberation moved in 
 the matter. A considerable fund was raised, 
 and a deep hole was bored. The drill went 
 down 1200 feet. It didn't find good drink- 
 
 mill was hoisted above the pump. 
 The wind raised the salt water 
 which was run into a reservoir. This West 
 Texas sun which shines about 340 days in the 
 year did the rest. Colorado City had salt. 
 Other wells have been bored. Windmills 
 have been hoisted in rows until Don Quixote 
 might think he saw, by the moonlight, a 
 whole army defying him. The process com- 
 mends itself to an economical, not to say a 
 
 MOVING UP THE PECOS VALLEY. 
 
 lazy man. The water dissolves the rock salt. 
 The wind raises the water. The sun evapo- 
 rates the water and leaves the salt on the 
 ground. Could anything be easier? Manual 
 labor is necessary to scrape up the salt and 
 barrel it, and that is all. A 30-foot wind- 
 mill raises from 5,000 to 8,000 gallons of salt 
 water in an hour. Of the salt thus manu- 
 factured by nature's forces Colorado City 
 ships out several hundred car loads a month. 
 A chemical analysis shows this salt to be 98 
 per cent pure. In a country where there was 
 less sunshine and wind salt-making could not 
 be carried on so successfully. 
 
-44- 
 
 The talk of the promoter is interesting, but 
 not always satisfying as to detail. The aver- 
 age farmer is inclined to tell of his big crops 
 and not of the small ones, unless he is in the 
 
 investment and wear and tear of tools. One 
 might search long, especially in this free and 
 easy Western country, without finding an- 
 other such analysis of work with irrigation. 
 
 NATURE'S SALT WORKS AT COLORADO CITY. 
 
 third party. A farm on which books are kept 
 with the same thoroughness that the success- 
 ful merchant exercises is a great rarity. There 
 is one such farm near Pecos City. It is only 
 forty acres, and of this only thirty-three have 
 been cultivated. The owner has put down the 
 cents and pounds. As might be supposed, 
 
 AN ARTESIAN SPOUTER AT PECOS CITY. 
 
 he is not a practical farmer. He has other 
 business. His commercial habits prompted 
 him to keep a strict account. All of the farm 
 work was done by hired men. The balance 
 feheet takes into consideration interest on the 
 
 Here is the showing for a single season on the 
 forty acres, with thirty-three in crops: 
 
 To 8 per cent interest on $2,394.65, cost of 
 lands, water rights, orchard, canals, bor- 
 ders, tools, houses, fencing, etc $19157 
 
 Twenty-five per cent wear on $297.50 worth 
 
 of implements 7187 
 
 Harvesting and baling alfalfa 17800 
 
 Harvesting oats 80 00 
 
 Seeding and harvesting garden 85000 
 
 Seeding five acres in grain 30 00 
 
 Irrigating farm one year 3020 
 
 Seeding and harvesting oats, millet and 
 
 sorghum 80 00 
 
 Total outlay 
 
 Cabbage, 1033 pounds at 6c 
 
 6198 
 2196 
 17 79 
 54 21 
 11 40 
 188 75 
 15 25 
 
 Turnips, 549 pounds at 4c 
 
 Beets, 593 pounds at 3c 
 
 Sweet potatoes, 1856 pounds at 4c 
 
 Squashes, 285 pounds at 4c 
 
 Sorghum hay, 12) tons at $15 
 
 Muskmelons, 305at5c 
 
 Prairie hay, 12 tons at $15 
 
 Millet hay, 6125 pounds at $15 per ton 
 
 Watermelons, 421 at 15c 
 
 Oats in sheaf, 34,330 pounds at $15 per ton. . 
 
 Alfalfa, 178,672 pounds at $15 per ton 1,340 04 
 
 Onions, 7837 pounds at 4c .. 31348 
 
 Irish potatoes, 541 pounds at 4c 
 
 Peanuts, 440 pounds at 71/2^ 
 
 4593 
 
 63 15 
 
 257 47 
 
 21 64 
 
 Deduct total outlay 
 
 Cash balance to profit. 
 
 $2,666 08 
 961 64 
 
 $1,704 44 
 
 This, it can readily be figured, is a return of 
 about 75 per cent on the investment. It is a 
 net profit of $51.65 cash per acre. The fun 
 which this amateur farmer enjoyed is not 
 tak-m into account. He says tli.-il if In- li;i<l 
 lived on the place he could have added at least 
 
-45- 
 
 $500 from poultry, pigs and the usual small 
 items. Being a man of details he probably 
 could have done it. 
 
 East of the Pecos, between that river and the 
 Colorado, lies the country of deceptions. It 
 is the great Staked Plain which stretches away 
 to the Panhandle. The air is dry and clear. 
 A mountain forty miles away seems to be not 
 one-fourth that distance. A good pair of eyes 
 will see twice as far and about ten times as 
 much in this region as under ordinary condi- 
 tions. If the vision doesn't embrace a good 
 many unrealities as well as realities it will be 
 an unusual day for the Staked Plain. The at- 
 
 see a fine little city in the midst of a glisten- 
 ing lake. The silvery water moves in ripples 
 as if before a gentle breeze. About 300 wind- 
 mills are apparently in motion above the city, 
 and it does not seem that the space they stand 
 upon can exceed a mile square. Around the 
 city and the lake is a fringe of dark green tim- 
 ber. Beyond the timber is a boundless ex- 
 panse of green grass. On the prairie cattle 
 may be seen grazing. The traveler, reflecting 
 upon the lake and the excess of windmills, 
 may wonder if the Midlanders are web-footed 
 that they have so many windmills and raise 
 water until their houses are swamped. But as 
 the train comes nearer what strangeness! The 
 
 A PECOS VALLEY HOME. 
 
 mosphere plays freaks as well as makes reve- 
 lations. When the sun is just right it is possi- 
 ble to see a belt of timber where none exists. 
 A ranch may be lifted out of a valley and set 
 on a hill. A sheep herder grows into gigantic 
 proportions and his lambs become elephan- 
 tine. A railroad train in the distance looms 
 up a hundred feet high, and appears to be 
 about five miles long. These are 
 some of the common deceptions the 
 rarified atmosphere of the Staked Plain 
 plays upon the tenderfoot. Three or four 
 miles to the eastward of Midland, if it be 
 about noon of a sunny day, the stranger will 
 
 cows in the foreground grow to mastodons. 
 The jack rabbit is as large as a jack without 
 the rabbit. The sheep seem to be woolly 
 horses. The buildings shoot up into the 
 heavens like Chicago's sky-scrapers. The 
 windmills become so many Eiffel towers 
 standing on nothing. The people walking 
 across the street tread on air. There is no law 
 of gravity. The lake has suddenly disap- 
 peared. The traveler steps from the car upon 
 a real platform and out upon the dusty, sandy 
 thoroughfare of an every- day Texas town. It 
 was the mirage. W. B. 8 . 
 
46- 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 Visit to the Only Survivor of the 
 Bold Buccaneers. 
 
 The Veteran Cronea's Recollections of 
 Service with the Pirates. 
 
 Lafltte and His Favorite Lieutenant 
 The Freebooter's Camp on 
 Snake Island. 
 
 The Mutiny on the Privateer A Graphic 
 Version of San Jacinto Four Gene- 
 rations on One Porch Bolivar 
 Peninsula Phenomena 
 The High Islands- 
 The Oil Ponds. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 ROLL OVER, BOLIVAR PENINSULA, TEX., 
 August 25. At the age of 87, Charles Cronea 
 remembers the name of the street and the 
 number of the house in which he was born in 
 a town of the South of France. He is the last 
 living link with the days of Lafitte and the 
 bold buccaneers of the Gulf. Seventy-one 
 years ago he was a cabin boy on a pirate ship. 
 He sailed these waters with Campbell, who 
 had been Lafitte 's lieutenant. He saw many 
 a chase at sea. He was there when the "Long 
 Tom," mounted on a pivot, sent the huge 
 18-pound ball across the bow of the doomed 
 merchantman. " He saw the torch applied to 
 the prize, and the choicest part of the cargo 
 brought aboard the privateer. After a 
 mutiny he waited for the cutlass to fall across 
 his neck, and then lived to see ninety- two 
 children, grandchildren and great-grandchil- 
 dren. The scenes of those days come back to 
 the old man with wonderful freshness. He 
 talks frsely, stopping now and then to ex- 
 plain that it was "an ugly scrape," and that 
 when he got out of it he had "had enough of 
 that kind of thing to last him all his life." 
 
 A strip of land runs down the Texas coast 
 from near the Louisiana line. That is Bolivar 
 Peninsula. It terminates in Bolivar Point. 
 Five miles across a channel from " the 
 point ' ' Galveston Island begins and the City 
 of Galveston has its site. About midway of 
 its length Bolivar Peninsula narrows until 
 upon the map it is only a black line. That is 
 Roll Over. Upon Roll Over is the home of 
 Charles Cronea. When the Gulf is angry its 
 spray is dashed against the old man's front 
 door. From his back door stretches the great 
 Galveston Bay. The veteran is as near to the 
 salt water as he can get without being afloat. 
 
 To Roll Over was a journey not soon to be 
 forgotten. It began an hour before daylight. 
 When the sun came up out of the bosom of 
 
 the Gulf the White Wings, best of the Gal- 
 veston yacht fleet, was speeding with well- 
 filled sails straight for the tall white and 
 black ringed light-house on Bolivar point. 
 Bolivar once had a boom. " The point " wa - 
 staked off and town lots were put upon the 
 market. With that the boom ended. There 
 are not enough people living at the point now 
 to occupy the houses which the Government 
 built when it was constructing jetties on the 
 mattress plan. A. small boat yard, where the 
 craft which ply the bay can be hauled out and 
 
 MR. CRONEA AT 87. 
 
 repaired , is the point' s only industry. Broad- 
 \\iiy and the town lots are unsettled save by 
 mosquitoes, remarkable for numbers, size and 
 aggressiveness. 
 
 When Mr. Pettit, of Galveston, a friend of 
 the old veteran, learned of the intended visit, 
 he said: "I'd advise you to wait a week. The 
 mosquitoes are awful bad on Bolivar just 
 now. There has been rain and the wind has 
 blown from the north. That always means 
 mosquitoes." 
 
 Mr. Pettit' s warning could not be heeded. 
 It was well remembered. The early morning 
 sail was magnificent. The ride across the flat 
 from the pokit to the light house was misery. 
 Mr. Crockett, the light-house keeper, came oufc 
 with a serious face. 
 
-47- 
 
 "Last night," said he, "Was the worst of 
 the season. We had to keep smudge fires go- 
 ing all night long to save the horses. If you 
 take the beach I expect you can get along. 
 But I wouldn't advise you to try the ridge 
 road." 
 
 The light-house keeper cut a mosquito-bar 
 in two, and, like a good Samaritan, saw that 
 heads and faces were well covered. He 
 brought out gloves and stockings to be drawn 
 over the hands. He furnished a bottle of coal 
 oil. Then the battle with the mosquitoes of 
 Bolivar began. It lasted until the beach was 
 reached. Before, behind and on both sides of 
 the wagon went the mosquitoes. They made 
 no noise. These Bolivar mosquitoes are not 
 singers. They are too full of business to 
 waste time on music. There was one honor- 
 able way out of the contest. The son of the 
 lighthouse man, who accompanied us as guide , 
 
 WHITE WINGS. 
 
 philosopher and friend, knew that way. By 
 the shortest cut he made for the beach and 
 drove down to the water's edge, where the 
 light surf coming in washed the wheels. And 
 thus he followed the water line hour after 
 hour. The mosquitoes were outwitted. Be- 
 fore the damp salt breeze they fell back. It 
 was a great relief, the full measure of which 
 was appreciated every time a little excursion 
 was made inland. Ten thousand cattle were 
 strung along the surf line, hugging it closely 
 to escape the mosquitoes. They, too, had 
 discovered the only possible relief. 
 
 The light-house man's boy is an authority 
 on mosquitoes. He pointed out a section of 
 the peninsula where he confidently asserted 
 mosquitoes live the year round. Bolivar is 
 famous for its climate. Lying between the 
 
 waters of gulf and bay, it is a region of al- 
 most perpetual vegetation. Frost is of the 
 rarest occurrence. Oranges and pomegranates 
 thrive, and the " early vegetables " antedate 
 Florida's crop. There may be beaches equal 
 to that along Bolivar peninsula. There can bo 
 none better. As the tide goes out it leaves a 
 stretch of white sand, pounded by the surf as 
 hard as asphalt. The wheels make a mark, 
 but cut no impression. So slight is the dip 
 toward the sea that the beach seems a dead 
 level. And this roadway of nature can be 
 followed straight as the crow flies hour after 
 hour. 
 
 The origin of the name of Roll Over is in- 
 teresting. Some people will tell you that 
 by reason of the narrowness of the peninsula 
 at this point the high waves of the Gulf have 
 been known to roll over the neck and into 
 the bay. But the old inhabitants have an en- 
 tirely different explanation. They say that 
 the smugglers and pirates used to bring their 
 plunder from the Gulf to this place. The 
 smugglers could quickly roll over the casks 
 of brandy and the bales of goods from the 
 Gulf side to the bay, and thus reach inland 
 waters and their market without detection. 
 Old Mr. Cronea, with a laugh, said he reckon- 
 ed the theory of the smuggling use of Roll 
 Over was about right. ' ' That is the way I 
 think it got the name, ' ' he said. 
 
 The veteran was born in 1805, on the 14th 
 of January. He was only a boy when he 
 found himself in the pirate service, but his 
 recollections are clear. Some of the places 
 he mentions have faded almost out of mem- 
 ory, or have new names. To some of his 
 words the old man gives a pronunciation 
 which has a distinctly piratical flavor. Cut- 
 lasses he always calls "cut-lash-es." The 
 bayonet is always "the bagnet." And occa- 
 sionally he "swears like a pirate," in the 
 gentlest of voices. 
 
 Hanging on the wall of the Roll Over home 
 is a picture of the old man taken at 70. It 
 shows that he comes well by his remarkable 
 preservation. He shakes his head half mourn, 
 fully and says "you should have 
 seen my legs and arms a few 
 years ago. My arms were so big 
 and as hard as iron. Now feel them ' ' The 
 eyes. are hazel. They were as black as the 
 sloe-like windows of the soul through which 
 the great grandson looks wonderingly to-day. 
 The veteran's hair is long, wavy, thin and 
 silvery. It was thick, bushy and jet black. 
 But the mind has outlived the body. The old 
 man speaks quickly and decidedly. He is at 
 no loss for words or ideas. He talked for two 
 hours without any apparent feeling of fatigue 
 and then he said: "There, that's all I can 
 tell you." But a question started a fresh 
 train of reminiscences. The stock was almost 
 inexhaustible. 
 
-48- 
 
 Before he was 12 years old Charles Cronea 
 was on a French frigate. He served awhile on 
 the coast of Africa, and then left without 
 waiting for the formalities. He reached New 
 York and shipped as cabin boy on a vessel 
 going to Charleston. His captain took on a 
 load of cotton. To his consternation the boy 
 learned that the destination was Havre de 
 Grace. This meant capture and the penalty 
 for the French leave he had taken of the frig- 
 ate. 
 
 came to us. His ship was there at anchor. He 
 talked to us awhile and we went on board his 
 ship and served with him. I was too young to 
 be one of the crew. He made me a cabin 
 boy." 
 
 That was young Cronea' s introduction to 
 the buccaneers. During his service he saw 
 many ships taken, plundered and burned. 
 "Capt. Campbell," said Mr. Cronea, "was a 
 good man. He would not kill any of the 
 crews. He always made them prisoners, took 
 
 BOLIVAR POINT. 
 
 "I left the ship," continued the old man, 
 "and went on board one going to Liverpool. 
 That was what Capt. Lambert said, but when 
 we got outside of Charleston harbor a man 
 who called himself Jones came aboard and 
 said he wanted some of us to go with him. 
 Our captain seemed perfectly willing. I sup- 
 pose it was well understood between him and 
 our captain. Fifteen of us agreed to go with 
 Jones. There was one Catalonian in the 
 party. The rest of us were French. We went 
 with Jones and he sailed away for the Gulf of 
 Mexico. When he arrived off Corpus Christi 
 he landed us on an island and left some 
 food with us. After awhile Capt. Campbell 
 
 them to some point near the coast and put 
 them in small boats so that they could get 
 ashore. Most of the vessels we captured were 
 in the trade between Tampico and the Island 
 of Cuba." 
 
 " Didn't you have some fighting to make the 
 captures ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, no. They always gave up. It wasn't 
 any use to resist." 
 
 " You were prepared to fight if it was neces- 
 sary ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes, we had pistols, the old-fashioned one- 
 barreled kind, with flints. We also had cut- 
 lash-es. They were big things, as keen as a 
 razor. They weighed about five pounds 
 
-49- 
 
 When one of those knives came down it was 
 good-bye Coly." 
 
 "What sort of a crew did you have, pretty 
 rough? ' ' 
 
 "We had the same discipline as on board 
 a man-of-war. We couldn't have done 
 what we did if it hadn't been so. Any man 
 who misbehaved was punished." 
 
 "Did you sail under the black flag.' 
 
 "Oh, no! We hoisted the flag of Cartha- 
 genia." 
 
 Both Lafltte and Campbell were particular 
 to observe the forms of legitimate warfare. 
 They hoisted on their vessels the flag of a 
 struggling republic, and the letters of marque 
 under which they plundered right and left, 
 
 and the fore mast had the square sails of the 
 brig. This gave speed and it also permitted 
 of the peculiar armament. The big gun was 
 mounted in front of the mast and it could be 
 wheeled to point in almost any direction ex- 
 cept in the rear. 
 
 The old man's eyes twinkled as he told of 
 some of the feats of the clipper from Balti- 
 more. "Campbell's ship," said he, "could 
 sail fourteen miles an hour on a close haul. 
 There wasn't anything that could get away 
 from her. Once we took after the mail boat 
 between Tampico and New Orleans. We over- 
 took her in about two hours and spoke her. 
 As soon as Capt. Campbell learned that she 
 was an American vessel he let her go." 
 
 A MOSQUITO CHASE. 
 
 were more or less regular. Lafltte was a black- 
 smith to begin with in New Orleans. He 
 adopted smuggling, which was very popular 
 on the Louisiana coast, and when afterwards 
 he set up his establishment on Galveston 
 Island, he had a fleet and a thousand fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 John Quincy Adams in his diary tells of a 
 visit he made to Baltimore. Upon investiga- 
 tion he discovered that the merchants of that 
 city were engaged quite generally in fitting 
 out vessels to engage in privateering on the 
 Gulf of Mexico. He says it inspired a peculiar 
 feeling to find that his entertainers were in 
 this strange business. Mr. Cronea says that 
 the vessel on which he served under Capt. 
 Campbell was from Baltimore. The craft was 
 known as an hermaphrodite brig. She had 
 two masts. The rear mast was sloop-rigged 
 
 Campbell, like his chief, Lafitte, would 
 never interfere with an American ship. That 
 was the unwritten law of the pirates of the 
 gulf. Lafltte always considered himself an 
 American. In the State Capitol at Baton 
 Rouge hangs a large oil painting cominemora- 
 iiva of the battle of New Orlean* TT> tbe very 
 thickest of the fight, directing the work of a 
 battery, is a gigantic figure which is pointed 
 out to the visitor as that of Lafitte, the 
 pirate. It is history that Lafitte fought most 
 bravely under Gen. Jackson in that decisive 
 battle of the War of 1812, and that a pardon 
 was issued to him for it. Before that a 
 price had been set upon Lafitte 's head, 
 and his brother had been thrown into 
 prison by the American Governor of Louisi- 
 ana. The commander of the British forces 
 approaching the mouth of the Mississippi 
 sent to the chief of the smugglers, then hay- 
 
-50- 
 
 ing his headquarters at Barataria, an offer of 
 $30,000 to join him. He added this message : 
 
 " I call upon you, with your brave fol- 
 lowers, to enter the service of Great Britain, 
 in which you shall have the rank of captain. 
 Lands will be given you all, in proportion to 
 your respective ranks, on peace taking place, 
 and I invite you upon these terms. Your 
 ships to be placed under the commanding 
 officer of this station, but I guarantee their 
 lull value at all events." 
 
 Lafltte, keeping up the form of negotiations, 
 wrote a member of the Louisiana Legislature: 
 ' ' Though proscribed by my adopted country 
 I will never let slip any occasion of serving 
 her. Of this you will see convincing proof." 
 
 To the Governor who had put a price on his 
 head the pirate sent this message : 
 
 ' ' I am a stray sheep, wishing to return to the 
 sheep fold. If you were thoroughly acquainted 
 with the nature of my offenses, I should appear 
 to you much less guilty and still worthy to 
 discharge the duties of a good citizen. I have 
 
 ment sent a message to the pirate that he must 
 move from Barataria or behave. On that 
 warning Lafitte with his followers broke up 
 the old headquarters, sailed down the Texas 
 coast, and settled on the island which is now 
 the site of Galveston. There the leader ruled 
 a colony of buccaneers and there Campbell 
 joined him. 
 
 Lafitte lived in a red house which he built 
 near what is now the foot of Fifteenth street, 
 in Galveston. He threw up breastworks 
 around the house and mounted some cannon. 
 The colony grew until a thousand men made 
 their homes on the island and acknowledged 
 allegiance to no living person save Lafitte. 
 The ships of these buccaneers preyed on the 
 Spanish commerce of the whole Gulf of Mex- 
 ico. Mr. Adams need have had no such 
 squeamishness over the fact that his Balti- 
 more hosts were the silent partners of Lafitte. 
 The goods which the buccaneers captured and 
 smuggled into the United States were- handled 
 by many Boston merchants who were not 
 
 THE YOUNG IDEA IN BOLIVAR. 
 
 never sailed under any flag but the Republic 
 of Carthagena, and my vessels are perfectly 
 regular in that respect. If I could have 
 orought my prizes into the ports of this State I 
 should not have employed the illicit means 
 that have caused me to be proscribed. I decline 
 saying more on the subject until I have the 
 honor of your Excellency's answer. Should 
 you not answer favorably to my ardent de- 
 sires I declare that I will instantly leave the 
 country to avoid the imputation of having co- 
 operated toward an invasion which can not 
 fail to take place, and rest secure in the ac- 
 quittal of my conscience." 
 
 That is good language for a pirate. A com- 
 mittee of safety ignored the proceedings of the 
 Governor against Lafltte, and assured him 
 immunity for his past. Gen. Jackson gave 
 the Baratarian leader a post of great danger. 
 To the work which the pirate band did with 
 their guns history attributes much of the cred- 
 it for that victory on the 8th of January. The 
 promise of immunity was kept. Lafltte's past 
 and that of his followers was condoned. But 
 not long afterwards the United States Govern- 
 
 above being "fences" for pirates. Lafitte 
 had his agents in New Orleans; they went on 
 ' Change daily, and orders were given them 
 openly for the goods which they had to dis- 
 pose of. Boston, Baltimore and other com- 
 mercial centers were ready "partakers." 
 
 When the freebooters' camp on Galveston 
 Island was at the height of its glory Lafitte 
 was a man of about 40. He was over 6 feet in 
 height, strongly built, handsome of features, 
 hazel eyes and black hair. In manner he was 
 very polite. It was a motley gathering of 
 outlaws, but Lafitte ruled them in the same 
 free and easy way that Robin Hood did his 
 merry men. There was always a square di- 
 vide of the prize money, and contentment 
 reigned on the island. Several miles down 
 the island, below the suburbs of Galveston, is 
 a grove of live oaks visible a long way out on 
 the water. This is known as Lafltte's Grove. 
 Tradition has it that the pirates often as- 
 sembled under the shade to divide their 
 booty. 
 
-51 - 
 
 The freebooters were not without a form of 
 government oa the island. They called them- 
 selves subjects of the republic under the flag 
 of which they sailed. They elected one free- 
 booter "Judge of the Admiralty," another 
 "Administrator of the Revenue," a third 
 " Secretary of the Public Treasury," a fourth 
 "Marine Commandant," and so on. But La- 
 fltte was king pirate, and his word was law. 
 The man who held the high-sounding office of 
 "Judge of the Admiralty," had occasion, 
 years afterward to make a statement about 
 this colony. It was to the effect that "the 
 sole view and object of the persons compris- 
 ing the colony was to capture Spanish vessels 
 and property, without any idea of aiding the 
 revolution in Mexico or that of any other of 
 
 the revolted Spanish colonies." The free- 
 booters called their town Campeachy. The 
 island went by the name of Snake Island be- 
 cause of the number of serpents. 
 
 When the light-house rig stopped in front 
 of the Cronea homestead a brilliantly colored 
 rattlesnake lay coiled up in the sand beside 
 the wheel. 
 
 To show how perfect was Lafltte's power 
 over his followers the story of Capt. Brown 
 is told. Brown came to the island and sought 
 permission to cruise under Lafltte's auspices. 
 Lafitto suspected Brown, and when he gave 
 him his orders told him that if he molested 
 the commerce of the United States he would 
 
 hang him. With many promises Brown 
 set sail. Several days afterward Brown and 
 his crew, half starved, appeared at Bolivar 
 Point and signaled for help. They were 
 conveyed to the freebooters' camp and La- 
 fltte examined the men. He learned from 
 them that Brown had robbed an American 
 vessel near Sabine Pass. A revenue schooner 
 had pursued. Brown had beached his boat, 
 and had walked down the peninsula. With- 
 out any delay Lafitte had Brown hung in 
 chains. He left the body suspended for the 
 buzzards to feed upon. The revenue schooner 
 sailed to the freebooters' camp. The com- 
 mander went ashore and demanded the fu- 
 gitives. Lafitte at once surrendered the 
 crew, and pointing toward the swinging fig- 
 ure in iron said: " You will find the captain 
 over there." 
 
 Occasionally Lafltte's vessel captured 
 slavers. Some who paid allegiance to the pi- 
 rate king were in the slave trade. Upon the 
 arrival of a cargo of human chattels at Snake 
 Island a curious scene was witnessed. Louis- 
 iana planters were notified and came to the 
 market. The negroes were sold by weight. 
 The ruling rate in the freebooters' camp was 
 $1 a pound. The planters drove the negroes 
 they purchased to the frontier of the United 
 States. There they delivered them into the 
 hands of a customs officer, becoming inform- 
 ers. Under the law the informer was entitled 
 to half of the amount realized on the seized 
 property. The negroes were sold at auction 
 by the United States Marshal. They were bid 
 in by the original purchasers and informers, 
 who thus obtained a clear legal title and the 
 right to take their property where they 
 pleased as the reward for their observance of 
 the technicalities. One Louisiana slave 
 dealer boasted of making $65,000 in a short 
 time by thus smuggling slaves from Lafitte 's 
 camp into the United States. 
 
 The time came when the United States de- 
 termined that the freebooters' camp must go. 
 An American vessel was plundered and scut- 
 tled in Matagorda Bay. In spite of the pirate 
 king's orders his followers did not always stop 
 to inquire as to the nationality of a victim. 
 Representatives of foreign powers com- 
 plained at Washington about the ravages of 
 Lafitte' s fleet. A United States brig was sent 
 to break up the camp. Lafitte went out to 
 meet the commanding officer and escorted 
 him over the bar. He entertained him hand- 
 somely at "the red house." The naval 
 officer communicated his orders. Lafitte said 
 he would obey. In the presence of the repre- 
 sentative of the United States there 
 was a grand distribution of prize 
 money. The organization was disbanded. 
 The torch was applied to the building's and 
 the fire burned until the camp was iu ruins. 
 Then the fleet of pirate ships was brought 
 
together. Lafltte's favorite ship The 
 Bride was put in readiness. Those freeboot- 
 ers who wished went with Lafitte. The others 
 scattered. The king pirate in his flagship, 
 with the fleet following, sailed away. He 
 never returned to Texas. He settled on the 
 coast of Yucatan, where he was given a con- 
 cession of land for his " services on behalf of 
 Mexican independence,' ' and ''where he lived 
 in peace till he died." In his old age he re- 
 formed. So did many of his followers. 
 Years afterward, when Galveston was set- 
 tled by Americans who came there to 
 lead honest lives, there was a character 
 about the wharves who went by the name of 
 Ben Dolliver. Ben had a brother named Jim. 
 
 MB. CBONEA AT 70. 
 
 It was the common understanding of the Gal- 
 veston people that Ben and Jim Dolliver were 
 sons of a New England minister, and that they 
 had been pirates uuder Lafitte . Ben was a little 
 bit of a dried-up fellow with a cock eye. On a 
 certain occasion there sailed into Galveston 
 harbor a war vessel from some Central Amer- 
 ican nation. The captain's name was Cox. 
 He wore a splendid uniform, had an elegant 
 sword and looked like a grandee. Com- 
 mander Cox was received with distinc- 
 tion. One day he was on Tremont 
 street conversing with some of the 
 first citizens of Galveston. Ben Dolliver 
 came rolling by. He lurched up in front of 
 the big commander in gold lace and. sword, 
 and after close scrutiny called out in his 
 squeaky voice: 
 
 " I know you. You're a d d pirate. ' ' 
 
 With a terrible oath the commander drew 
 his sword and ran at Ben. The little fellow 
 jumped out in the middle of the street, shoved 
 his hand into one of his wide-topped boots he 
 wore and pulled a murderous looking knife. 
 It was the big commander's turn to run, and 
 he made good time until a saloon door shel- 
 tered him. Ben had recognized an old com- 
 rade of the freebootlng days. 
 
 One cf old man Cronea's most thrilling 
 stories is of the mutiny which occurred on 
 
 Campbell's privateer. Next in command to 
 Capt. Campbell was Lieut. Duvall. This 
 trouble occurred shortly before the breaking 
 up of the crew. 
 
 " DuvalPs idea," said Mr. Cronea, "was to 
 put to death the captain and the old crew, and 
 take possession of the vessel with the fifteen 
 who joined the force when I did. I don't 
 know what he meant to do after that. I knew 
 thero was going to be a mutiny, but I didn't 
 know it was going to take place that night. 
 The men that Duvall got to go into the mutiny 
 were French, except one ; he was the Cata- 
 lonian. The old crew were all Americans. 
 Duvall hauled up a cask of brandy and gave 
 it to the men. If it hadn't been for that he 
 might have succeeded, but the brandy spoiled 
 it all. The men Duvall had were on watch 
 when the attack was made. The others 
 and the captain were below. Duvall 
 and his men could have called up 
 the captain and killed him or made 
 him a prisoner. Then they could have 
 got the arms which the captain always kept 
 in the cabin and could have killed the others 
 as fast as they came on deck. They made the 
 attack just about night. I was looking out of 
 the cabin and saw it all. Campbell went on 
 deck and the mutineers surrounded him. But 
 they were drunk and didn't have any plan_ 
 Some wanted to kill the captain right there. 
 Others were for letting him go or making him 
 a prisoner. While they were quarreling about 
 what they would do with him he put out his 
 arms, just so, brushed them to both sides of 
 him, made one jump and landed in the cabin 
 By that time the Americans, who were not in 
 the plot, came up on deck. The captain 
 handed out the arms and the mutineers didn't 
 last any time. The whole fourteen of them 
 were killed. The Catalonian was the only 
 one who made a good fight. He had a knife in 
 each hand. He jumped in between two of the 
 
 MOTIVE POWER ON BOLIVAR PENINSULA. 
 
 Americans and struck at both of 
 them at the same time, killing 
 them. Those were the only Americans 
 who were killed. The Catalonian didn't 
 get a chance to do any more. His head was 
 taken off with a cutlash. Duvall was the only 
 one of the mutineers who wasn't killed. They ' 
 had a trial on board and condemned him to 
 be shot, but Campbell interfered and saved 
 his life. When the ship was off Galveston 
 Island the captain put Duvall into a boat and 
 sent two men with instructions to land him 
 
-53- 
 
 and come back. There was a ship at Galves- 
 ton and we couldn't tell what she was. The 
 captain was afraid to go in. While the two 
 men were gone with Duvall we saw a large 
 yawl coming out toward us. The captain got 
 the crew together and asked them what they 
 thought had better be done. They agreed 
 that it was dangerous to take any chances, 
 for we were very short-handed. Half of the 
 crew had been killed in the mutiny. So the 
 captain ordered the ship under way and we left 
 without waiting for the two men who had 
 gone with the small boat to land Duvall. We 
 never heard of them again. ' ' 
 
 was in that desperate business," Mr. Cronea 
 said. " The morning after the mutiny the 
 Americans wanted to kill me. They said I 
 was one of the party of Frenchmen and must 
 have known of the plotting. They got around 
 me and raised the cutlashes over me and were 
 going to cut my head off, when Capt. Camp- 
 bell interfered. He told them I was in the 
 cabin and didn't know anything about it. 
 Then they let me off . ' * 
 
 Campbell was Lafltte's right-hand man. He 
 came from Maryland. His parents lived on 
 Chesapeake Bay, near Baltimore, and he was 
 brought up as a sailmaker. In 1812 the young 
 
 FOUR GENERATIONS ON ONE PORCH. 
 
 "I don't think Campbell made a great deal 
 out of the business," said Mr. Cronea, in re- 
 ply to a question. " I remember once that he 
 loaded up a vessel with goods that had been 
 taken, put some of the men aboard and 
 started it off somewhere. They didn't tell me 
 where it was to go. But no word ever came 
 back from it that I heard. After he quit he 
 lived very quietly." 
 
 Mr. Cronea describes Campbell as a man of 
 6 feet, well built, with dark mustache and a 
 Celtic face. "He was a very brave man, and 
 he didn't like to see life taken, although he 
 
 sailmaker joined the United States navy. In 
 the battle of Lake Erie Campbell was on the 
 Lawrence with Perry. When the Commodore 
 was forced to leave the Lawrence and take his 
 flag to the Niagara, Campbell was one of the 
 crew that rowed the boat in which Perry 
 stood holding the flag half a mile under heavy 
 fire. After the war Campbell went back to 
 Baltimore, but only to start out on a roving 
 expedition which took him to New Orleans. 
 There, with his knowledge of sea life, he soon 
 got into the smuggling business. There was 
 nothing strange about that. Half of the mer- 
 
-54- 
 
 chants in New Orleans were taking goods 
 from smugglers regularly. When Gov. Clai- 
 borne, of Louisiana, attempted to create pub- 
 lic sentiment against this kind of vocation, lie 
 had a queer experience. Writing of it 
 on one occasion to the Attorney Gen- 
 eral of the United States, the Gover- 
 nor said: "In conversation with ladies 
 I have denounced smuggling as dishonest, and 
 the reply was: 'That is impossible, for my 
 grandfather, or my father, or my husband was 
 under the Spanish Government a smuggler, 
 and I am sure he was an honest man.' ' ' 
 
 After Mexican independence was acknowl- 
 edged, Campbell determined to give up 
 privateering, Mr. Cronea says. There was, in 
 
 admit he had ever seen me before. He 
 wouldn't talk about what he had done. He 
 wouldn't admit he had been on a privateer." 
 
 His service as cabin boy on the pirate ship 
 was not the only exciting chapter in the old 
 man's history. Charles Cronea was in the 
 war of Texan independence from beginning 
 to end. He is the only survivor of the bold 
 buccaneers of the Gulf, and he is one of the 
 few still living who "remembered Fannin's 
 men and the Alamo ' ' at Sau Jacinto. Santa 
 Anna had wiped out the defenders of the 
 Alamo at San Antonio to a man. He was 
 crowding Sam Houston and the remnant of 
 the Texan army eastward, determined not to 
 
 THE VETERAN AT HOME. 
 
 fact, nothing else for him to do. The letters 
 of marque which gave his commerce destroy- 
 ing a show of legitimacy were revoked. He 
 sailed to a point near the coast of Louisiana 
 where there was a famous hackberry tree. 
 There he burned the ship and disbanded the 
 crew. 
 
 "A good ship like that couldn't be bought 
 for $10,000," said Mr. Cronea. "It was h 
 to burn her. What else could he do? He 
 couldn't go anywhere else. Peace had been 
 declared." 
 
 "On the ship," continued Mr. Cronea, "the 
 captain always went by the name of Carroll- 
 Charles Carroll. He never used the name of 
 Campbell. But after he burned the ship and 
 settled on shore he took his right name. From 
 the day we separated at the hackberry tree I 
 have never seen any of the crew. Capt. Camp- 
 bell I met once, years afterward. Campbell 
 moved from place to place. I never saw him 
 until he settled at Morse's Bluff. I heard he 
 was living there, and went over to see him. 
 He treated me mighty nicely, but he wouldn't 
 
 stop until he had driven them across the Sa- 
 bine, entirely off Texas soil, and had occu- 
 pied Galveston. 
 
 "There were only 800 of us left," Mr. 
 Cronea said. "I was in Capt. David Garner's 
 company. After the fall of the Alamo we re- 
 treated. Santa Anna was moving eastward. 
 We must have fallen back more than 200 
 miles. The Mexicans had over 2000 men 
 They were two to one of us, and they had t-au- 
 non. I don't believe Houston would have 
 fought, only somo <>f tho boys got tired of re- 
 treating and went to him. They said if there 
 wasn't going to be any flg'litin' they would 
 quit and go home. 
 
 " 'Boys, ' said Houston, 'if fighlin' is what 
 you*want, you shall have plenty of it. Get 
 your dinners. ' 
 
 " That was the way the battle of San Jacinto 
 came about. We had two companies that had 
 muskots and bagnets. The balance of us 
 had old Kentucky flint rifles. It took about 
 ten minutes to load 'em. But wo made every 
 shot count. We waited till 2:30 o'clock. 
 
-55- 
 
 The d d Mexicans always sleep after dinner, 
 
 you know. And by we were on them 
 
 before they knew it. They never got a chance 
 to fire their cannon but once. We dropped 
 when we saw the smoke of their guns and 
 then jumped up and went on. They were on 
 one hill and we were on another. From the 
 time we broke camp we never stopped 
 till we were right among them. I bet you we 
 made a lot of them drop the first time we fired. 
 When we got into close quarters every man 
 drew his bowie-knife. Just before we started 
 Houston gave us the word. ' Remember Fan- 
 nin's men and the Alamo,' he said. Then 
 when he saw the slaughter he rode in among 
 us and cried out, 'Have mercy, men! For 
 God's sake have mercy!' But he couldn't 
 stop us. , Nothing could stop us. 
 The Mexicans threw away their guns 
 and stopped fighting. One would drop on his 
 knees and hold up his hands and say, 'Me no 
 Alamo! Me no Alamo!' Off went his d d 
 head! They thought we were killing them 
 because they had killed our men at the Alamo 
 and they wanted to say they were not there." 
 ' 'Were the Mexicans well armed?" 
 
 fighting done in the War of Texas Independ- 
 ence was almost without parallel in losses. At 
 the battle of the Mission, south of San Antonio, 
 the Mexicans had forty killed and sixty 
 wounded, while the Texas loss was one killed 
 and one wounded. A few days later, in the 
 Battle of the Grass, the Mexican loss was fifty 
 and the Texan loss was one. A little later, at 
 the Alamo, of 170 Texans not one escaped 
 Mexican vengeance. And then came San 
 Jacinto, wiping out an army. Santa Anna, 
 by all the rules of Texan warfare, should have 
 perished at San Jacinto, Mr. Cronea thinks. 
 
 "One of the men in my company, Solomon 
 Cole, captured Santa Anna," said the old 
 veteran. "He found him hiding in the grass, 
 took him back to San Jacinto and delivered 
 him to Houston. If it hadn't been that Santa 
 Anna was a Mason his hide wouldn't have 
 held shucks. He ought to have been shot- 
 But Santa Anna and Sam Houston were both 
 high Masons, and Houston and the other Ma- 
 sons got him off in disguise. Seven of our 
 men followed him as far as Calcasieu, in Lou- 
 isiana. If they had overtaken him he wouldn't 
 have got back to Mexico.' ' 
 
 ROLL OVER. 
 
 "Their guns were 'scopets,' big-mouthed 
 things, of no account. But they had bagnets 
 and swords, and they ought to have cut us 
 down when we got close, but they didn't. By 
 
 ,' ' the old man exclaimed, " they justbroke 
 
 like turkeys, and we cut 'em down right and 
 left with our knives. We were right among 
 them, and every one of us was killing." 
 
 "How many Mexicans were killed, Mr. Cro- 
 nea?" 
 
 "Between 1600 and 1700. We took only 
 300 prisoners, and there was nothing left of 
 Santa Anna's army." 
 
 "How many Texans were killed?" 
 
 ' 'We lost just twelve men. There is a monu- 
 ment to them on the San Jacinto battle-field 
 a few miles above Houston." 
 
 The skeptical may think the old man draws 
 the long bow a little on his figures of losses. 
 History, well authenticated, shows that the 
 
 "We had two scouts," the old man con- 
 tinued, "who kept right along close to the 
 Mexicans all of the time during that retreat, 
 and we always knew just where Santa Anna's 
 army was and what it was doing. They were 
 mighty brave men. One of 'em was Bob Dun- 
 ham. I'll tell you what Bob done. Eight this 
 side of Buffalo Bayou he was all alone when 
 he came on fifteen Mexican soldiers. He made 
 a motion with his gun and looked back as if 
 
 he was giving some order. By the whole 
 
 fifteen threw down their muskets with the 
 bagnets sticking in the ground and surren- 
 dered. He formed 'em in line and marched 
 'em into camp. Bob was one of the old cow- 
 boys. The devil couldn't scare him." 
 
 During the battle of San Jacinto one body 
 of fugitives took to the river. They mired in 
 the muddy bottom. The Texans, coming to 
 the bank in pursuit, stood there picking off 
 
-56- 
 
 the Mexicans In the mud and water. It was 
 butchery. The commander of the Texans 
 gave the order again and again to stop shoot- 
 ing, but the men kept on. The thirst for 
 blood could not be satisfied, it seemed. That 
 cry, "Remember the Alamo!" kept ringing 
 out. At last the commander of the Texans 
 seized a gun from one of his men and leveled 
 it. He swore he would shoot the next man 
 who fired upon the pleading prisoners, and 
 then the slaughter ceased. 
 
 The battle of San Jacinto didn't last an 
 hour, Mr. Cronea says. As one of the inci- 
 dents he mentions that thirty- two Mexicans 
 were killed at the breech of a cannon they at- 
 tempted to defend. So rapid was the advance 
 the cannon was fired only once. San Jacinto 
 established Texan independence. Mexico did 
 not formally acknowledge this condition, but 
 after the loss of Santa Anna's army she let 
 this great State go as if by default, and the 
 United States annexed it. 
 
 " We could never have succeeded in the 
 end," said Mr. Cronea, "if the United States 
 had not come forward and taken up our fight. 
 There were only 800 of us under Houston. We 
 wiped out Santa Anna's army, it is true, but 
 do you suppose a country as large as Mexico 
 would have allowed 800 men to take away 
 such a piece of territory as Texas? It isn't 
 reasonable. We would have been crushed 
 sooner or later if Texas had not been taken 
 into the United States.' 
 
 There was trouble from the earliest times 
 between the Americans who had settled in 
 Texas and the Mexican local authorities. But 
 the open hostilities which led to the series of 
 battles ending with San Jacinto, Mr. Cronea 
 says, started in 1832 with the release of three 
 Americans. These Americans were Monroe 
 Edwards, Patrick Jack and Travers. They 
 had been locked up by the Mexicans at the 
 old fort of Anahuac. A company of Ameri- 
 cans, of whom Mr. Cronea was one, was 
 formed to release the three men and did it. 
 After that came the battles. One of the last 
 incidents of the Texan war took place at the 
 home of those three men. Following San 
 Jacinto a party stopped for the night with 
 Monroe Edward's family. There was a 
 young lady in the family. Her name 
 was Susannah. Now, Susannah had a 
 well-trained parrot. This bird had the free- 
 dom of the house during the day, but at 
 night was retired to a cage by his young mis- 
 tress. On the evening of the arrival of the 
 visitors there was a good deal of confusion. 
 Everybody was talking of the great battle. 
 Miss Susannah forgot her charge, and the par- 
 rot remained out long after the usual retiring 
 hour. At length his green-feathered Majes- 
 ty's patience became exhausted. He sud- 
 denly called out "S'sannah." One of the 
 guests sprang to his feet and looked in the 
 direction of the sound. Then, seeing the 
 
 parrot, he sat down and tried to laugh it off. 
 The action created some curiosity at the 
 time. But it was not till long afterward that 
 the Edwards family learned that they had en- 
 tertained Santa Anna in his disguise and on 
 his way out of Texas under friendly escort of 
 the Masons, in whose care Houston had 
 placed the prisoner. Santa Anna had mis- 
 taken the parrot's call for his own name. 
 
 " Mr. Cronea, how do you account for your 
 long life and good health ?' ' the old man was 
 asked as he concluded his story of the battle. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he replied with a 
 hearty laugh. 
 
 "I'll tell you, sir," said a jolly, plump 
 woman with a rich olive complexion, not a 
 wrinkle in it, and with snapping black eyes. 
 She came forward from the domestic regions, 
 where she had overheard the question. "I'll 
 tell you, ' ' she said. "It's living in the country 
 on good healthy food corn bread, beef and 
 potatoes. That has given father long life and 
 good health." 
 
 "I expect that's it," the old man added 
 with a nod. " That is what I raised my family 
 on. Many of my children never saw wheat 
 flour until after they were grown." 
 
 " I think the rich food city people eat 
 the preserves and such things has 
 a good deal to do with the sick- 
 ness and short lives," said the jolly lady. 
 " I am 56 years old. Yes, sir; I own up to it. 
 I was born the next year after the war of 
 Texan independence. That makes me 56, 
 and I can tell you I was 26 years old before I 
 ever had a headache. Perhaps I wouldn't be 
 so free to tell my age if I hadn't so many 
 grandchildren. 
 
 The lady laughed until she shook, while the 
 old gentleman, taking up the theme, said: 
 ' ' I was married to her mother after I quit the 
 Texas army. I have now ninety living chil- 
 dren, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 
 I did have ninety-two, but two have died. 
 Seven of them are my children. The others 
 are grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 
 I can't begin to tell you how many are grand- 
 children and how many are great-grand- 
 children. That would be too much trouble, 
 but there are ninety of them altogether." 
 
 The old man chuckled, while the daughter 
 remarked: "That's all father does. He just 
 sits on the porch and laughs." 
 
 "I'm as contented as if I was worth a mill- 
 ion," the old man added. And then he said, 
 "but I wish my pension was a little larger. 
 The State allows me a pension for my part in 
 the war of Texan independence. The amount 
 is $12.50 a month. I have been told I was 
 entitled to a land warrant, but I never got 
 it." 
 
 " You must have begun voting pretty early, 
 Mr. Cronea?" 
 
 " I cast my first vote for Andrew Jackson, 
 the second time he ran. It was in 1824, 
 
-67- 
 
 wasn't it. Seems as if that was the year. I 
 was living in Plaquemine at the time. They 
 had a law that allowed only tax-payers to 
 vote. When I went up, the judge of the elec- 
 tion asked me 'if I was a tax-payer. I threw 
 down a piece of money and said, ' Here is 
 two-bits. Now I'm a tax-payer.' The judge 
 raised some question. I knew him and knew 
 that all of his property was in his wife's name. 
 So I said to him, 'Judge, do you pay any 
 taxes?" With that he said, 'Oh, come on; 
 give us your vote.' ' ' 
 
 The conversation turned again upon the 
 ninety descendants. Mr. Cronea affirmed, 
 with considerable pride, that all of them were 
 born in three counties in Texas, and also that 
 all of them are now living within the State for 
 which he fought so valiantly. At a sugges- 
 tion, four generations of the Cronea family 
 were assembled upon the porch. The old gen- 
 tleman, aged 87, sat at the head of the line. 
 Next to him was his daughter, Mrs. Matilda 
 Stough, aged 56. Mrs. Stough's daughter, 
 Mrs. Artemis Wilrycx, aged 34, sat beside her 
 mother. Mrs. Wilrycx was a widow until a 
 week ago. She came over from a neighboring 
 house leaning upon the arm of a new husband, 
 and the pleasantries of her relatives prompted 
 her to assume a rather abashed demeanor. The 
 son of Mrs. Wilrycx, Emile Andres, aged 10, 
 sat on the edge of the porch near his great 
 grandfather. As Mr. Cronea viewed the as- 
 sembling of his clan, he remarked with a 
 smile that it wasn't his fault there were not 
 five generations instead of four lined up on 
 the porch. He said he had three or four great- 
 granddaughters who were old enough to be 
 wives and mothers. While the four genera- 
 tions faced the artist, other members of the 
 family stood about and offered more or less 
 hilarious suggestions. Good humor is one of 
 the strong traits of the Cronea descendants. 
 They are all healthy, happy and handsome. 
 Texas has no better people than the cabin-boy 
 pirate and his ninety descendants. 
 
 Bolivar Peninsula is a queer place. This 
 long, low-lying strip of land between Gulf 
 and Bay possesses two physical phenomena 
 which have puzzled scientific gentlemen. One 
 of these is known as "the High Islands." The 
 peninsula is quite level, being in the center 
 only a little higher than along the beaches. 
 Well toward the upper end of the peninsula 
 the traveler comes to a collection of knolls, 
 which rise sharply from the general level. 
 These knolls can be seen from a great dis- 
 tance. In comparison with the almost dead 
 level of sand and water on all sides of them 
 they loom up like mountains. In reality the 
 elevation is only 35 feet. Nothing like the soil 
 of which the High Islands are composed can 
 be found for many miles. This soil is a clay. 
 On top of the knolls is a table-land 
 several miles in extent. People have 
 
 farms and live on the High Islands. Springs 
 gush from the summits. Some of the springs 
 are fresh water and some are salt. In one 
 place a fresh spring and a salt spring come 
 from the ground less than 2 feet apart. By 
 digging down into the clay well water can be 
 had. There are various theories as to how 
 these High Islands came to be located away 
 out on the flats of the Texas coast. From all 
 of the conditions it would appear that a great 
 section of a bluff country must have been cut 
 off somewhere and carried down hundreds of 
 miles and deposited on the Gulf front. A 
 great glacier may be responsible for the 
 strange freak. 
 
 Off Bolivar lie "the Oil Ponds." They are 
 places in the Gulf where the breakers cease 
 and the surf is at rest. In the very roughest 
 weather there is some movement, but ordi- 
 narily the ponds are still, while all around 
 them the ocean rolls. The natives of Bolivar 
 say " the Oil Ponds" are what the name im- 
 plies collections of oil upon the surface of 
 the water. But they do not call it oil. They 
 call it sea wax. Within the memory of the 
 oldest inhabitants of the peninsula the oil 
 ponds have doubled in size. They seem to be 
 growing. They cover many acres of water. 
 Altogether they are fifteen miles long and two 
 miles wide. The source of this collection of 
 oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, off 
 Bolivar, is as .mysterious as the origin of the 
 High Islands. W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 The Story of What One Potato Did for 
 Colorado City. 
 
 A Tomato and a Town Site Midland's In- 
 spirationRise and Fall of the Bar- 
 onsEvery Man His Own Ir- 
 rigutor Abilene's Ver- 
 satile Decade. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 ABILENE, TEX., August 29. "Abilene! " 
 Not a Winchester pops. Not a cowboy 
 whoops. Queer ups and downs and ups again 
 this Western Texas country has seen since 
 1882, just ten years ago. There are men in 
 St. Louis and forty-nine other cities outside 
 of Texas, who can shiver a little in 
 August over investment memories of Abi- 
 lene, of Sweetwater, of Colorado City, 
 of Midland. What booms those were! The 
 Texas and Pacific Railway had just 
 gone through. The Comanche had just 
 made room for the cowman. The man 
 with a branding iron was bigger than the man 
 
-58- 
 
 with a bank. From the Brazos to the Colo- 
 rado River was the prettiest country the ten- 
 derfoot ever saw. 
 
 Baird had been the town. When the rail- 
 road reached Baird it struck the great cattle 
 trail leading from the Southern Texas ranges 
 to Kansas and the North. The ranches for 
 250 miles did their trading at Baird. Bat the 
 railroad came and the glory of Baird as the 
 outfitting point departed westward. Abilene 
 first, Sweetwater next, and then Colorado 
 City bid and bid high for the favor of the cat- 
 tle trade. Colorado City won, for she was the 
 
 a brick thrown at random would hit at least 
 one rich man, and in all probability carrom on 
 another. In ten years a solid brick city, with 
 5000 inhabitants, was built on the high banks 
 of the river. A $50,000 Court House wasn't 
 good enough. Besides, it obstructed the view 
 in th principal street. A new Court House 
 was built, and the old one, constructed only 
 two years before, was torn down. Corner 
 lots in Colorado were held at $10,000, and 
 some of them sold at that. Money was plen- 
 tiful. Everybody had it or could borrow. A 
 third party orator would have been satisfied 
 
 AN IRRIGATION PLANT AT MIDLAND. 
 
 gateway to the great pastureland of Texas, 
 stretching 170 miles westward, from the Colo- 
 rado River to the Pecos, and northward over 
 the Staked Plains as far as the herds chose to 
 r oam. 
 
 Those were great days for cattlemen from 
 1881 almost to 1885. Never before had the 
 steer been so profitable. Had the great seal 
 of Texas been designed anew at that time it 
 would have shown a long-horn rampant on 
 the obverse and a long-horn couchant on the 
 reverse. Prices of cattle went out of sight, 
 and yet everybody wanted to bay. Lords and 
 Earls came to Texas and exchanged good En- 
 glish gold for the title of cattle baron with 
 all the name implied. Merchants and capi- 
 talists up North formed companies and sent 
 high-salaried agents to take charge of their 
 four-looted investments, " range count." 
 And Colorado was the center and beneficiary 
 of this tremendous activity in cows. 
 
 In 1884 there were more millionaires, pres- 
 ent and prospective, on the streets of Colorado 
 than in all the rest of Texas. It was said that 
 
 with the "per capita. ' ' There were men with 
 brand-new bank accounts who took it a' a 
 favor to be asked to indorse a note. Thei ^-is 
 a tradition to-day in Colorado about an old 
 cattleman who spent the greater part of two 
 days hunting for a stranger who wanted some 
 paper indorsed. Pioneers who had started in 
 business a few years previously with a brand- 
 ing iron found themselves worth hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars. 
 
 . In those flush days Colorado looked with 
 scorn upon the farmer. In 1833 a German 
 colony, under the leadership of a thrifty 
 priest, settled upon a tract of land about 
 eighty miles west of the cattlemen's capital. 
 The place was called Marienfeld. A crop of 
 wheat was raised, and the Germans with 
 honest pride sent a bushel of it over to Colo- 
 rado to be exhibited. The cattlemen were 
 shocked. They said that sort of thing would 
 ruin the country. They used harsh language 
 about the grangers. But there came a timo 
 when the ranges around Colorado were over 
 stocked. Then the bottom fell out of the cat- 
 tle market. Prices went down and down. 
 
59- 
 
 In 1886 it took three steers to bring as many 
 dollars as one had been worth three years be- 
 fore. Colorado had snubbed the farmer and 
 she had warned the sheep herder. She had 
 pinned her hope of prosperity to one thing 
 
 ABILENE. 
 
 the cattle trado. Tlio shrinkage 0:1 the ?10,- 
 000 corner lots was something f aarful to con- 
 template. A population of 5000 dwindled to 
 2030. Some were unfeeling enough to say that 
 those who remained did so because they 
 couldn't get away. 
 
 In this most trying period of Colorado's his- 
 tory came the discovery that all around Colo- 
 rado was an agricultural country. One day 
 somebody found an Irish potato sprouting 
 through the ground just in front of the prin- 
 cipal bank building. Colorado had eaten 
 Irish potatoes at $2.50 a bushel and had never 
 asked whence they came. This particular po- 
 tato had rolled into the gutter in front of the 
 
 ers of the volunteer experiment. Some of the 
 children had to be told how potatoes repro- 
 duce. They had never seen the operation. 
 The whole town became a farmers' club for 
 the discussion of agricultural topics. Men 
 who had loudest proclaimed the glorious 
 character of a cowman's life and who had 
 said they would rather commit suicide or 
 sheer sheep than handle a hoe, began to make 
 gardens. One man scattered something less 
 than half a ton of seed oats on unbroken prai- 
 rie, scratched it well with a harrow and 
 produced a fair crop. 
 
 That settled it. Colorado proclaimed far 
 and wide that here was the place to farm. 
 And tli3 farraor, ignoring the snub of five 
 years bsforo, came, saw and conquered. The 
 city has regained the population which went 
 out with the cattle boom, but the personality 
 is different. Colorado is still the center for 
 tli a Western Texas cattle trade, but it is not 
 that to the exclusion of agriculture, nor does 
 it despise the shipment of 400 car loads of salt 
 a month. 
 
 The potato which grew to such effect in 
 front of Colorado's bank has its companion 
 piece. An humble tomato plant developed 
 in 1834 where Midland stands. For a week a 
 party of excursionists, 150 strong, had been 
 roaming over tho State. Place after place had 
 been visited, but nothing which quite filled 
 the measure of desire was found. The excur- 
 sionists ware from Illinois and Iowa. They 
 had money, and they wanted to start a town, 
 
 AT MIDLAND JACIC KILSS; TIME, 48 SECONDS. 
 
 bank and had taken a notion to grow. Tho 
 man who made the discovery was tho hero of 
 the hour. After that everybody in town soon 
 knew of the potato. Day by day for three 
 months Colorado watched the progress of the 
 potato's growth. It would have been worth a 
 man's life to have disturbed it. Ex-millionaires 
 were the most vigilant and interested observ- 
 
 the beginning of which should be all their 
 own. They came to what is now Midland, 
 and found growing there this tomato plant. 
 The dimensions seemed rather startling, but 
 it is asserted that the vine was 9 feet high 
 and spread out 7 feet in diameter. 
 This vine was loaded with tomatoes 
 from top to bottom. It settled the minds of 
 
-60- 
 
 the excursionists, who said, "Here we rest, 
 build a town and sell corner lots to our 
 friends." Six hours after the excursionists 
 set eyes on the tomato plant the town com- 
 pany had been organized. The sale of lots 
 followed. Midland has 1500 people who do a 
 
 and discovered after all that her territory 
 was n?Mch better suited for sheep than for 
 steers. The flock-masters, usually the most 
 despised of men in a cow country, were re- 
 ceived with open arms by Abilene. They and 
 their flocks overran the Abilene country, 
 
 BRANDING CATTLE. 
 
 business of $1,500,000 a year with the ranch 
 owners of the Staked Plains. The town is 
 surrounded by gardens of from one to ten 
 acres. Each garden has its well, its wind- 
 mill and storage pond, called "tank," for 
 water. This is the individual system of irri- 
 gation. It comes pretty near reaching per- 
 fection at Midland. The little orchards, vine- 
 yards and gardens give results which almost 
 parallel and help to make credible the tomato 
 plant story. The product is from $100 to $300 
 an acre. On these little tracts the yield has 
 been as much as 600 bushels of sweet potatoes 
 and 800 bushels of onions to the acre. The 
 ranch trade takes all the sweet potatoes at 2c 
 a pound and the onions at 3c and 4c a pound . 
 These "ten-acres-enough" irrigators have 
 begun to experiment in other directions than 
 vegetables. They have tried prunes and raisin 
 grapes on a small scale, and they think they 
 can compete with California, with the ad- 
 vantage of half of the distance and less freight 
 rates. What rain falls on this lower end of 
 the Staked Plains country comes in summer 
 for the most part. It is about 20 inches. That 
 moans a dry climate where the man with the 
 rasping cough, the transparent skin and the 
 flushed cheek may prolong his days and sub- 
 stitute moderate good health for short-lived 
 misery. 
 
 Abilene in ten years ran the gamut of ex- 
 perience. She won and lost the supremacy as 
 the outfitting point for the cattle trade. As this 
 drifted westward Abilene "lit on her feet," 
 
 and before the Southwest generally had real- 
 ized the change Abilene had become the prin- 
 cipal wool market of Texas. The shipments 
 of wool at this point climbed to 8,000,000 
 pounds in a year. The Northern shepherd 
 must remember that this is a country where 
 the wool is taken off twice a year br many 
 sheep growers. 
 
 IN THE CATTLE PENS AT COLORADO. 
 
 Abilene is nothing if not versatile. While 
 the sheep industry flourished she remembered 
 the fate of her cattle trade and she also rec- 
 ognized that sheep can travel. Without wait- 
 ing for potatoes to grow in front of her banks 
 she held an agricultural fair. An agricultural 
 fair in Western Texas in 1884! It paralyzed 
 the natives. Then a Board of Trade was or- 
 ganized. Roads were laid out, all leading to 
 
-61- 
 
 Abilene of course. Ten or fifteen bridges 
 were built. Soon the whole face of the coun- 
 tiy was changed. There wasn't any thing left 
 to make the visiting cowboy feel at home ex- 
 cept the names of the creeks, such, for in- 
 stance, as the Jim Ned, the Bull Wagon and 
 like examples of range nomenclature. For 
 several years Abilene carried off the sweep- 
 stakes premium for her agricultural exhibit 
 in competition with thirty or forty other 
 counties at the State Fair. And now there 
 are 7000 people in Abilene. They tell about 
 their wheat and their oats shipments. Sev- 
 eral thousand farms have been opened up in 
 the county. Abilene begins to have the airs 
 of a long-settled and seriously respectable 
 city. She has manufactories of various kinds, 
 some possibilities in iron and coal deposits, a 
 solid, well-balanced trade of numerous lines. 
 And yet but ten short years ago what a rip- 
 roaring town Abilene was! W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 The Lost Mine and the Ancient Church 
 on the Rio Grande. 
 
 A Padre's Story Web Flanagan on Liv- 
 ing Issues Cosmopolitan El Paso A 
 Tariff that Did Not Prohibit. 
 
 Six-rial Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 EL PASO, TEX., September 3. Tourists who 
 stop in El Paso on the way to the City of 
 Moxico or California do not fail to visit the 
 
 forms against smuggling are being complied 
 with the stranger has his choice of two 
 methods of amusement. He can speculate on 
 the ease with which he has evaded the laws of 
 his country, or he can look innocently out of 
 the car window upon the lower-class Mexicans 
 bathing in puris naturalibus along the banks 
 below. 
 
 The old church on the square at Juarez is in 
 every guide book. It is the first introduction 
 to ancient Mexico. It has been much written 
 about. People from Maine to Oregon have 
 dropped their nickels in the slot "for the re- 
 pair of the church." But not many became 
 sufficiently well acquainted with the good 
 padre to hear "the story of the lost mine." 
 Every locality where precious metals have 
 been found has its "lost mine." El Paso 
 County is not exceptional. Tradition links 
 this particular lost mine with the ancient 
 church. At the corner of the edifice, to the 
 left of the main entrance, is a tower. The 
 door is usually kept padlocked. Visitors are 
 free to enter the church and look at the 
 curiously jointed wooden ceiling, the pul- 
 pit with its eccentric stair on one side, 
 the confessional wholly unlike those seen in 
 Catholic churches in the United States, and 
 the Madonna-like face of Our Lady of Guada- 
 lupe. Even the great wooden cross, on which 
 is hung a ghastly form for the crucifixion pro- 
 cession once a year, is exhibited, but the 
 tower is closed. Those who are permitted by 
 special favor to pass the door find a stairway 
 of logs, the ends of which overlap and form 
 the axis of the circling steps without any other 
 
 MEXICAN" SUBURB OP Et, PASO. 
 
 ancient church at Juarez. Electric cars 
 cross the Rio Grande. The thirty seconds' 
 stop for the customs officer to walk through 
 the car is only a pleasant episode. While the 
 
 support. At the top of this freak in architect- 
 ure there is a small room with outlooks 
 through the heavy walls. And from this 
 tower the way leads to the lost mine. The 
 
church itself is on an elevation. The tower 
 gives a view over the flat tops of the one-story 
 houses. In the distance can be seen the 
 
 tion and look through a certain window in 
 the tower and in a line with certain natural 
 landmarks. If the conditions are fully com- 
 
 IX THK OLD CHURCH AT JUAREZ. 
 
 Franklin Mountains, and there is 
 the lost mine. According to the 
 tradition one must stand in a certain posi- 
 
 plied with the vision will rest on the rxact 
 location of the lost mine. But whore is the 
 place to stand, which is the window, and 
 
what arc the landmarks? The padre shakes 
 his head. He would like to know himself. 
 
 By the tradition this mine was worked be- 
 fore the Spanish conquest. It was very rich. 
 From it the natives along the Rio Grande ob- 
 tained the massive gold ornaments which 
 they wore when the Spaniards came. In the 
 early history of the church many of these 
 golden ornaments were laid upon the 
 altar. But there came a long and 
 stubborn war with the conquerors. In- 
 cursions of Apaches and Comanches made 
 the mountains unhealthy. Afterwards the 
 Pueblo rebellion engrossed attention, and 
 still later was the American invasion. Amid 
 
 The friendliness is something more than 
 diplomatic. Mexicans live in El Paso; Amer- 
 icans do business in Juarez. The Mexicans 
 cut grain with a sickle and tread it out by 
 driving burros in a circle on the American 
 side of the river. An American clears $13,000 
 to $15,000 a year from a vineyard on the 
 Mexican side of the Rio. This is a happy state 
 of affairs. The only thing that is holding El 
 Paso back is the need of more water for irri- 
 gation. The development of the valley has 
 outgrown the Rio Grande. Only the 
 other day the authorities on the Mex- 
 ican side issued an order directing that 
 the water be turned from the Mexican 
 
 NEXT TO GODLINESS. 
 
 exciting scenes the natives lost their mine. 
 Their descendants have nothing except the 
 tradition of the church tower and win- 
 dow to guide them to it. And not one of 
 them seems to caro to look for the landmarks. 
 They fold their serapes about them and stand 
 beside the adobe ia poverty all of their lives 
 rather than climb to the top of the tower and 
 look. The restless American is the only one 
 who tries to solve the riddle. He visits the 
 tower, ponders long on the landscape, goes 
 forth to search, and never finds the mine. 
 
 "There is the very kindest feeling here with 
 Mexico," said Col. Web Flanagan, Collector 
 of the Port of El Paso, in reply to a question. 
 "The future of our trade relations is very 
 bright. The re-election of President Diaz 
 means progress, and the same may be said of 
 Gov. Armido, just elected Governor of Chi- 
 huahua." 
 
 ditches into the river two days in the week, 
 in order that the poor people on the American 
 side might save their crops. A great interna- 
 tional dam, which will store the water in time 
 of surplus for time of need, will double the 
 population and production of the valley in 
 two years. El Paso already has the dam on 
 paper. 
 
 El Pa^o is cosmopolitan. Jay Gould, in 
 search of health, spent four or five weeks here 
 last spring. This was the one place where he 
 could leave his private car and walk about 
 like a plain every-day American citizen. No 
 committee intruded upon him. People didn't 
 turn around and look after him or make re- 
 marks about him in his hearing, or treat him 
 as a museum freak at large. Ho took occasion , 
 before his departure, to remark upon this 
 admirable characteristic pf the El Paso peo- 
 
64 
 
 pie, and to explain that he had prolonged his 
 stay because of it. 
 
 The customs revenue at El Paso has reached 
 $675,000. Last year it was $550,000; the 
 year before that, $50,000. The increase is the 
 tariff put upon ore from Mexico. Ninety per 
 
 miner has the ore to sell and he goes on 
 shipping and paying the tariff that amounts 
 to a division of the Mexican miner's pro- 
 fits with the United States Government. 
 The smelters in this region are bound to have 
 the Mexican ore for fluxing. They pay a little 
 
 MEXICAN WINE VATS. 
 
 cent of the revenue collected at El Paso is 
 from the ore importation. From twenty to 
 twenty-five car-loads of silver-lead ore comes 
 from Mexico across the Rio Grande daily. It 
 was argued when the duty was put on that it 
 would be prohibition; that smelters would be 
 moved to Mexico and the importations would 
 cease. Instead of that, the ore keeps coming. 
 
 more for this ore than they did before the 
 tariff was put on and make up for it by charg- 
 ing more for smelting. Thus the burden dis- 
 tributes itself and the Mexican ores keep com- 
 ing. The Mexican miner gets less for his ore; 
 the smelter charges more for smelting; the 
 Government of the United States adds half a 
 million a year to its revenue. The increase 
 
 THK SAMPLING WORKS. 
 
 El Paso, instead of losing business for the 
 smelters she had, feels confident she could 
 keep two more smelters busy. This tariff leg- 
 islation has a way of confounding the proph- 
 ets occasionally. Importations of ore have 
 increased instead of diminished since 
 the imposition of the duty. The Mexican 
 
 has already been enough to pay for the hand- 
 some new Custom House into which Collector 
 Flanagan has just moved, and which the 
 Treasury agents say has no superior any- 
 where in Federal architecture. 
 
 The Mexicans protested mightily against 
 the tariff put on their ore by the United 
 
-65 
 
 States. Yet it turned out to be one of the best 
 things that ever happened to that country. It 
 inspired the idea of building smelters south 
 of the Rio Grande. The smelters on this side 
 didn't stop on account of the tariff. They 
 
 Mr. F. W. Edelsten, formerly Government 
 assayer at El Paso, and now at the head of the 
 El Paso Sampling Works, speaking of the rad- 
 ical change of mining conditions in Mexico^ 
 said: "I don't think there is any question 
 
 THE SMELTER. 
 
 simply split the difference took part of it 
 from the price paid to the Mexican miner and 
 added the other part to the charge upon the 
 American miner for smelting. But other 
 smelters were built in Mexico. Before the 
 tariff was put on the Mexicans were taking 
 out twenty tons of ore for every ton shipped. 
 On account of the high transportation charges, 
 
 that the silver product of Mexico this year 
 will exceed that of the United States. Last 
 year the silver product of this country was 
 $58,000,000. Mexico was $11,000,000 be- 
 hind. Last year, on the 1st of January, there 
 wasn't a single smelter of any magnitude in 
 Mexico. If Mexico was only $11,000,000 be- 
 low the United States then what can she do 
 
 AN APIARY IN THE ALFALFA COUNTRY. 
 
 they couldn't afford to send the nineteen tons 
 to the American market. With smelters of 
 their own close at hand, the Mexicans are 
 working up the ore formerly thrown upon the 
 dump. 
 
 when the nineteen tons out of twenty, which 
 was formerly thrown away, is reduced, as is 
 now the case?" 
 
 " Is silver production increasing in the 
 United States?" 
 
" I doubt very much if the product of this 
 country will reach $58,000,000 this year." 
 "What about Mexico's future?" 
 " Mexico is the greatest silver country in the 
 world. You have heard of the Sierra Mojada 
 the wet mountain ? That is proving to be the 
 greatest lead carbonate deposit in the world. 
 
 allow a company to work them on shares. It 
 costs the company only $3 a ton for the actual 
 mining. The ore is piled up and divided 
 evenly. That brings the cost to the company 
 $6 a ton. This ore is worth $28 a ton. Prom 
 this margin the company has already made a 
 great fortune. About half of the ore now com- 
 
 EL PASO'S NEW CUSTOM HOUSE. 
 
 Leadville isn't a marker. Sierra Mojada is a 
 great mountain. They put in tunnels any- 
 where from 60 to 80 feet and get ore. There 
 are chambers from which the ore bodies have 
 been taken, large enough to hold the St. 
 Louis Exposition building. The ore goes 20 
 ounces of silver and 25 per cent lead. The 
 great deposits are owned by Mexicans, who 
 
 ing to El Paso is from the Sierra Mojada. It 
 is especially desirable for mixing with Ameri- 
 can ores in smelting." 
 
 Ore sampling comes very near reaching per- 
 fection at El Paso. Ore sells in car-load lots 
 on the sampling certificate, just as wheat 
 i changes hands with its grade determined by 
 
-67- 
 
 the inspector's visit. But the ore sampling is 
 more responsible than the grain inspecting. 
 If the ore falls short of the sampling certifi- 
 cate in value, the difference must be made up 
 by the sampler, not by the former owner of 
 the ore. A random grab at a car-load of ore 
 might show 100 ounces of silver or 10 ounces 
 of silver to the ton. Hence the necessity for 
 the most complete mixing and averaging of 
 values. The car-load of ore goes into 
 an automatic machine which mixes it 
 and lets out one-tenth of it. That 
 machine enables four men to do what 
 would require twenty without it. The one- 
 tenth of a car-load is cut down to four wheel- 
 barrow loads by shoveling. The four wheel- 
 barrow loads go through small rolls reducing 
 the ore to gravel. One- fourth of this is taken 
 and quartered to 50 pounds. The 50 pounds 
 is put through a grinder, which further mixes 
 it and cuts down the sample to half a shovel. 
 That goes to a table which must first be care- 
 fully cleaned with brick-dust. This cleaning 
 is more necessary than it looks. If the pre- 
 vious sample has been high-grade it may 
 leave enough metal on the table, but for the 
 cleaning, to make a difference of 100 ounces 
 to the ton. Out of the final mixing and divid- 
 ing on the table a half ounce of ore is taken, 
 and from that the assayer determines the 
 amount of gold, silver and lead in the whole 
 car-load of ore. And on the assayer 's verdict 
 from the half-ounce assay the ore changes 
 hands by the car-load. Nine times the ore is 
 mixed and divided in rapidly reducing 
 amounts until one-tenth of an ounce is fairly 
 representative of the entire car-load. 
 
 Grain men understand very well the ele- 
 vator art of adding to and taking from, so as 
 to improve the grade. In the sampling busi- 
 ness there is something akin to this. When 
 the amount of lead falls below a certain per- 
 centage, 5, the smelters do not allow any- 
 thing ftfr it. The sampling may show 4 per 
 cent of lead, and if the ore be left as it is the 4 
 per cent of lead is entirely lost to the miner. 
 It is a feature of the sampling business, in 
 such cases, to add from rich lead, one kept in 
 stock, enough to carry the whole car-load to 5 
 per cent, and thus the value of the 4 per 
 cent of lead is gained to the miner. By a 
 similar rule the smelter does not allow for 
 the gold in the ore if it runs below one- 
 tenth of an ounce. There may be $1.80 
 worth of gold in the ore, but it is lost to 
 the miner if the ore is passed along 
 to the smelter unchanged. It is part of 
 the sampling business in that event to add 
 lOc worth of gold, bringing the value up to 
 $1.90, and getting that out of the smelter. 
 In the assay office at El Paso there is a little 
 fragment of ore something larger than a 
 thumb nail. It is from the Santa Margarita. 
 A St. Louis boy, Mr. Heckelman, owned the 
 mine, but he fell sick, and under the rigid 
 
 mining law of Mexico he could not hold it 
 without performing a certain amount of work. 
 Santa Margarita passed into the possession of 
 a Mexican. The other day the new owner 
 came into El Paso with two little sacks of ore. 
 The contents netted him $10,000. If he had 
 had a ton it would have been worth $104,000. 
 
 W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 The Days of Elephants and Three-Toed 
 Horses on the Staked Plains. 
 
 A Geological Freak The White Sand 
 
 Hills Forests of Trees Shin High 
 
 The Seven Wells Palo Duro's 
 
 Wonder. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 BEYOND THE BRAZOS, TEX., September 4. 
 This is not the brand new country which some 
 people suppose it is. These hills of Western 
 Texas have their traditions of hidden wealth, 
 once found , but lost. The same kind of sto- 
 ries that old settlers in the Ozarks of Missouri 
 tell are current here about Spaniards who 
 carried off bullion by the burro load. In the 
 beautiful Arbuckle Mountains of the Indian 
 Territory there are abandoned mines and the 
 ruins of an abandoned town which looks as if 
 a couple of centuries or more may have passed 
 since occupation. Traces of silver are found 
 in a dozen counties of Texas between the Bra- 
 zos and the Colorado. From the car window 
 one can read in flaming letters: 
 
 OLDEN, 
 
 FUTURE GOLD AND SILVER MINING 
 CITY OP TEXAS. 
 
 Here 'a small smelter has been built in the 
 woods. Web Flanagan says the prospectors 
 have found ore which assays $16 of silver to 
 the ton. But so far no bonanzas have been 
 found. If the Spaniards got out great wealth, 
 they either exhausted the deposits or left no 
 pointers for future generations. That they 
 roamed over Western Texas there is abundant 
 evidence. The trail of Coronado has been dis- 
 covered upon the Staked Plain. In the Yel- 
 low Horse Canyon of the Upper Panhandle 
 there was uncovered a complete suit of Span- 
 ish armor. The Big Spring, in Howard Coun- 
 ty, was a camping place for white men long 
 before the day of the oldest settler. A few 
 years ago a cloud burst just above the spring 
 and washed it out. In the debris, when the 
 
-68 
 
 waters subsided, were picked up many old 
 flint-lock musket barrels and some patterns 
 of firearms wholly unknown in later days. 
 
 The Indian population of Texas must have 
 been very large at some remote period. 
 Around the water holes and springs of the 
 timbered portions of the State the traces of 
 Indian settlements are general. Before white 
 settlers came in and gathered them up, the 
 metales on which the Indian women ground 
 the corn, just as the Mexicans do to-day, could 
 be seen in great numbers wherever there was 
 living water. Arrow-heads were very numer- 
 ous. Texas, however, has few mounds. Her 
 Indians were not of that class. They were 
 more like the cave dwellers. In the Guada- 
 
 think the tract is the bed of an ancient fresh 
 water lake. Others believe it to be the former 
 course of the Pecos River, which now flows 
 swiftly through a channel forty miles further 
 west. The White Sand Hills skirt the western 
 edge of the Staked Plain and cross into New 
 Mexico. In winter this freak is the most des- 
 olate strip on earth, outside of Death Valley 
 and the Sahara. The hills shift and drift with 
 the winds, and are for the most part bare of 
 vegetation. But in May and June the surface 
 is a vast flower bed, brilliant and fascinating. 
 The floral carpet gives way later to tall 
 sedge grass. At a glance this appears to be the 
 dryest spot on the globe. A trip among the 
 hills shows the strip to be unusually well 
 
 SIGNAL MOUNTAIN. 
 
 loupe and Diabolo mountains are many 
 caverns; and nearly all of them show signs of 
 Indian occupation. Some were used for 
 burial places. Others were carefully prepared 
 for purposes of defense. Still others were 
 warehouses in which provisions in great 
 quantities were stored. 
 
 There were elephants in Texas plenty of 
 them in the early days. Bones and teeth 
 have been dug up at Wild Horse Spring. From 
 these it is evident that the elephant roamed 
 in Howard County, 2400 feet above the sea 
 level and upon the Great Staked Plain. 
 
 Lying between the Great Staked Plain and 
 the Pecos, is a geological freak. It is called 
 "the White Sand Hills." This curious body 
 of land is 150 miles long, and from five to 
 thirty miles wide. Scientific men who have 
 seen it hold diverse theories as to how It came 
 into existence. The level of White Sand Hills 
 is 600 feet below the Staked Plain, 
 
 watered. Scattered among the sand dunes' 
 are hundreds of small ponds, which contain 
 the purest water to be found in Texas. Around 
 the ponds grows most luxuriant vegetation. 
 It consists chiefly of tule grass and tall 
 reeds. Scattered through the hills are forests 
 of shin oaks. Approaching one of these 
 forests, the traveler might imagine himself 
 in Lilliput. The shin oak tree grows from 6 
 inches to a foot high. It usually bears, for 
 its size, a tremendous crop of fairly large 
 acorns. In the sand heaps are sometimes 
 found the trunks of trees from 18 inches to 2 
 feet in diameter. They have the bark on 
 and are in a fair state of preservation, but 
 they evidently belong to past ages. Nothing 
 larger than the shin oak, and the mesquite 
 brush now grows in the White Sand Hills. The 
 mast is abundant enough to stock the big 
 Fort Worth packery, which eats up a hog a 
 minute when it can get them. But this mast 
 serves at present to maintain a great variety 
 
-69- 
 
 of wild animal life. The jack rabbit is 
 the mastodon of the shin oak for- 
 ests. He can skip about and look 
 over the tops of the trees without half 
 
 Black tail deer, an occasional skunk and the 
 yelping coyote make up the wild animal life 
 of this queer region. 
 Horses, cattle and civilized hogs live in the 
 
 A RANCH OP RAILROAD TIES. 
 
 trying. Molly Cotton-tail, first cousin to 
 Jack Rabbit, is numerous. There is a peculiar 
 little ground squirrel which industriously 
 gathers the acorns and stores them in a hole 
 under a mesquite bush. Then comes along 
 
 White Sand Hills and do well. The cowboys 
 say that the white sand gets hot enough on a 
 summer day to heat water. They claim to 
 take the coffee pot from the fire and set it on 
 the sand to hurry the boiling. They tell a 
 
 LATE OWNERS OP THE STAKED PLAINS. 
 
 the peccary, or javalina, the wild hog of 
 Texas, industriously digs a larger and deeper 
 hole under the same mesquite bush and eats 
 the squirrel's acorns, passing on with a snort 
 of defiance to capital both alien and domestic. 
 
 story of two shepherds toiling through the 
 White Sand Hills with flocks of sheep. One 
 was driving close to the railroad track. The 
 other was half a mile away. A train rattled 
 by at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour. 
 
-70- 
 
 On the rear platform of the sleeper sat a fat 
 old fellow in his shirt sleeves. He had a glass 
 of something in one hand and a palm leaf fan 
 in the other. The sight turned the head of 
 the shepherd by the track. He left his flock 
 and waded half a mile thiough the sand to 
 the other shepherd just for the purpose of 
 asking him if he had " seen i hat." And then 
 the two took turns in abusing with all of the 
 picturesque and expressive language they 
 could remember a man whom neither had 
 ever met and whose only crime was being 
 comfortable. That is human nature in the 
 White Sand Hills of Texas and in the third 
 party. 
 
 siderable strength. The water comes in at 
 one side and passes out through the other. 
 Its direction is toward the Pecos River. One 
 theory advanced in explanation of these wells 
 is that a roof of a great cavern through 
 which an underground river passes has 
 dropped down in places. 
 
 In digging wells in the Sand Hills many 
 bones are found. They are remains of masto- 
 dons, bear, mountain lions, elephants and 
 other large animals not now found in Texas. 
 The White Sand Hills country seems to be 
 very rich in these things, and it is a field 
 which has scarcely been touched. 
 
 A strange formation is found in the Seven 
 
 WALLS OF THE PALO DURO. 
 
 The underground water supply of the White 
 Sand Hills is another of the surprises of this 
 region. For well digging the conditions seem 
 to be most forbidding. Yet good water is 
 found at depths varying from the grass roots 
 to 30 feet. And when the flow is struck it is 
 practically inexhaustible. There seems to be 
 some underground communication with the 
 Pecos. Either that is the case or else the 
 whole Sand Hills strip is over a river which 
 flows slowly through the sand. - ; 
 
 Fifteen miles south of the place where the 
 White Sand Hills come to an end is an isolated 
 peak known as Castle Mountain. Near the 
 mountain is a series of natural wells. Water 
 does not rise to the surface and flow, but in 
 all of the wells there is a current of con- 
 
 Wells of Mitchell County. That is in this 
 same interesting region of Western Texas. 
 At the junction of two creeks is a bed of 
 friable gray sandstone mixed with coarse 
 gravel. Water passing over the ledge has 
 worn away apart of it, and has created a fall 
 of 30 feet. The loose gravel carried round 
 and round in the eddies has gradually bored 
 holes in the sandstone. These holes are from 
 3 to 6 feet wide, circular, and from 50 to 100 
 feet deep. There are from fifteen to twenty 
 of them, all filled with fresh water. By the 
 long continued churning of the gravel they 
 have been made jug-shaped or cistern-like, 
 and in some instances the wall dividing two 
 wells has been cut through. This must have 
 been a favorite watering place with the but- 
 
-71- 
 
 falo. In the solid rock is cut a deep trail 
 down to the water. And where the descent is 
 steepest the foot-marks are over 6 inches 
 deep, showing that every animal passing 
 there put its foot exactly in the spot occupied 
 by those which had preceded it. 
 
 In the thrilling Indian'and border stories of 
 twenty years ago figured a chasm of the plain. 
 Sometimes the description was of a herd of 
 buffalo stampeding toward the brink, and 
 suddenly plunging downward a thousand feet 
 to wholesale death. Occasionally the able 
 pen of the romancer pictured similar de- 
 
 1500 feet deep. In places they fall sheer; 
 in other places they are not quite so 
 abrupt. But for sixty miles there is only 
 one crossing of the canyon for loaded wagons. 
 You drive over a treeless, boundless plain, 
 the short, soft buffalo grass deadening sound 
 and easing jolts. There is no previous indi- 
 cation of the chasm. The break in the surface 
 is not noticeable until the horses are within a 
 few feet of the edge. Leaning over, you look 
 down upon a strange scene. There is a wall 
 at your feet and another from half a mile to 
 two miles opposite. Between these walls, at 
 the base, is river, meadow, pine forest, water- 
 
 T1IE WATERFALL OF PALO DURO. 
 
 struction of Indians in a fight with the ever- 
 victorious "long guns." Again fancy took 
 the lonely scout to the brink of the precipice, 
 and showed his faithful stud rearing back- 
 ward from the edge of the abj r ss. This chasm 
 on the plain was the favorite spot for the cri- 
 sis of the plot. People of the age of discre- 
 tion who glanced over the Indian stories of 
 twenty years ago gave no more credence to 
 the chasm than they did to the rest of the 
 marvels. But the chasm was and is a fact. It 
 can be visited to-day by those who do not 
 shrink from a fifteen or twenty miles 
 drive across the plain from any one of half 
 a dozen railroad stations in the Panhandle 
 of Texas. The chasm is nearly 100 miles 
 long. Its course is from northwest to 
 southeast. The precipices are from 300 to 
 
 fall, all combined. But the tops of the tallest 
 pines come nowhere near the level of the 
 plain. This is the Palo Duro canyon. It is 
 as much a curiosity in its way as the Big Trees 
 of Calaveras, the Yellowstone Park or the 
 Grand Canyon. In some parts of its sixty or 
 eighty miles course the Palo Duro is wild 
 and rugged. In others it broadens until there 
 is room for pastures as well as for forests. 
 From the edge above, the river below looks 
 like an insignificant brook. But small as it 
 appears, it is one of the main tributaries of 
 the Red River, and it comes all of the way 
 from the mountains. 
 
 In the walls of the Palo Duro canyon the 
 scientists read the beginning of things. In 
 the region about they are having a grand 
 round-up of fossils this summer. From one 
 
bed have been resurrected seven kinds of 
 horses. Some of them had three toes and 
 were no larger than dogs. Of camels, rhi- 
 noceroses and mastodons there are two kinds 
 each in this great aggregation of bones. Cor- 
 morants were uncovered in great variety. 
 More horses, three species of mastodons, 
 camels, magalonyx and three kinds of land 
 turtles have been dug up within a few weeks 
 in another locality. One of these tortoises is 
 a monster. He is as large as the largest tur- 
 tles found along the Gulf coast, measuring 
 more than 3 feet across the shell. Along 
 Tulle canyon, a branch of the great Palo 
 Duro, is found the highest elevation of the 
 Staked Plain, and there is located the great- 
 est show on earth in fossils. In one 
 bed can be seen the bones of elephants, 
 horses, camels, tortoises and numerous 
 small animals. Scattered among the bones 
 are shells, and 400 feet below in the bottom 
 of the canyon these same kinds of shells 
 are found alive in the water. All of the 
 discoveries made by the scientists in this 
 midsummer exploration were not fossil- 
 ized. In springs and creeks outside of 
 Texas there is occasionally seen a repulsive 
 little animal called a water-dog. It is cold, 
 slimy and smooth- skinned. On the Staked 
 Plains the water-dogs are at home. In the 
 lakes they are as thick as tadpoles in a frog 
 pond, and when a rain storm comes these 
 reptiles leave the lakes and crawl in all di- 
 rections. They are innumerable. They make 
 themselves as disagreeable as the frogs did in 
 Egypt. W. B- S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 A Visit to Senora Candelaria, Heroine 
 of the Alamo The Brave Spanish 
 Woman in Whose Arms Bowie was 
 Butchered Her Story of How 
 David Crockett and His Fol- 
 lowers Met Death. 
 
 "Thermopylae had Her Messenger of 
 Defeat, but the Alamo had None." 
 
 Skeptical Tom Rife Housekeeping at 
 the Age of 1O7 The Missions How In- 
 dians -were Converted "Santone's" 
 Fifty Years of Revolutions. 
 
 Special correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 SAN ANTONIO, TEX., September 6. "Over 
 the San Pedro," the San Antonian says. 
 "Over the San Pedro' ' is the Mexican mar- 
 ket. "Over the San Pedro" is everything 
 Mexican. "Over the San Pedro' ' Senora Can- 
 delaria lives. The San Pedro comes bubbling 
 up from the bowels of the earth in three great 
 
 springs a little way out of San Antonio. So 
 much of it as isn't led off into irrigating 
 ditches, wriggles its way through the most 
 densely settled part of the city. By common 
 consent the San Pedro has come to be the di- 
 viding line between American San Antonio 
 and Mexican San Antonio. And by general 
 usage "over the San Pedro" now stands for 
 the Mexican San Antonio. 
 
 "Senora Candelaria," the San Antonian 
 said, "lives over the San Pedro." He didn't 
 seem to think it was necessary to add any- 
 thing more definite. And so "over the San 
 Pedro' ' the way was taken. One needs to have 
 his eyes open or he will get "over the San 
 Pedro" without knowing it. The stream 
 comes stealing down among the houses and 
 under sidewalks and bridge without any noise 
 or fuss. It is as mild-mannered as the Mexi- 
 
 THE ALAMO. 
 
 cans have been in later years before the ag- 
 gressive, pushing American, who now calls 
 his San Antonio the San Antonio and recog- 
 nizes the Mexican San Antonio as only "over 
 the San Pedro. ' ' The stream is crossed. The 
 house fronts become a little more distinctively 
 Mexican. Through the open doors is heard 
 an unfamiliar language, soft and sibilant. At 
 a corner where the beer kegs smell or stale by 
 any other name, the inquiry is made once 
 more for Senora Candelaria. And straight- 
 way a dark-skinned Mexican in a high 
 hat leaves the group of his fellows and 
 leads the way down a side street. He stops at 
 a narrow passage between two houses, looks 
 back and passes in. He turns a corner, crosses 
 a little court-yard, turns another corner, enters 
 a little house which stands by itself, goes 
 through a kitchen such as might do for child- 
 ren to play at house-keeping, and stops on the 
 threshold of another little room. The next mo- 
 ment he is explaining to the senora sitting in 
 her low rocking chair that these senores have 
 come all the way from St. Louis to soo her. The 
 withered hand which gave Bowie his last sup 
 
-73- 
 
 of water ere the bayonets pierced him on his 
 sick bed, is held out in welcome. The dimmed 
 eyes which saw David Crockett fall in front of 
 the Alamo, are turned upon the visitors. The 
 ears which heard Travis appeal to his fellow 
 Texans to "die with him' ' listened to the ex- 
 planation of the guide. 
 
 One hundred and seven years old, Senora 
 Candelaria is the only survivor of the Alamo. 
 Bowie was sick with the typhoid fever when 
 Santa Anna came with his army to take San 
 Antonio. The Americans retreated to the old 
 church of the Alamo, and fortified themselves 
 there for desperate defense. Bowie had his 
 cot carried in. There Senora Candelaria went 
 to nurse the sick man, and there she remained 
 through the desperate struggle which ended 
 only when every man of the 172 Americans 
 was dead. 
 
 The senora speaks a little English. When 
 she knew that the story of the Alamo was 
 wanted in all its thrilling details from her 
 own lips she sent for her grandson, a trim, 
 handsome young man, to act as interpreter. 
 
 In 1835 Santa Anna set aside republican 
 forms of government in Mexico. He ignored 
 the Constitution. He ordered the militia re- 
 duced to a minimum and disarmed. That 
 furnished the Americans in Texas their for- 
 mal grounds for revolt. They raised an army, 
 and after desperate fighting took San An- 
 tonio, forcing surrender of the Mexican 
 troops. Then they disbanded and went home, 
 all save a small body of men left under arms 
 at San Antonio. Politics took the place of 
 war. A "consultation" of Americans was 
 held and a provisional government was or- 
 ganized. Santa Anna started from Mexico 
 with an army to crush the rebellion. And 
 when he approached San Antonio the little 
 body of Americans, instead of retreating, 
 marched into the Alamo church. They took 
 with them twenty or thirty beeves. They 
 tore down Mexican huts and carried the wood 
 inside for cooking. To every man was as- 
 signed his place on the walls for defense. 
 David Crockett and his twelve Tennesseeans 
 were given the main entrance to hold. Santa 
 Anna reached the suburbs of San Antonio. 
 
 I I 1 
 
 'F~T 
 
 irr 
 
 A SAN ANTONIO RIVER SCENE. 
 
 Leaning forward, speaking rapidly, using her 
 hands to emphasize her description, the little 
 senora told the story which has no parallel in 
 history save, perhaps, Thermopylae. Again 
 and again the grandson was obliged to check 
 the torrent of language that he might inter- 
 pret. Fifty-six years ago the Alamo fell, but 
 the event is as of yesterday in Senora Can- 
 delaria' s memory. 
 
 He had 4000 men. He waited eight days for 
 Tolsa to join him with 2000 more. That made 
 an army of 6000 to capture an old church held 
 by 172 Texans. Santa Anna sent a couple of 
 officers with a white flag demanding sur- 
 render. Travis replied defiantly with a 
 shot from the cannon which had been 
 dragged into the church and hoisted into the 
 tower. 
 
-74- 
 
 " We were expecting the attack every day, ' ' 
 said the senora, " and one morning at 4 
 o'clock it came. We heard the drums and the 
 bugles, and then the firing began. It was all 
 over by 9 o'clock.'' She held up her hands 
 and shook her head. 
 
 The Mexicans assaulted in four columns. 
 They were close up to the walls before the 
 Texans made any response. They were even 
 mounting the ladders when flames shot out 
 from every part of the church and court. 
 Those of the attacking party who did not fall 
 before the fearful volley were struck upon the 
 head with clubbed muskets and thrown down 
 the ladders. The Texans had heaped up bags 
 of sand breast high at the doors. They had 
 protected themselves in a similar manner on 
 the walls. Every time a Texan' s rifle cracked 
 a Mexican's life went out. 
 
 " I have never seen men die before with the 
 indifference of these Mexicans," said a Eu- 
 ropean officer under Maximilian upon one oc- 
 casion. It was this characteristic of the Mex- 
 ican soldier which sealed the fate of the de- 
 fenders of the Alamo. Repeatedly the lad- 
 ders were cleared and the ground below was 
 covered with dead and dying, but onward 
 moved those attacking columns. And finally, 
 perhaps because of the exhaustion of the de- 
 fenders, perhaps because ammunition tem- 
 porarily failed, one of the assaulting parties 
 was able to gain a footing on a corner of the 
 fort. 
 
 Crockett died in front of the main entrance. 
 Tradition has it that he was almost covered 
 with the bodies of Mexicans who fell at his 
 hands. Senora Candelaria says this is not 
 true. Just at the left, as one passes in at the 
 main door of the church, is a little corner room 
 walled off from the main portion of the church. 
 In that room the senora was nursing the dying 
 Bowie, inventor of the knife which bears his 
 name. Through the door of this room she 
 saw David Crockett come forward to the main 
 entrance as an assaulting column approached. 
 She saw him leap upon the barricade of sand 
 bags as if to meet death half way, and she 
 saw him fall before one of the first volleys. 
 There were others who fought behind the bar- 
 ricade to the last. They used their rifles as 
 long as the enemy's distance gave them time 
 to load. Then with clubbed guns they struck 
 down the Mexicans as often as they tried to 
 climb over the sand bags. And when some of 
 the Mexicans had gained the interior the Tex- 
 ans cut them down with their knives. At last 
 the Mexicans wheeled a cannon in front of 
 that barricade of sand bags, charged it with 
 grape and canister and fired it point-blank 
 through the main entrance. They repeated 
 this and then they entered. Fifteen dead 
 Texans lay on one side of the sand bags and 
 forty-two dead Mexicans on the other side. 
 
 "Bowie," said Senora Candelaria, "was 
 too sick to do any fighting. He had the 
 
 typhoid fever. When the Mexicans came in 
 they killed him. After that I tried to keep 
 them from mutilating the body. Other Mex- 
 ican soldiers came in. I pretended to be giv- 
 ing Bowie a cup of water. I held his head in 
 my arms so." 
 
 The senora raised her arms and went 
 through the pantomime. 
 
 " I told them,' ' she continued, " that Bowie 
 was dying and I tried to keep them off. One 
 of them thrust his bayonet toward Bowie. He 
 struck me and made this. ' ' 
 
 The senora raised her chin and pointed to 
 the deep scar which over half a century had 
 failed to wipe out. She was pushed over by 
 the force of the thrust, and as she lay there 
 bleeding she saw the Mexican soldiers plunge 
 
 SENORA CANDELARIA AT 107. 
 
 their bayonets into Col. Bowie's body, raise 
 it high in air above their heads and hold it 
 there while the blood ran down their guns 
 and over their clothes. 
 
 In most battles the wounded exceed the 
 dead, four or five to one. At the Alamo the 
 proportions were reversed. Within the church 
 there were no wounded when the fighting 
 ceased. Every Texan was dead. The night 
 before the morning of the assault one Texan 
 left the Alamo. His name was Rose. He 
 leaped down from the wall and made his way 
 out of the city and into the country. His 
 story was that every one of the 172 comrades 
 he left behind deliberately chose death. 
 Travis, as Rose told it, called the band to- 
 gether and said there was no longer any hope 
 of re-enforcements. 
 
 "We must die," were his words. "Three 
 modes are presented to us. Let us choose that 
 by which we may best serve our country. 
 Shall we surrender and be shot without taking 
 the life of a single enemy? Shall we try to cut 
 our way out through Mexican ranks and be 
 
-75- 
 
 butchered before we can kill twenty of our 
 adversaries? I am opposed to either of those 
 methods. Let us resolve to withstand our ad- 
 versaries to the last, and at each advance to 
 kill as many of them as possible. And when 
 at last they storm our fortress let us kill them 
 as they come; kill them as they scale our 
 wall; kill them as they leap within; kill them 
 as they raise their weapons and as they use 
 them; ki.l them as they kill our companions, 
 and continue to kill as long as one of us shall 
 remain alive." 
 
 And that impassioned appeal was followed 
 to the letter. Travis gave to every man his 
 choice of adopting this course or attempting 
 to escape. 
 
 " Should any man prefer to surrender or to 
 attempt an escape, he is at liberty to do so," 
 Travis said. Rose looked at the walls and 
 then around him. He saw Crockett leaning 
 over Bowie's cot and talking in low, earnest 
 tones. Bowie saw Rose and said quietly, 
 " You seem not to be willing to die with us, 
 Rose." 
 
 Rose replied, "No, I am not prepared to die, 
 and shall not do so if I can help it." 
 
 Then Crockett took up the conversation and 
 said : "You may as well conclude to die with 
 us, old man; there is no escape." 
 
 No tinge of reproach was in the tones. All 
 were as men already in the shadow. Rose 
 climbed slowly to the top of the wall. He 
 
 'OVER THE SAN PEDRO. 1 
 
 "My choice," said the commander, "is to 
 stay in the fort and die for my country, fight- 
 ing as long as breath shall remain in my 
 body." 
 
 He drew a mark down the front of the line 
 and said: " I now want every man who is de- 
 termined to stay here and die with me to 
 cross this. Who will be the first ?' ' 
 
 Tapley Holland stepped forward the next 
 instant, saying, " I am ready to die for my 
 country." And every man but Rose fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Col. Bowie heard and saw what was going 
 on. Raising himself on his elbow he said; 
 "Boys, I am not able to come to you, but I 
 wish some of you would be so kind as to move 
 my cot over there.' ' Four men lifted the cot 
 and placed it on the die-but-never-surrender 
 side. Several others who were sick followed 
 Bowie's example. 
 
 looked down. The men were going about ar- 
 ranging everything for the final struggle. 
 None of them looked at him or spoke. Rose 
 dropped on the outside, crawled along the 
 ground, sought the deepest shadows, forded 
 the river and reached the outskirts of the city. 
 He was not far away when the deep boom 
 told him that the cannonading had been 
 resumed. 
 
 How many Mexicans fell at the Alamo? 
 There is only Mexican authority for it, but 
 the number of their dead is given as 521 and 
 the wounded as 300. Another Mexican re- 
 port of the battle is that 2,000 were killed. In 
 one of these reports it is stated that the dead 
 Mexicans were generally shot in the head, and 
 that few of the wounds inflicted were below 
 the neck and shoulders. 
 
 "After the battle," said the senora, "I 
 begged from the officers the body of CoL 
 
-78- 
 
 Bowie. They would not let me have it. All 
 of the Americans were taken out on the plaza 
 
 burned the rest of the day till sundown. After 
 that what was left of the bones was buried 
 
 and piled up, first a lot of wood and then a lot 
 of bodies; more wood and more bodies. When 
 all were in a heap, the wood was fired. It 
 
 near a corner of the plaza. I wanted to give 
 Col. Bowie burial, but he was burned with 
 the others." 
 
-77- 
 
 The senora makes no mistake in her age. 
 She says she is 107. And when asked the 
 year of her birth she answers, without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation, " In November, 1785." 
 She is strong, she says all but the eyes. 
 Vision has been failing now for two or three 
 years. But the hearing is right. In her little 
 home she does her own work, and is only un- 
 happy when her son insists that she shall 
 leave some of her household duties to others. 
 
 "My father," explained the grandson, 
 " doesn't want her to do her washing, but she 
 will steal off to the back of the houses and 
 hide from him to wash her own clothes. She 
 likes nothing better than to have Gen. Stan- 
 ley, with whom she is well acquainted, come 
 here and let her cook a Mexican dinner for 
 him." 
 
 TELLING THE STORY. 
 
 While the young man spoke the old lady 
 nodded and laughed, as if she partly under- 
 stood what he was saying. To all Americans 
 she is known as the Senora Candelaria. 
 
 "Candelaria," she said, "is not my real 
 name. I assumed that in going among the 
 Americans, with whom I sympathized. My 
 name from my parents was Andrae Castanon. 
 My father was a Spanish officer of rank in 
 Cuba. My mother was of Mexico. I was 
 born in Laredo on St. Andrew's day, 1786. 
 At the time of the troubles here between the 
 Americans and the Mexicans I had money and 
 property. I was rich. My sympathies were 
 with the Americans. I nursed the American 
 soldiers when they were sick and wounded. 
 I used my means to help the Americans. I 
 have been told that the Government at Wash- 
 
 ington might think me worthy of a pension 
 for the little time I have left to live, if the 
 matter was properly presented.' ' 
 
 Deeply wrinkled, swarthy, vivacious, the 
 senora makes a striking picture in her scru- 
 pulously clean little home. American San 
 Antonio has great respect for her. A portrait 
 of her hangs in a place of honor at the City 
 Hall. The State of Texas has acknowledged 
 formally the part she took at the Alamo. Col. 
 Tip Ford, the pioneer and old Indian fighter, 
 believes the senora' s story. There are some 
 skeptics, and one of them is Tom Rife, the 
 grizzled custodian of the Alamo. Rife has 
 been here fifty-one years. He came after the 
 Alamo had fallen, but in time to do some 
 fighting for Texas. He doesn't believe the 
 senora was in the Alamo, but his argument is 
 more dogmatic than conclusive. 
 
 "I have known Mme. Candelaria fifty-one 
 years,' ' said Rife, as he was showing the way 
 through the old fort. " She says she is 107 
 years old. According to that she had children 
 when she was 65 years old." 
 
 Rife stops and looks at the visitors with an 
 air of that settles it. 
 
 "Don't you think the senora was in the 
 Alamo when it fell ?" 
 
 "No, I don't," replies the veteran, with 
 emphasis. 
 
 " Then you think the story of her nursing 
 Bowie is fiction, do you?' ' 
 
 "It's a lie," replies the veteran, choosing 
 the shorter and plainer words. 
 
 But notwithstanding the skepticism of Rife 
 and of a few others, it is common belief that 
 the senora is to-day the only survivor of the 
 Alamo. The story she told, as given above, 
 was translated with care by her grandson, 
 who repeatedly questioned her that he might 
 be accurate. It differs in some details from 
 the accounts previously attributed to her, 
 and it embraces some points that are new 
 perhaps. 
 
 Rife argues that because in the early years 
 the senora did not publicly claim to have 
 been in the Alamo with the Americans her 
 later declaration is impaired. This, is not a 
 fair argument. The same conditions which 
 prompted her to assume a fictitious name in 
 her intercourse with the Americans would 
 prompt her to make no public mention of her 
 services as nurse to Bowie in the early years. 
 Long after the Alamo fell feeling between 
 Americans and Mexicans was intensely bit- 
 ter. "Remember the Alamo!" was the ter- 
 rible cry with which the Texans nerved 
 themselves to slaughter without mercy at 
 San Jacinto and on other battle fields. In 
 later times there have been sporadic demon- 
 strations of this feeling. The ashes and bones 
 of Travis, Crockett, Bowie and their asso- 
 ciates were never recovered. A few years ago 
 an attempt was made to find some relics of 
 
-79- 
 
 the dead and to do them honor. There was a 
 tradition that after the burning of the bodies 
 the bones had been scraped up and deposited 
 under the chancel of a church. Some one 
 went to the priest in charge and asked him if 
 he knew whether the heroes of the Alamo had 
 been thus cared for. 
 
 "Heroes of the Alamo!'* was the scornful 
 reply. "There were no 'heroes of the Al- 
 amo.' They were thieves and robbers. No, 
 sir; their bones are not under the chancel of 
 this church. If they were, I would pay to 
 have them dug up and thrown into the street." 
 
 Little of this sentiment remains now. But 
 the senora had good reason fifty-one years 
 ago to hide her identity and hold her tongue 
 about her participation in the last scenes 
 within the Alamo. She remembers where the 
 funeral pyre was built. A beautiful little park 
 in which the China umbrella trees grow with 
 rare luxuriance, is on the spot. The senora 
 also remembers where a hole "was dug into 
 which all that was left of the 172 bodies, after 
 the fire had burned down, was thrown in. 
 And that burial place is where the magnificent 
 new Federal building stands fronting the 
 plaza and the little park. Perhaps after all 
 there could be no more fitting uses made a 
 park in place of the pyre; that which stands 
 for the embodiment of the Republic in stone 
 and mortar, where the bones were buried. 
 
 The Alamo still stands. And it will stand. 
 Time can not do what the cannon balls of 
 Santa Anna failed to accomplish. The Alamo 
 was nearly a hundred years old when the 
 Mexicans began to bombard its massive walls 
 on the 22d of February, 1836. The cannon- 
 ading continued at intervals until the morn- 
 ing of the 6th of March, and then the assault 
 was made. There was a roof on the church 
 when the siege began, the senora says. That 
 was destroyed. The pillars and the begin- 
 nings of the arches are seen to-day. In one 
 wall is a great crack. In many places the 
 battering effects of the shots can be seen, but 
 the ruin will stand for centuries. The church 
 was one of the Spanish missions established 
 at San Antonio nearly 200 years ago. This 
 massive masonry must have taken years of la- 
 bor. In the carved front is a stone with the 
 figure 1757, and that is supposed to be the 
 date of final completion. The church is in 
 the form of a cross. On one side, in the 
 corner, with a high barred window is the 
 room where Bowie lay on his cot. Fur- 
 ther back a passage through solid masonry 
 leads to an iron door and another little room, 
 which may have been the sacristy. The 
 blackened i Iche in one side shows where 
 candles bun ed long before Tom Rife came to 
 keep the ke /. This chamber is in masonry. 
 Walls and i'oof are inclosed solidly, save 
 where the I eavy iron door gives entrance. 
 There is no Window. Here the Texans kept 
 
 their ammunition and the Mexicans attempted 
 in vain to reach it with their cannon balls. 
 At the last supreme moment, when he be- 
 lieved all had fallen but himself, Evans tried 
 to fire the powder. This was part of the des- 
 perate plan of Travis. It was the act of Sam- 
 son pulling down the temple. Had Evans 
 succeeded, his act would have crushed be- 
 neath the falling masonry more Mexicans than 
 were killed by rifle ball and bowie-knife. But 
 
 WHERE BOWIE DIED. 
 
 the striking of the match was delayed a mo- 
 ment too long. At the door of the magazine, 
 with match in hand, Evans was struck down. 
 What a culmination that would have been to 
 the defense of the Alamo! 
 
 A convent was part of the Alamo Mission. 
 An acequia, or irrigating ditch, to supply 
 water to the mission ran through the grounds. 
 It furnished water to Travis and the little gar- 
 rison. Why did not Santa Anna cut the ditch 
 and deprive the Americans of its use during 
 the siege? That is one of the questions that 
 has puzzled those who have groped for the 
 history of the Alamo defense. Senora Cande- 
 laria says that the Americans had the use of 
 the water during the siege. The reason why 
 the ditch was not cut, she says, is that the 
 Indians at the mission would not suffer any 
 interference with the water system. ' There 
 were some rights of the native population 
 which even the despot hesitated to infringe. 
 
 More than the old church was included in 
 the defense. A stiong wall of Masonry in- 
 closed a space nearly 200 feet long and 120 
 feet wide. The church was in the southwest 
 corner of the rectangle and was the head- 
 quarters and the storehouse for the garrison. 
 A passage led from the chancel of the church 
 into the yard. Through this the priests were 
 wont to come from their convent on one side of 
 the yard into the church to perform their re- 
 ligious duties, and through this the Texans 
 fell back into the church on the morning of 
 the 6th of March, when they were no longer 
 able to hold the whole of the rectangle. It 
 
-79- 
 
 was at the northeast corner of the inclosure, 
 diagonally across the yard from the church, 
 that Castillon's column gained the first 
 lodgment on the wall. The Mexicans swarmed 
 up the ladders at that point. They stood upon 
 each other's shoulders. The first who came 
 were shot through the heads. The next were 
 clubbed down as often as they reached the top 
 of the wall. But there was a time when the 
 heads rose faster than the bullets flew and 
 the blows fell. The Mexicans stood upon the 
 corner of the wall, too numerous to be beaten 
 back. Then the Texans retired through the 
 little passage into the church, piled bags of 
 sand as high as their necks and made the last 
 stand. Even when the Mexicans forced the 
 outer entrances to the church, there was no 
 yielding. When all of the defenders were 
 dead below, the handful of Texans left stood 
 upon the tower and fired charge after charge 
 "rom a little cannon. With the recklessness 
 
 MISSION CONCEPCIOX. 
 
 of men who have shaken hands with death 
 these cannoneers shoved into the piece nails, 
 bits of iron, anything which would carry and 
 wound. The little band could not be dis- 
 lodged from below, and at length the Mexi- 
 cans covered the whole eleven with one of 
 their cannon, fired at short range and swept 
 them away. It is tradition based upon the 
 versions told by Mexican soldiers that one 
 man was found alive in the tower. He was 
 driven into a corner. He held his dripping 
 bowie-knife in his hand. Nine bodies of Mex- 
 icans lay at his feet. He parried their bayo- 
 nets as they came at him singly and struck 
 them down. Three or four faced him and 
 made a simultaneous rush. Pierced through 
 and through, this last of the defenders died. 
 Which one of the 172 he was tradition does 
 not tell. 
 
 Only of late has the idea of preserving this 
 historical landmark occurred to Texas with 
 effective force. For a dozen years the Alamo 
 remained as it had fallen. The interior was half 
 filled with the debris of tlie siege, with the 
 ruins of the roof and with the masonry knocked 
 off the walls by cannon balls. Then the United 
 
 States took possession, cleared out the wreck, 
 put on a wooden roof and used the church as 
 a storehouse for quartermaster stores. Deep 
 down in the debris were uncovered several 
 skeletons with fur caps and buckskin trim- 
 mings. No one need to ask on which side the 
 owners had fought. In the hasty gathering of 
 the dead and the wholesale cremation these 
 had been overlooked by the victorious Mexi- 
 cans. For thirty years the Alamo was dese- 
 crated; first by the Federal and next by Con- 
 federate and then by Federal authority again. 
 The historic place was devoted to the housing 
 of hard-tack and bacon. Texas suddenly 
 cwoke. For $20,000 the title to the cradle of 
 Texas liberty was acquired by the State. The 
 preservation of the building is assured, but 
 the quartermaster's "improvements" are 
 still in place, and about the only change that 
 has been made since the hard-tack and bacon 
 were moved out has been the location of a 
 small tin box which dingy lettering says is to 
 " receive contributions for the erection of a 
 monument to the defenders of the Alamo.' ' 
 
 Butthe AJamo has other historical interest. 
 Spain was a vigilant mother country 200 
 years ago. She wanted the earth. She had 
 laid'hold of the West Indies, of Central Amer- 
 ica, of Mexico. And then she sent her rep- 
 resentatives to occupy Texas and claim all 
 to the eastward as far as the Louisiana pos- 
 sessions of France. Spanish aggression al- 
 ways moved with the sword in one hand and 
 the cross in the other. And the sword was 
 oftener in the right hand than the cross was. 
 At San Antonio, Spain, in 1715, established 
 with troops a presidio and with priests a 
 mission. Troops and priests traveled to- 
 gether. These missions were queer institu- 
 tions. The troops brought in the Indians. 
 The priests converted them. It mattered not 
 whether the Indian was willing. His soul 
 must be saved. He was locked up at night. 
 His back was scourged. And when conver- 
 sion was assured the Indian was set to work 
 to build dams, to dig acequias, to make gar- 
 dens and vineyards. He quarried the stone, 
 mixed the inortar and reared the massive 
 walls of the Alamo and of the four other mis- 
 sions which are the wonder of all strangers 
 who visit San Antonio. 
 
 "You will observe," said Tom Rife, the 
 Alamo custodian, "that the original windows 
 of the church are high up in the walls, far 
 above your head. That was because the 
 priests took no chances with the Indians. 
 They didn't want to be hit with a stray arrow 
 while they were engaged in their devotions. 
 And they located the windows so high that 
 anything coming through would pass over 
 their heads." 
 
 The priests converted the Indians and made 
 slaves of them, but they were carefu' to build 
 convents which were forts, as well as 
 churches, which would stand for centuries. 
 
-60- 
 
 In the case of one of the missions at San An- 
 tonio, the record shows that the building was 
 not completed until twenty- one years after 
 the foundation stone was laid. Many an In- 
 dian convert's life went out in the good cause 
 before the work was done. Biding up the 
 Aransas Pass Railroad from the south in the 
 early evening the traveler sees a strange 
 contrast just before reaching the out- 
 skirts of San Antonio. A great 
 four-story building, modern in all 
 senses, comes into view on the right, 
 
 of the arches, the cutting of queer designs, the 
 font set into the wall. The roof of the chapel 
 is of stone with arches and a central dome. It 
 is said the great court-yard, which was in- 
 closed by a wall of masonry, was four acres in 
 extent. Outside of the church are arches 
 which are all that remain to show the cloisters 
 and cells of the convent. When Santa Anna 
 approached San Antonio he expected to find 
 the Texans fortified in this Mission. He re- 
 garded it as better for defense than the Alamo. 
 The Alamo and the Ooncepcion churches were 
 
 THE SENORA'S HOME. 
 
 every window ablaze with electric light. It is 
 one of the charitable institutions which Texas 
 has built on plans as liberal as her prairies. 
 The asylum comes and goes. And on the left 
 there appears, in the moonlight, rising out of 
 the mesquite and in the midst of tangled 
 vines and brush the double towers of the 
 Mission Concepcion. Just behind the towers 
 is the Moorish dome. Humanity's best at 
 the end of the nineteenth century is exempli- 
 fied in the asylum. Humanity's best as it 
 existed 150 years ago was worked out in the 
 Mission. The ruin is well preserved. It is 
 even habitable. The chapel has been used in 
 recent years for a service by a bishop who 
 venerates the past. The time was when a 
 court-yard with walls of masonry inclosed 
 buildings for school and military purposes as 
 well as the massive church. Now all has 
 tumbled down except the church, and that is 
 in the brush two miles from San Antonio. 
 Twenty-one years was none too long for 
 the poor Indians to complete this work with all 
 
 almost precisely alike. The Alamo had the 
 disadvantage of standing where other build- 
 ings enabled the attacking party to approach 
 it. One of the sallies made by Travis and his 
 men was for the purpose of tearing down some 
 Mexican houses which gave cover to the 
 enemy. 
 
 Two miles below the Mission Concepcion is 
 the Mission San Jose. These thrifty padres 
 divided the land and the waters of San An- 
 tonio very well. They made great gardens 
 with their convert labor, and they built the 
 missions far enough apart that there might be 
 no clashing of interests. There was competi- 
 tion in mission building just as there is in 
 church architecture to-day. At Mission Con- 
 cepcion the artists with the brush spread 
 themselves upon frescoes not yet entirely 
 worn away, while at San Jose the mallet and 
 chisel were used upon the stone in the most 
 wonderful manner. On the front, in the door- 
 ways, over the windows, wherever it was 
 
-81- 
 
 possible to carve a figure, that was done. The 
 Mission San Jose has a single tower, but it is 
 60 feet high. Hewn logs arranged to make a 
 
 stone roof over the main chapel held in place 
 until a few years ago and went down with 
 a mighty crash. One of the main walls 
 
 THE PORTAL OP MISSION SAX JOSE. 
 
 circular stairway lead up to the second part 
 of the tower. Thence to the lookout the as- 
 cent is by notched trunks of trees. The great 
 
 has fallen. San Jose is a ruin, truly. And 
 little wonder. Nearly a hundred years ago 
 the priests concluded that missions which 
 
-82- 
 
 enforced religion were a failure. The Indian 
 converts had dwindled away. At San Jose 
 there were not enough left to do the house- 
 work for the priests, let alone mind the 
 ditches, the gardens, the vineyard and the 
 church. When the lands of the Mission Con- 
 cepcion were ordered partitioned to the rem- 
 nant of the community which had been estab- 
 lished there, only thirty-eight Indians six- 
 teen of them men, the rest women and chil- 
 drencould be found to inherit the property. 
 The Missions taught the wonderful fertility of 
 the soil, and showed to the white men who 
 came after what could be done by irrigation. 
 They furnished the Alamo and the Alamo 
 made Texas. But as religious institutions the 
 Missions were failures. 
 
 A MISSION INDIAN FAMILY. 
 
 It is history that the artist Huica came all 
 of the way from Spain to do the finest of 
 chiseling on the San Jose portal and windows. 
 The work occupied him several years. Origin- 
 ally there were six life-size statues about the 
 doorway, which is 35 feet high. Some of 
 them have been carried off by vandals. 
 
 About two miles below San Jose is the Mis- 
 sion of San Juan. It is very plain, having 
 neither the frescoing of Concepcion nor the 
 elaborate carving of San Jose. On one side 
 the very wide wall rises high above what \v as 
 the roof, and has places for bells. Evidently 
 the San Juan fathers had different ideas from 
 those who controlled the other Missions. They 
 put more work upon the granaries; upon the 
 convent or monastery, which they made their 
 home, and these are in a better state of 
 preservation. That the priests at San 
 Juan intended to build a finer church, is 
 shown by the foundation walls of a chapel be- 
 gun but never finished. The failure of the 
 Mission system came before the plans were 
 carried out. It has been said that these In- 
 dians who were brought in by the troops and 
 turned out to the Missions to be converted be- 
 came slaves. Perhaps that is incorrect. It is 
 
 true that they were scourged for their short- 
 comings. At night the young men were locked 
 in rooms on one side of the great court, while 
 the young women were safely disposed of on 
 the other side of the square. -All arose at a 
 given time. They had their allotted tasks. 
 They attended to their religious duties. In 
 short, they lived such lives as the priests 
 thought best for their souls. But in a way 
 they acquired community rights, and when 
 the Missions went down the lands were di- 
 vided among those converts who remained 
 faithful and whose constitutions had been 
 strong enough to stand the regimen. 
 
 In passing from one Mission to the next it is 
 necessary each time to cross the river. The 
 priests located the Missions on alternate 
 sides. The Mission Espada that was a well- 
 chosen name is below San Juan and on the 
 opposite side of the river. When the visitor 
 reaches Espada he is nine miles from the city 
 of San Antonio. The story is that the tower 
 of this Mission, carrying out the idea of the 
 name, was in the form of the hilt of a sword. 
 Mission Espada has been restored. Out of the 
 ruins of the convent has been constructed a 
 parochial residence. So much of the chapel 
 has been rebuilt that it has lost its interest as 
 a ruin. The walls of the great court still show 
 how well prepared these communities 
 were for defense against any foe without. At 
 one angle is a round tower. It has in- 
 dressed stone portholes for cannon, and 
 above are openings for musket use. 
 Loopholes were pierced in the walls 
 at frequent intervals. There was need 
 of such provision, for the Apaches often re- 
 sented the presence of these communities. 
 Fifty miles to the northwestward of San An- 
 
 MISSION SAN JUAN. 
 
 tonio at the Pass of Bandera the tribe had its 
 stronghold. From the mountains, the 
 Apaches swept down upon the Missions again 
 and again. Sometimes they caught a few of 
 the converts unawares. Occasionally they 
 captured stock, but usually they found the 
 watchman on duty in the church towers and 
 the ramparts well manned by the whole effect- 
 ive force of the community. 
 
 The work of the priests reached high- water 
 mark when the five Missions at San Antonio 
 
-88- 
 
 embraced 750 converts. After that it went 
 down. Fifty years before Travis and his men 
 occupied it, the Alamo had ceased to be a place 
 ior the reception and conversion of cap- 
 tured Indians. Convent and court had 
 been turned into a barracks for troops. 
 The church and its surroundings had 
 came to be recognized as the military key to 
 San Antonio. Around the Alamo, upon the 
 plazas and along the streets there were many 
 terrific contests and bloody scenes in the fifty 
 years which preceded the battle of 1836. 
 The followers of Philip Nolan, after their 
 leader had been treacherously murdered by 
 Spanish soldiers, were brought to San Anto- 
 nio in 1800 and shut up in prison, into which 
 part of the Alamo Mission had been turned. 
 
 OLD WINDOW, MISSION SAN JOSE. 
 
 From the Alamo marched forth the soldiers of 
 Spain to hold back the Americans on the 
 border. In 1811 the people passing the Alamo 
 early in the morning saw between that and 
 the main plaza a head on a pole. Col. Del- 
 gado, a flying revolutionist, had been cap- 
 tured and this was the warning to other 
 would-be revolutionists. Gutierrez an asso- 
 ciate of Delgado, escaped to the Louisiana 
 border, joined a party of Americans led by 
 Magee, an officer of the United States army, 
 and came marching back. Americans, Mexican 
 Republicans and Indians flocked to the stand- 
 ard and a small army appeared before San 
 Antonio. ' ^.The Spanish troops marched out 
 from the Alamo to meet this motley crowd, 
 and a thousand of them fell in the rout. The 
 Governor of the province of Texas surren- 
 
 dered, and with him the Governor of New 
 Leon and other distinguished officers. All 
 were turned over to a son of the Delgado 
 whose head had ornamented the pole in front 
 of the Alamo. The younger Delgado started 
 with the prisoners, ostensibly to go to the 
 Gulf and send them to New Orleans. A mile 
 and a half out of San Antonio the prisoners 
 were stripped and butchered with knives. 
 After that there was anarchy in San Antonio. 
 The Mexican Royalist Government sent an 
 army of 3000, under Elisondo, to retake the 
 Alamo and to suppress the Republican upris- 
 ing. Elisondo captured the horses of the 
 Americans and reached the suburbs of San 
 Antonio before his movement was discovered. 
 But in the night the Americans marched out 
 on foot and charged the Mexican army at 
 dawn. With the loss of 1000 killed, wounded 
 and prisoners, Elisondo was put to flight. 
 
 Then a provisional Government was set up in 
 San Antonio and some degree of law and 
 order was established.. Arredondo came with 
 4000 men to do what Elisondo had failed to 
 accomplish. The Americans and the Mexican 
 Republicans calling themselves "the Repub- 
 lican Army of the North," marched out from 
 the Alamo and fell into much the same kind 
 of a trap they had set for Elisondo. -This 
 time the Mexican Royalists were victorious. 
 Eighty of the prisoners were seated by tens on 
 a log over a great grave and shot so that the 
 bodies fell in a heap. Arredondo marched 
 into San Antonio and threw 700 citizens into 
 the prison for their supposed Republican 
 sympathies. Eighteen of the prisoners were 
 suffocated in a single night. Five hundred 
 women of San Antonio were shut up 
 in a building and forced to turn twenty- 
 five bushels of corn into tortillas for 
 the Royalist army every day. Thus 
 until 1820 did San Antonio reap the whirl- 
 wind, and the Alamo, as fortress and prison, 
 grew in historical interest. That year 
 came Moses Austin from Connecticut with a 
 proposition to bring a colony of Americans. 
 He died, and his son, Stephen F. Austin, took 
 up the project. In spite of imprisonment and 
 killing, Americans kept coming. In 1831 the 
 Bowies were here and the two brothers, with 
 nine associates, fought 184 Indians until they 
 had killed and wounded eighty- four, losing 
 but one of their own number and having three 
 wounded. The next year appeared in San 
 Antonio Sam Houston. Then the Americans 
 organized. A thousand of them joined Austin. 
 Other leaders had smaller followings. With- 
 out much generalship they gathered about 
 San Antonio. Some were for attacking the 
 Mexican General and his force which held the 
 Alamo and the city. Others hesitated about 
 open hostilities. Three hundred volunteered 
 to "go with Ben Milam into San Antonio," 
 and in they went. It took four days of fight- 
 ing to reach the Alamo. From house to house 
 
-84- 
 
 the Mexicans fell back, and from house to 
 house the Americans advanced. Street after 
 street was taken, until at the end of the 
 fourth day the Alamo was reached. The 
 Mexican General surrendered and with his 
 troops was allowed to march away on parole. 
 This left San Antonio in possession of the 
 Americans for a few months. And the next 
 and greatest step toward Texan independ- 
 ence was the fight at the Alamo. The story of 
 which, from the only survivor's lips, has 
 been told. W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 The Great Cash Crop Which Means 
 Many Dollars Per Capita. 
 
 A King's Good Points Proper Limita- 
 tions on Monarchy The Dublin 
 Idea of Home Rule Casting 
 the Horoscope A Coming 
 Five-Cent Basis. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 DUBLIN, TEX., September 8. Two months 
 ago Texas began to report ' ' first bales.' ' But 
 Texas has much latitude. It is weeks after 
 the beginning before the cotton picking is 
 fairly under way. From Houston across to 
 
 chimneys of the gin houses are smoking. 
 Around the cotton yards the barbed wire has 
 been tightened on the posts and the bales are 
 accumulating. Gin whistles toot a shrill and 
 cheerful salute as the trains go by. This is 
 Southern Texas. Every railroad station is 
 beginning to ship. The cotton platforms are 
 already covered with the early consignments. 
 Samplers are going about, plucking out great 
 wads of the staple here and tucking it back 
 there. The scales and the marking-pot are 
 busy. Empty box cars are being strung along 
 the sidings. The new crop is moving not as 
 it will a month later, but sufficiently strong 
 to make the transportation companies feel the 
 impetus, 
 
 Middle Texas shows some picking in the 
 earlier fields, and the prudent planter is cull- 
 ing out the already ripened bottom bolls. The 
 top crop is not yet ready. Around the gin 
 houses groups of men are busy putting in 
 bracing posts, supplying missing planks, fix- 
 ing up the engines and overhauling the ma- 
 chinery. The season is close at hand for Mid- 
 dle Texas. Further north there is similar 
 stir, not quite so advanced, however. On Red 
 River the top cotton is yet in blossom, but 
 everybody is getting ready. The master of 
 transportation is out on the railroad. He is 
 the first one to hop off and the last one to 
 climb on the train. He holds hurried consul- 
 tations with station agents, asks when Smith 
 will begin to ship and whether Jones has 
 given notice how soon he will want to load 
 
 AT THE COMPRESS IN WACO. 
 
 " San tone" by the Mission route the fields 
 are white. Far down the rows the pickers are 
 bending over big baskets. In snowy mounds, 
 here and there, the seed cotton is heaped up, 
 waiting for the wagon. Along the country 
 roads go great loads to be "ginned." At 
 every town and cross-roads settlement the 
 
 cars. He looks over the cotton platforms, 
 with which every railroad station in the cot- 
 ton belt is equipped, sees that planks are in 
 place and that supports are strong. Then he 
 moves on to the next station, to repeat ques- 
 tions and observation and to make more 
 entries in his note book. 
 
-85- 
 
 What a stimulus it is! Everybody and every- 
 thing in Texas feels it. Two million bales. 
 A hundred million dollars! Cash, too! Cash, 
 which begins to flow the moment the first 
 picker steps into the field, and cash which 
 keeps circulating as the seed cotton goes to 
 the gin, as the bale goes to the merchant and 
 the seed to the mill, and finally, as the staple 
 and oil and meal find their way through the 
 factor to the markets of the world. 
 
 "Raise less cotton and more corn," the 
 economist cries. That is very good advice, to 
 
 This year's crop was put in on a strong prob- 
 ability that it would not command more than 
 6c. It will not be quite so large as last year's, 
 which was phenomenal in both acreage and 
 yield. But it will be large enough. That is 
 apparent already. The acreage is somewhat 
 smaller than last year, perhaps about 15 per 
 cent less. That is the estimate of some of the 
 largest cotton handlers in the State. But they 
 all admit that the reduction is not what it 
 ought to be to restore prices. 
 " You see," said Mr. Wolfsohn, of the Dallas 
 
 A COTTON YARD AT BROWNWOOD. 
 
 a limited extent. But corn may be 15c or it 
 may be 50c a bushel. Cotton may drop to 6c 
 or it may bring 8c. Corn may be hard to sell 
 at any price. Cotton will always bring ready 
 money, even in advance, when it can be seen 
 in the boll. Cotton pays the taxes and buys 
 the sugar and coffee. It means new dresses 
 and most fascinating of arguments to the 
 Texan it means more land. 
 
 Hope rises and falls in Texas with the cotton 
 prospects. The temper of a whole State is 
 strung high as the crop nears maturity. Each 
 turn in the weather is studied anxiously for 
 its effect on the plant. And when the new 
 crop is assured the strain is relieved and the 
 whole State is happy. 
 
 The Texas farmer has yet to discover how 
 cheaply he can raise cotton and live. When 
 the price was 9c he kicked and said it was 
 bankruptcy. At 8c and 7c he proclaimed that 
 he was being ruined, but kept on planting. 
 
 Board of Trade, " cotton is the cash crop. If 
 a farmer has got twenty-five bales of cotton 
 maturing he can get a loan on it at any time. 
 It is the best collateral that there is. The 
 merchant can go to the wholesale man and 
 show he has liens on 200 bales of cotton and 
 get anything he wants. Cotton is collateral 
 while it is growing; it is cash when it is 
 picked. And while this is so there isn't much 
 use trying to persuade a man to raise less cot- 
 ton. My impression is that most of the argu- 
 ments used last spring to induce farmers to 
 cut down their cotton acreage were wasted. I 
 think the Texas cotton crop is nearly as large 
 this year as last.' ' 
 
 An old cotton buyer who had dropped into 
 the Board of Trade by accident and had heard 
 Mr. Wolfsohn, took up the conversation: "I 
 have seen 50,000 bales of cotton handled in 
 Dallas," he said. "I have handled 250 bales 
 in a day myself. The trouble has been to 
 make the Texas farmer understand that he 
 
-80- 
 
 musn't buy corn. I have seen the Texas 
 farmer raise cotton and buy all of his corn at 
 18c a bushel one year and at $1 a bushel 
 the next year. It seemed as if he couldn't 
 learn anything. I said to one of the big- 
 gest cotton-raisers, ' Have you any idea 
 how much Texas will pay to Kansas for 
 corn this year?' He said, ' I suppose about 
 $10,000.' I said, 'By Jupiter, $2,000,000 won't 
 meet it.' And yet the average Texas farmer 
 would go along living on turnip tops and 
 half starving until he could make the cot- 
 ton crop, get a bale ready for market, rush 
 into town with it and buy some side meat. 
 I said to my cotton- growing friend, 'Per- 
 haps you know what Texas will pay to Kan- 
 sas this year for hog meat?' He said ' mebbe 
 as much as $50,000.' I said, ' Over $2,000,000; 
 and yet you fellows go on raising all cot- 
 
 oats. The one-crop idea has given place to 
 variety. Blooded stock has been added. 
 The bunches of cattle in the pastures have 
 short horns, straight backs and massive 
 shoulders. Naturally one is not surprised 
 to find backed up by such a country an all- 
 around little city. Dublin, almost new 
 except the name, has street cars, electric 
 lights, paved thoroughfares and a general 
 look of prosperity. Her banker is from 
 Maine. Her Mayor is a one-armed Arkansas 
 Confederate who came in by ox train. Her 
 chief business man and capitalist is from 
 Elgin, 111. They all pull together and the 
 whole city pulls with them. Dublin has com- 
 press and oil mill for her cotton and seed, a 
 tannery for her hides, elevators and mills for 
 small grain, and has just sent a delegation to 
 Kansas to buy hogs by the car-load to eat 
 
 SHIPPING OUT COTTON FROM DUBLIN. 
 
 ton and no corn and meat.' Well, things 
 have gradually changed. To-day the Texas 
 farmer is better off than he has been for 
 seventeen years, in spite of the low price of 
 cotton." 
 
 Southwest from Fort Worth there is inter- 
 esting evidence of the change the old cotton- 
 buyer speaks about. Spinning the web of 
 railroads, with herself in the spider's point 
 of vantage, " the Fort' ' discovered two or 
 three years ago that there was no southwest- 
 ern radius to her network. A beginning was 
 made. The Havemeyers, or some other mys- 
 terious New York influence, backed the en- 
 terprise. And now there are 120 miles of road 
 in operation, stretching over prairies, through 
 cross-timbers, by mountain gaps, from Fort 
 Worth toward the Eio Grande. Dublin is 
 brought into prominence by this develop- 
 ment.* And all of the way down to Dublin 
 can be seen the new kind of farming in Texas. 
 Every farmer has a patch of cotton, but every 
 farmer has with the cotton a patch of corn. 
 Often the corn patch is larger than the cot- 
 toe patch. Wheat fields alternate with 
 
 her surplus corn crop. The point to all of 
 this is that diversified farming and diversified 
 industry is the making of a model city in 
 Texas. Until Dublin struck her steam-engine 
 gait she had a struggle for existence which 
 would have knocked out the average Texas 
 town site. 
 
 The old stage trail from Fort Worth to Fort 
 Yuma bowed down to the south and ran 
 through this part of Texas. Perhaps because 
 of a rocky road one of the stations on the 
 trail was given the name of Dublin. Off to 
 the left of the old trail looms Comanche Peak. 
 From the summit can be seen ten counties of 
 Texas. When the first railroad was built 
 through this region and the stages stopped 
 running, an attempt was made to obliterate 
 Dublin. Another town ten miles away was 
 started, the usual sale of lots was held and a 
 depot was located. Dublin hung on to her 
 autonomy. The old stage station wore out, 
 the new town site got two railroads instead of 
 one, and has become a city which can give 
 pointers in thrift and public spirit to half of 
 the communities in Texas. 
 
-87- 
 
 The Dublin object lesson has a close rela- 
 tionship to the problem of how cheaply cot- 
 ton can be grown in Texas. It proves that 6- 
 cent cotton is better when mixed with wheat, 
 and oats, and corn, a lew pigs and a bunch of 
 good stock, than 9-cent cotton with all of the 
 supplies to be shipped in and paid for out of 
 the cotton receipts. This is what Dublin and 
 the country around about have demonstrated. 
 
 As a rule Texas farmers do not figure much, 
 except on politics and dominoes. They can 
 tell you the Democratic, Republican and Pop- 
 ulist vote by township, county or congres- 
 sional district at the last election. They can 
 
 tonio, or $155. His book showed that the 
 labor from breaking of ground to marketing, 
 the cost of seed and all other claims which 
 could go into the expense account amounted 
 to just half what he received for the cotton. 
 The man and his boy did all of the "tend- 
 ing." Their work was put in at a fair esti- 
 mate. The actual cost of raising the cotton 
 was 3%c per pound. The profit, which em- 
 braced also interest on the land investment, 
 was $19.32% per bale, or about $11 per acre. 
 And yet, almost with one voice, the farmers 
 of Texas claim that anything less than 7c for 
 cotton means actual loss. The experience of 
 the Aransas Pass man may be exceptional. 
 
 SCENE AT WEATHERFORD. 
 
 work off the ivory doubles and singles with 
 great facility on the round table in the back 
 part of the store. But when it comes to a 
 show-down on the number of pounds of cot- 
 ton in their last year's crop, the exact amount 
 of land in plant, and the record of the days 
 of labor devoted to it, not one of them in a 
 thousand can give anything definite. And so 
 it is very difficult to get testimony on how 
 cheaply cotton can be raised in Texas. Down 
 on the Aransas Pass road last year one cotton- 
 raiser did what every farmer ought to do. He 
 kept books on his crop. He had seven acres 
 in cotton besides his grain and other things. 
 He kept a strict account on the cotton 
 just to see what it actually cost him. The 
 seven acres produced 2,000 pounds of lint 
 cotton. He got 7%c a pound in San Au- 
 
 It is possible that he hoed cotton more and 
 played dominoes less than the average farm- 
 er. The actual cost of raising cotton may be 
 a great deal more than 3%c a pound. The 
 farmers of Texas owe it to themselves to emu- 
 late the example of the Aransas Pass man to 
 the extent of keeping a strict expense account 
 on the cotton crop and solving the problem of 
 cost. Then they will be able to grumble upon 
 a definite basis. Politics is pastime. Agri- 
 culture is business. 
 
 Not one farmer in a hundred will admit it, 
 but there is probably a profit in raising cot- 
 ton in Texas at 5c a pound. This does not 
 imply going to Kansas for bread and meat. 
 It does imply honest labor and good manage- 
 ment. An all-day ride on an August Satur- 
 day across Southern Texas, from Houston to 
 
San Antonio, revealed a rather astonishing 
 situation. The towns in the famous Brazos 
 country, "the black belt," were full of col- 
 ored people. Mules by the hundreds were 
 hitched to the railings in front of the stores 
 and fringed the fences. Under the oaks, with 
 their beautiful Spanish moss drapery, were 
 refreshment stands. The smell of barbecued 
 meat was wafted through the car window. 
 Colored folks, big and little, were scattered 
 about in groups. They came down to the sta- 
 tions and filled the platforms, returning the 
 looks of curiosity with interest. 
 
 " There must be a good deal of politics down 
 here." was suggested to a fellow-passenger 
 who seemed familiar with the locality. 
 
 In Galveston men live by cotton, but plant 
 not, neither do they pick. These entertain au 
 interesting theory about the future of the 
 king of crops. Texas, they say, now grows 
 one-fourth of the cotton produced in the 
 United States. Cotton is raised at less cost 
 here than anywhere else in the country. The 
 figures which represent actual cost of produc- 
 tion in other States have no application here. 
 And when the minimum at which other sec- 
 tions can grow is reached, Texas will have a 
 margin of profit to her credit. Production 
 may be reduced; it will be reduced, but 
 not in Texas. The hill country of the older 
 States will have to find a substitute crop or 
 starve. Texas will go on heaping up the bales. 
 
 BRINGING COTTON INTO DUBLIN. 
 
 "Oh no," he said; "this is the regular 
 thing. The niggers don't work on Saturday. 
 They take that day to come to town and have 
 a good time. Then they go to church on Sun- 
 day. You just watch the fields as you ride 
 along, and you'll see there is nobody working 
 in the black belt to-day.' ' 
 
 It was so. The cotton was white. The 
 empty baskets were scattered along at the 
 ends of the rows. By the difference in color 
 the line where the picking stopped the night 
 before could be traced all of the way across 
 the field. But in sixty miles there were not 
 sixty pickers in sight. 
 
 If cotton gets down to 5c it may be nec- 
 essary to work six days in the week. But at 
 present prices there are no evidences that 
 Texas is cotton-cursed. The latest returns at 
 the office of the State Bureau of Agriculture in 
 Austin show that, notwithstanding the depres- 
 sion, cotton throughout all Texas, well tilled 
 and neglected, on good land and poor, yielded 
 an average of $16.64 per acre. And that was $4 
 an acre better than the average of all other 
 products. 
 
 She grows a fourth, more than a fourth, of the 
 entire crop. Soon she will be making a third 
 of this country's cotton. She has the land to 
 raise the cotton crop of the world , and enough 
 would be left to grow food for twenty-five 
 times her present population. Thus the men 
 to whom cotton means commissions theorize. 
 They do not look for any permanent return 
 to higher prices. The tendency is downward, 
 as it has been. Cheap prices last year may 
 shorten the crop this year and stiffen figures a 
 little. Next year or the year after, under the 
 stimulus of better prices, there will be more 
 cotton raised, and then prices will drop to a 
 lower notch than ever. In the older States, 
 these cotton men predict, there will be a 
 fluctuation in the product following the fluc- 
 tuation in prices. But the tendency will be 
 toward lower prices everywhere and toward 
 less acreage everywhere save in Texas. 
 Here the production may not increase 
 in times of depression, but it will not 
 decrease. It may come to a standstill some 
 years; then it will go forward. And grad- 
 ually, after much seesawing, Texas will 
 
become the great cotton producing center 
 of the world. In Texas the general tendency 
 is toward increased production. Out of 
 Texas the general inclination is toward 
 decreased acreage. As for prices, the cotton 
 
 about overproduction, the amount in cotton 
 was reduced a little. At least that is what the 
 State Commissioner thinks. The amount of 
 reduction, however, is not quite what the 
 increase of last year was. 
 
 GINNING AT LEXINGTON. 
 
 men who dwell in the cities, with a few ex- 
 ceptions, expect to see 5c cotton without 
 any panic. This, they say, is the logic of 
 the situation. And, 99 out of 100 farm- 
 ers to the contrary notwithstanding, the 
 middleman holds that 5c cotton can'be grown 
 with profit in Texas. 
 
 It is a fact that in the face of steadily de- 
 clining prices Texas has just as steadily 
 added to her cotton product until this year. 
 This is shown by the State Bureau of Agri- 
 
 PICKING COTTON NEAR CUERO. 
 
 culture. Five years ago the Texas cotton 
 crop was raised upon 3,000,000 acres of land. 
 Every year since then the farmers have added 
 from 200,000 to 250,000 acres to the total. 
 Two years ago the crop just turned the 4,000,- 
 000 acres. Last year the acreage took the 
 usual jump and a little more. The increase 
 was about 300,000 acres. This year, under 
 the hue and cry raised early in the season 
 
 The land in Texas devoted to cotton is ap- 
 proaching 5,000,000 acres. It is claimed by 
 the State bureau that there are within the lim- 
 its of Texas 175,000,000 acres adapted to cot- 
 ton culture. In the enormous proportions of 
 the staple, transactions in a side product are 
 sometimes lost sight of. It is the rapidly 
 fluctuating industry of cotton-seed oil and 
 meal. Last year was one of the good 
 years in the cotton- seed business. Europe 
 needed and took all of the cotton-seed meal 
 and cake there was to sell, for stock feeding. 
 At Waxahachie, an hour's ride southwest of 
 Dallas, in the heart of "the black lands," 
 the cotton-seed mill is said to have cleared 
 50 per cent on the investment. This year 
 new mills are being built in Texas and old 
 ones are being enlarged. The business may 
 be overdone. But taking one year with 
 another, the oil and meal and cake adds more 
 than $30,000,000 to the value of the Texas 
 cotton crop. 
 
 This Waxahachie to which reference is 
 made above, is a wonder in its way. It is the 
 largest cotton market for its population in 
 the world. The little city has about 4,000 
 people. Last season it handled 32,000 bales 
 of cotton, eight bales for each man, woman 
 and child. 
 
 The time was when planters were bothered 
 to know how to get rid of their seed. They 
 let it accumulate in great heaps around the 
 gin house until they were in the predicament 
 of the Kansas farmer he found it cheaper to 
 move his barn than to haul off the manure. 
 Now cotton- seed is worth all of the way from 
 
-90- 
 
 $5 to $10 a ton, dependent upon the distance 
 from the nearest mill. Agents for the mills 
 travel through the State, gathering up all of 
 the seed near enough to the railroad to pay 
 for hauling. A ton of cotton-seed yields 
 thirty -five gallons of oil. This oil goes in 
 casks to the Mediterranean, and, in due 
 course of time and trade, returns to the 
 United States refined and in small bottles, 
 with a foreign label which means "pure olive 
 oil." Lard-packers use cotton-seed oil by 
 the ton. The soap-makers sell it in the form 
 of fine soap Lower grades go into tallow. 
 The meal and the pressed cake are sent abroad 
 to stimulate milk-giving in the English and 
 European dairies. The hulls left from the 
 grinding feed the furnaces of the mills, and 
 the ashes from the hulls are bleached for lye. 
 Cotton- raising as an industry has many sides 
 to it. But from whatever point the view is 
 taken, Texas has the best of the outlook. 
 
 W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 A Visit to the Largest Pecan Planta- 
 tion in the World, 
 
 Mr. Swinden's Provision for Posterity- 
 
 The Natural Home of the Dessert Nut 
 
 An Oil Boom that Collapsed 
 
 Evolution Along the Concho. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 BROWNWOOD, TEX., September 14. Away 
 to the southwest of Fort Worth and Dallas, 
 far beyond the Brazos, is a new kind of Texas. 
 It has mountain peaks, great boiling springs 
 
 day, in some part of Pennsylvania or Ken- 
 tucky. He would never think of calling this 
 Texas; there is no other part of Texas that re- 
 sembles it. Two or three railroads have wan- 
 dered out into this region and stopped. It 
 took a good deal of coaxing to bring them. 
 One town put up $25,000 and right-of-way as 
 an inducement. The railroad built to that 
 town and stopped. Then the next town raised 
 $30,000 and more right-of-way. The railroad 
 built to it. Thus, by alternate bidding and 
 building, two railroads were "toled" out into 
 this unknown country from 130 to 200 miles 
 from their connections. 
 
 The largest pecan plantation in the world 
 comes up to the suburbs of Brownwood. It is 
 the ambition of every Texas city to have some- 
 thing that no other city possesses. Brown- 
 wood puts her best foot forward in a pecan 
 orchard without a parallel. This is natural 
 pecan country. From San Antonio northward 
 through Brownwood and Santa Anna and 
 Coleman and San Angelo, all of the way to 
 Abilene, are groves of pecans. Every 
 water-course has its fringe. When the first 
 settlers came in there were twice as many 
 pecans as there are now. But pecan wood is 
 almost as good as its first cousin, the shell- 
 bark hickory. Before they discovered what a 
 golden layer the goose was, the settlers had 
 cut down the productive capacity of the pecan 
 groves one-half. And now it is proposed to 
 prohibit by legislative enactment the destruc- 
 tion of pecan trees. 
 
 A young man named Swinden came into the 
 country. He didn't bring a dollar, but he 
 had a good head. He got a place as clerk in a 
 lumber yard and improved his opportunity. 
 
 A CONCHO COUNTY FARM. 
 
 of crystal water, pecan groves, 25,000-acre 
 pastures and fertile valley farms. Dropping 
 down into the midst of this region the trav- 
 eler might imagine himself, on a bracing fall 
 
 Seeing the growing profit in the harvest of 
 pecans around Brownwood year after your, 
 Mr. Swinden reasoned that if nature could do 
 all this human intelligence could improve on 
 
-91 - 
 
 it. Land in the vicinity of Brownwood was 
 cheap. Swinden bought land and planted 
 pecans. To-day he has 11,000 pecan trees 
 growing. The trees are set out in regular 
 orchard style. The land between the rows is 
 cropped in cotton and grain. Very shrewdly 
 Mr. Swinden has chosen the location of the 
 orchard His trees are along the Pecan Creek, 
 which has the finest natural pecan groves in 
 this region. The house in which Mr. Swinden 
 lives is on an elevation. Nearly the entire 
 collection of 11,000 trees is in view from the 
 window. 
 
 "when those trees are large enough to bear 
 half a bushel to the tree, it will be some- 
 thing. Half a bushel to a tree means 5000 
 bushels for the orchard. Pecans now sell at 
 $3 and $4 a bushel in Brownwood for ship- 
 ping. It is not probable the price will be 
 much less, for it takes a great deal of time 
 and patience to grow pecans. When Mr. 
 Swinden 's orchard is yielding half a bushel 
 to the tree the income from it will be from 
 $15,000 to $20,000 a year.' 
 
 The fame of the pecan orchard has gone 
 abroad. Mr. Swinden receives letters of in- 
 
 Pecans are of very slow growth. Those in 
 the Swinden orchard are now a little thicker 
 through than a good-sized thumb. The opin- 
 ion of those who profess to know something 
 of pecans is that it will take from fifteen to 
 twenty years to grow a tree as large as a 
 man's wrist. But Mr. Swinden is not dis- 
 couraged. He is as heartily enthusiastic over 
 the venture as he was when he set out the 
 first tree. His plans comprehend more than 
 the rearing of the trees. Looking forward to 
 the time when the trees will bear, Mr. Swin- 
 den has already counted his chickens. There 
 is a great deal of labor in picking up pecans 
 one by one. In Mr. Swinden 's orchard ma- 
 chinery will do it all. The pecans will fall 
 when they are ripe. They will be taken up 
 from the gronud by sweeping machines very 
 similar to those used on streets. Other ma- 
 chinery will clean. Then the nuts will be 
 assorted according to size by still other 
 machinery. Cleaned, culled and graded the 
 Swinden pecans will be put on the market in 
 condition to bring the top price. But when? 
 Brooke Smith, the Brownwood banker and 
 capitalist, says he doesn't believe Swinden's 
 youngest child will live to see a full crop from 
 that pecan orchard. "Still," said Mr. Smith, 
 
 quiry about it from all over the world. Some 
 writers have evidently obtained the impres- 
 sion that the pecan trees are bearing and that 
 the orchard is one of the get-rich-quick ideas. 
 If it is, they want to go into the business, and 
 they write for information how to do it. Mr. 
 Swinden has not sold any pecans from his 
 orchard. He has been able to eat all of the 
 nuts that the 11,000 trees have produced thus 
 far. He has not begun the manufacture of the 
 gathering, cleaning and assorting machines, 
 and will not do so at present. His first crop 
 is in his mind's eye. 
 
 The growth is slow and the crop is far in the 
 future, but the pecan is a great stayer. A pe- 
 can tree has never been known to die of old 
 age. Brownwood people say that pecan trees, 
 live 1000 years. Perhaps they have counted 
 the rings. Plenty of moisture seems to be a 
 prime consideration of pecan growth. The 
 natural pecan groves near Brownwood and 
 San Angelo and all through this region hug 
 the banks of the creeks fed by the living 
 springs. They grow so close to the banks that 
 their foliage shadows the water, and in the 
 nutting season many bushels fall in. The pe- 
 can-growing business has reached the bud- 
 
ding and grafting stage of development. 
 There is a difference in pecan trees. Some 
 trees bear larger nuts than others do. Some 
 yield more regularly than others. It is the 
 custom to improve the sprouts by grafting 
 or budding from trees with the best records. 
 There are pecans not much larger than a hazel 
 nut. '"here are other pecans five times as 
 large, with thin shells and well-filled meats, 
 such as are exhibited in the rooms of the 
 Brownwood Board of Trade by Prof. Carl Vin- 
 cent. 
 
 selling all he could collect at 30c to 40c a gal- 
 lon. The oil is dark olive-green in color. 
 The discovery of its existence was made at a 
 depth of 160 feet. The discoverer was satis- 
 fied with modest results. Other people were 
 not. Companies were formed, and the 
 country around Brownwood is dotted with 
 derricks where drills have gone down as much 
 as 1600 feet. But the findings have been dis- 
 appointing. Oil is obtained almost anywhere 
 within fifty miles of Brownwood, but it oozes 
 slowly, just as it did and does in the original 
 
 GOAT RANCH NEAB SANTA ANNA, 
 
 The industry is well worth cultivating. Mr. 
 Brooke Smith, the banker, considers the pe- 
 can crop a considerable item in Brown wood's 
 prosperity. From the natural groves within 
 the trading radius of this place the farmers 
 bring in, when the season is favorable, sixty 
 car loads of nuts. They receive $4 a bushel 
 for them from the shippers. This little in- 
 dustry distributes $120,000 in cash in the re- 
 gion tributary to Brownwood. Half a dozen 
 other centers, including San Antonio and Ab 
 ilene, San Angelo and Santa Anna, Ballinger 
 and Coleman, have their pecan trade. Brown- 
 wood 's pecan crop is the equivalent of 4000 
 bales of cotton, which is about one-fourth of 
 the amount of the staple which comes to this 
 market. 
 
 A couple of years ago Brownwood had a 
 great boom. The people thought they might 
 resemble Pennsylvania in something more 
 profitable than scenery. The idea got out 
 that the pecan country was underlaid with 
 beds of petroleum. Somebody in sinking a 
 well had struck a flow which yielded from 
 five to fifteen gallons a day. He scooped it 
 up, found it was good, even in its natural 
 state, and conducted a neat little business, 
 
 well. No "spouter' ' has been struck, and no 
 great body has been tapped to encourage op- 
 erations on a large scale. There was great ex- 
 citement when the drills began to pound at 
 
 BORING FOR OIL AT BROWNWOOD. 
 
 Brownwood. Real estate went out of sight. 
 It has returned within the limits of ordinary 
 vision. Brownwood people no longer imagine 
 they have another Oil City, Pa. They are not so 
 
-93- 
 
 proud as they were of the oily taste in many 
 of their wells. They are trying to be content 
 with the picking up of pecans, with the hand- 
 ling of 750,000 pounds of wool and 15,000 
 bales of cotton a year, and with the produc- 
 tion of fifty bushels of red rust-proof oats to 
 the acre. 
 
 From Fort Worth to Brownwood, 130 miles, 
 is a region of farms of modern size and of di- 
 versified crops. Prosperous looking towns of 
 from 2000 to 4000 people dot the way. Rail- 
 
 tion on the disintegration: "I have had my 
 land cut up into tracts of 160 acres, and it is 
 for sale to small farmers. Any one who wants 
 a quarter section can have his choice at $8 an 
 acre." 
 
 The Overall pasture of 25,000 acres, owned 
 and managed by a brother of John W. Over- 
 all, of St. Louis, joins the tract, 17,000 of which 
 was sold so successfully at public auction. 
 Col. Overall has declared his intention of cut- 
 ting up his land into small farms and of sell- 
 ing to actual settlers. 
 
 SPRING NEAR SAN ANGELO. 
 
 roads intersect at convenient distances. Three 
 colleges draw patronage and supply higher 
 education. At Brownwood begin the big 
 pastures. Beyond Brownwood the towns of 
 any considerable size can be counted on the 
 fingers of one hand. The railroads run just 
 far enough to tap the cattle trade and come to 
 dead ends. The big pastures are doomed. 
 Public sentiment is strongly against them. 
 That isn't all. The last train-load of cattle 
 shipped from Brownwood this season netted 
 the owner the beggarly sum of just $2.70 a 
 head. A man who had a pasture of 17,000 
 acres cut it up into quarter sections and sold 
 it out at auction. He had 500 men at the sale, 
 and his land brought an average of $7.18 an acre. 
 The big pasture men could stand off public 
 sentiment some years, but the low price of 
 cattle and the increasing demand for small 
 farms is sweeping away the wire fences. 
 Brooke Smith, the Brownwood banker, is the 
 owner of one of these 20,000- acre pastures. 
 ge said in course of an interesting conversa- 
 
 The same idea has taken hold of other pas- 
 ture men in this country on tha Concho and 
 the Colorado. There is fascination in the 
 ownership of 15,000 to 25,000 acres of land 
 all fenced. A man can get on the highest hill 
 or peak in the center of such a tract and shout 
 with all his might: 
 
 I am monarch of all I survey, 
 and the remotest echo will not answer back 
 "you're a liar." It is hard to give up such a 
 feeling. The pasture men have tried cattle 
 and horses and sheep and Angora goats in 
 the hope of finding profits that will keep 
 pace with the increasing value of the land. 
 It is of no use. A steer needs about twenty 
 acres of land for twelve months' living. 
 When that land is worth from $5 to $10 an 
 acre the steer must go. So the pasture man 
 will sell out to the farmer, move into the 
 nearest little city, start a bank, collect inter- 
 est on his mortgages and try to be satisfied 
 with the new order of things. This is evolu- 
 tion in the Concho country. W, B, S, . 
 
-94- 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 Four Miles by Rail Out Upon the Gulf 
 of Mexico. 
 
 A Bide on the World's Longest Jetty 
 " Some Trade Experiments The 
 Wealth of the Oleander City- 
 Fine Heads for Finance 
 in the Forties. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 GALVESTON, TEX., September 26. "In the 
 first twenty-five days of June," said Mr. Gus. 
 Reymershoffer, "we shipped out 22,000 bags 
 of flour to Havana." 
 
 That was the real beginning of reciprocity 
 for Galveston. The Reymershoffers are pio- 
 neering the way in new trade relations which 
 concern greatly the whole Mississippi Valley. 
 The experiments under reciprocity have gone 
 far enough to warrant something more per- 
 manent. Galveston wants new steamship 
 connections. She is negotiating now with a 
 Philadelphia company to open regular com- 
 
 from Galveston. There was a Havana repre- 
 sentative here a few days ago to make ar- 
 rangements for shipments from Galveston. 
 He went on to see the Fort Worth packery 
 people, and then to Kansas, to open up a meat 
 as well as flour trade by way of Galveston. ' ' 
 
 "Was this June exportation the beginning 
 of your programme to rush up the flour trade 
 between Galveston and the countries south of 
 you, Mr. Reymershoffer ? ' ' 
 
 "Last year we shipped out from Galveston 
 eight cargoes of flour. That was our pioneer 
 year. The shipments were all made, how- 
 ever, from January to May. The experiment 
 was fully encouraging. I have just had a re- 
 port from our consignee at Porto Rico, in 
 which he says that out of 1,900 bags sent him 
 he has left only 650. We tried Rio Janeiro 
 with a small consignment. The flour took 
 well, but the trouble is we haven't regular 
 connections. We need steamship lines. When 
 we get the connections there will be no diffi- 
 culty about taking and holding the trade. ' ' 
 
 "This Texas wheat is said to be specially 
 adapted for flour in warm countries?' ' 
 
 THE GALVESTON BEACH. 
 
 munication with West Indian and Central 
 American ports. Galveston also wants to get 
 a line of two steamers which will start from 
 here semi-monthly and reach the south as 
 well as the north side of Cuba. 
 
 "Most assuredly we can get that trade when 
 we get the connections," Mr. Raymershoffer 
 said, raising his voice to compete with the 
 machinery of the great mill. "That June 
 shipment indicates to some extent what the 
 trade will be. The consumption of flour in 
 Cuba is enormous, and it can be supplied 
 
 "There is no doubt of it. Texas wheat is 
 perfectly dry. Further north there is more 
 moisture in the wheat. And the flour from the 
 wheat with more moisture spoils sooner in a 
 warm climate. As a matter of preference, we 
 grind Texas wheat until the crop is all gone, 
 and then we take Kansas wheat. The Texas 
 wheat is a beautiful -plump berry. It is richer 
 in gluten than the California wheat. If we had 
 not had an exceptional spring the wheat crop 
 of Texas would have been immense. We pre- 
 fer the Panhandle wheat to any other, if 
 
we can get it, because it is the driest and 
 best." 
 
 Turning from the transaction of a matter of 
 business with a clerk, the big miller of Texas 
 took up, with added enthusiasm, the theme 
 of wheat-growing in Northwest Texas. 
 
 "That,' ' said he, "will be the greatest wheat 
 belt in the United States. It will be greater 
 than North Dakota. The region is larger, and 
 all of it will be fine wheat country. We are 
 getting very fine wheat over the Santa Fe 
 from the Indian Nation and from Oklahoma. 
 The conditions are much the same as in the 
 Panhandle. The wheat is dry and peculiarly 
 adapted to trade with countries south of us." 
 
 "That reminds me," said Secretary Brady, 
 of the Galveston Board of Trade, who was 
 sitting by, "that I have a letter from an Okla- 
 homa wheat shipper who wants to form trade 
 relations with us. He writes me: "There is a 
 plow running over every 160 acres in this 
 
 Territory wheat begins moving in June, and 
 we ought to handle it right here. We have 
 $18,000,000 capital here which ought to be in use 
 the year round, and will be when our grain 
 trade is developed." 
 
 "You have tried shipping out wheat, haven't 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes," Mr. Reymershoffer replied, "I 
 loaded the Alford, an English steamer, with 
 wheat in ten days. It was an experiment. 
 She arrived in ballast one day. The third 
 day she came to the dock, and the morning 
 of the fourth day I began loading her. In five 
 days I put 55,000 bushels of wheat into her 
 hold. She crossed the bar drawing 15 feet 3 
 inches. Three days were taken up with light- 
 ering. She carried 93,389 bushels. The experi- 
 ment was entirely satisfactory. ' ' 
 
 "Have you tried corn?' ' 
 
 "Yes. People said corn couldn't be ex- 
 ported from Galveston. They said it would 
 
 THE JETTY, LOOKING TOWARD THE GALVESTON END. 
 
 
 Territory. Wheat is our staple. We are not 
 satisfied with the treatment received in Chi- 
 cago. Think we can do well by shipping to 
 your port." 
 
 "The trouble with us here,' ' said Mr. Brady, 
 folding up the letter, "is that we have no grain 
 board. There is no organization to which such 
 a letter can be referred. What we want is a 
 regular grain board, with a capital to' take 
 business offered to us in this way. We have 
 got elevator capacity of 1,500,000 bushels, and 
 we have a mill here that grinds 800 barrels of 
 flour a day. But grain business is new to us. 
 You can talk to our business men and bankers 
 about cotton, and they know all about that. 
 But grain handling is a new thing. It will 
 work in well with the cotton, when we get it 
 started. The cotton season ends on the 1st of 
 May. From that time until the next season 
 opens on the 1st of September, our capital lies 
 idle and nothing is doing. Texas and Indian 
 
 spoil in transit. We formed a little syndicate 
 just to show what could be done. We char- 
 tered the Propitious pretty good name and 
 loaded 73,000 bushels of corn into her. We 
 did it in May, the worst month of the year. 
 The corn reached Liverpool in good condi- 
 tion, and we made our point. Just before we 
 commenced buying for this experimental 
 shipment corn was selling in Kansas for 
 14c. It was being burned for fuel. Our 
 agents went into Kansas to buy. Before 
 we got through the news of the intended ex- 
 portation by way of Galveston got out, and 
 corn went to 20c in Kansas. We didn't make 
 any money, but we did what we started out to 
 do showed that corn could be shipped in 
 good condition from Galveston. It was New 
 Orleans which gave gulf shipments a bad 
 name. We had another test here on the 
 steamer Persis last November. She took out 
 104,000 bushels. She had an excessively rough 
 
-08- 
 
 voyage, and was out forty-five or sixty days, 
 I've forgotten which. The report was circu- 
 lated that she had been lost. But the corn 
 reached Liverpool in good condition. There 
 is no trouble on account of climate about 
 grain shipments by way of Galveston. Rail- 
 roads, of course, are interested in hauling 
 the grain as far as they can. When we get 
 deep water we will command the trade." 
 
 "When we get deep water," is what all 
 Galveston is saying. And there is great im- 
 patience among owners of town lots because 
 the outer end of the jetty doesn't creep faster 
 toward the crest of the bar, which lies across 
 the entrance to this grandest of American 
 harbors. Uncle Sam builds slowly, but he 
 builds exceedingly well. To a stranger it 
 looks as if the engineers and contractor had 
 made great progress. Of the long, narrow 
 breakwater curving out and tapering until 
 its line sinks into the sea, there has been 
 finished 24,600 feet. A railroad track on 
 trestle work is built above the huge work. 
 The little engine which runs out over the 
 track is more than half an hour making the 
 trip from the shore to where the derricks are 
 hoisting the five-ton blocks of granite and 
 placing them on the wall. From the shore 
 the engine and cars seem to be running on 
 the water. Three or four miles distance 
 wipes out the line of great rocks with the 
 trestle above, and leaves only in view the 
 surface of the Gulf and the train rolling 
 merrily upon it. 
 
 fell below the five-ton minimum. They were 
 rejected for outside work under the rule of 
 the engineers, but will come in later for use 
 where the breakers can not get at them with 
 full force. The inspection is rigid. The shore 
 end of the jetty was built up at a cost of $20 a 
 
 FIVE-TON BLOCKS AND THE MACHINE TO PLACE 
 THEM. 
 
 foot. Where the Italian laborers are now 
 lowering the granite blocks into place the cost 
 is $80 a foot. 
 
 Galveston primarily, the Mississippi valley 
 particularly, and the whole United States 
 generally, are interested in this jetty build- 
 ing. Six millions of the people's money is 
 going down into the depths in the hope that a 
 deep-water channel may be secured for the 
 exports and imports of the Southwest. The 
 main jetty, extending out from the end of 
 Galveston Island to the bar, will be 28,000 feet 
 
 A TRAIN-LOAD OF THE FIVE-TON BLOCKS. 
 
 Out where the jetty is being built now, the 
 red granite is heaped up in large chunks. 
 Nothing less than five tons is permitted on 
 this part of the work. With anything smaller 
 the waves, which sometimes roll in from 15 
 to 25 feet high, would play tricks. At the 
 shore end of the jetty are scattered on the 
 sandy waste several acres of rocks. These 
 
 long, perhaps a little longer. On the day that 
 the visit was made with Mr. Hartrick, the 
 United States Assistant Engineer, the report 
 showed 24,600 feet completed. The granite 
 blocks had been laid to 28,700 feet, and the 
 apron of the jetty had reached 26,900. 
 
 "By October," said Mr. Hartrick, "we shall 
 have this south jetty out to the crest of the bar." 
 
97- 
 
 After that there will be some anxious watch- 
 ing for results. The jetty is an experiment. 
 Between the end of Galveston Island and the 
 point of Bolivar Peninsula, Galveston Bay 
 receives and empties with every tide. By 
 cutting down that already narrow connection 
 to one-half or less can the tide current be- 
 tween bay and gulf be increased enough to 
 wear out a ship channel through the sand ? 
 That is the whole problem. When the south 
 jetty reaches the crest of the bar the engineers 
 hope to know more about the scouring possi- 
 bilities. Some minor results have been accom- 
 plished. There is, or was, an inner bar. The 
 single jetty has been sufficient to increase the 
 scour over that inner bar. There was 9 
 feet of water on the inner bar before the jetty 
 was tuilt. There is 22 feet now. 
 
 The south jetty is only part of the plan 
 Heading out from Bolivar will be another 
 jetty, not so long as the island jetty and 
 not quite parallel, but gradually converging 
 toward it. This will further cut down the 
 channel, and increase the current and the 
 scour. The place from which the north jetty 
 is to start has been selected, and the work 
 upon it will be under way by the time the end 
 of the south jetty reaches the crest of the bar. 
 Where the current is strong enough there is 
 no difficulty in scouring out a channel. Thus, 
 where the Bolivar and Galveston currents 
 come together in the bay there is a depth of 
 60 feet of water. In a single year the current 
 deposited 2 feet of sand alongside of the 
 jetty. The only question is whether this con- 
 fining of the water will throw the current to 
 
 THE GULP END OF THE JETTY. 
 
 Some prophets predicted that the current 
 confined by the jetty would dig out a chan- 
 nel at the base of the mattresses and rocks 
 andthat some day a section of the cosily 
 work would cave and go down like an under- 
 mined bank on the Mississippi. But instead 
 of that result the current has swept the sur- 
 plus sand up against the jetty until there is a 
 strip now in view where there was 14 feet of 
 water. And on the outside of the jetty the 
 sand is banking up in the same way. The end 
 of Galveston Island on the Gulf side of the levee 
 is growing and a thousand acres of land will 
 be taken from the Gulf and added to the island 
 Dy the jetty's deflection of former currents. 
 
 the right spot to dig out a channel. And will 
 another bar, just as bad , form further out in 
 the Gulf when the one against which the jet- 
 ties are aimed is scoured through ? These are 
 things the engineers and the country will 
 know more about when the $6,000,000 is spent. 
 The play is for large stakes. The expendi- 
 tures will be insignificant if the theory wins. 
 And this will be the longest jetty system in 
 the world. 
 
 Notwithstanding the impediment of the bar 
 a great deal of trade comes in and goes out of 
 Galveston with every tide. This is the richest 
 city of its size on the continent. Possibly 
 
Helena will dispute this. Perhaps it is better 
 to say that millionaires are thicker on this 
 Texas Island and in that Montana gulch than 
 anywhere else, not excepting Manhattan. 
 Interior Texas has sometimes kicked, holding 
 to the theory that too many dollars have 
 stuck to the fingers of the Galveston middle- 
 men in passing through. It must be admitted 
 that Galvestonians always were handy at the 
 game of finance. As long ago as 1841 a scheme 
 which would have made the eyes of a Populist 
 dance was concocted on this strip of sand. 
 The author was Gen. Mosely Baker. He pro- 
 posed a bank. The basis was to be a loan of 
 $5,000,000, which Gen. Baker thought could 
 be got from France on an I. O. U. of 
 the infant Texas Republic. The General 
 intended to put the $5,000,000, when he got 
 it, into the bank and issue paper money. He 
 was going to put out $3 in paper for each dol- 
 lar of this French credit. The paper money 
 was to be loaned on notes for ninety days, 
 with privilege of renewal for twelve months. 
 Almost anything was good for collateral, but 
 Gen. Baker expected to do his chief loaning 
 on cotton in cultivation. Any cotton raiser 
 could come into the bank and get this 
 paper money to the value of half of the esti- 
 mated yield of his field, the price of cotton 
 
 John Allen, of Mississippi, tells a story of an 
 elegant Southern gentleman, unused to the 
 ways of the world, who came to him one 
 day, and with profuse apologies that he knew 
 nothing about such matters, and with some 
 stammering asked: "Ah, Mr. Allen, can you 
 tell me how a gentleman should go about get- 
 ting a little loan a few hundred dollars say 
 from the bank?' ' "Certainly, Colonel,' ' said 
 Mr. Allen, "I am only too happy to be at your 
 service. It is quite an easy matter. All you 
 have to do is to go to the bank and sign a 
 note and give your collateral. The bank 
 hands the money over to you." 
 
 The old gentleman thanked Mr. Allen most 
 earnestly. He said he understood it now per- 
 fectly, and felt much ashamed that he should 
 be so ignorant in business affairs. He went 
 away. 
 
 "About half an hour afterward I met the 
 Colonel again,' ' said Mr. Allen. "He came up 
 to me with a pained expression on his counte- 
 nance, and he asked, 'Ah, Mr. Allen, can you 
 tell me where I can get that collateral?' ' ' 
 
 Galveston has managed to acquire 
 great wealth. This is made apparent in a 
 collection of finer public buildings than is 
 possessed by any other American city. The 
 school buildings on Galveston Island cost 
 
 THE SHOHE END OF THE JETTY. 
 
 being placed at 8c per pound. As security for 
 the loan the cotton-raiser was to give a mort- 
 gage on his whole crop and also a mortgage 
 on his land to double the amount borrowed. 
 It is a great pity for this generation that this 
 precedent of the sub-treasury idea did not 
 have a fair trial in the '40s. Besides making 
 money accessible to every man who had cot- 
 ton growing, Gen. Baker was going to pay off 
 the Texas Republic war debt with his paper. 
 He expected that the revenue from interest 
 on loans would pay all of the expenses of the 
 Texas Government and relieve the people of 
 both the tariff and direct taxation. Only one 
 thing prevented the trial of Gen. Baker's 
 scheme. France neglected to advance the 
 $5,000,000 loan, 
 
 more than all of the school buildings of Texas 
 outside of the cities and towns. One million- 
 aire's monument is a hospital, another's a 
 chapel, a third's a high school, a fourth's 
 the costliest private residence in Texas, if 
 not in the whole Southwest, representing an 
 expenditure of over $200,000. For private 
 entertainment it is doubtful if any city in 
 this country can show the equal of the Garten 
 Verein with its spacious grounds, handsome 
 buildings and lavish appointments. This in- 
 stitution is maintained by a club of Galves- 
 ton' s men of means. The beach is every- 
 body's. All Texas lives from year to year on 
 the memory of a plunge in a surf which does 
 not chill the thinnest blood. 
 
 W. B. S. 
 
-99- 
 
 THROTJGH TEXAS. 
 
 Strange Sights and Discoveries of a 
 Journey in the Gulf Country. 
 
 The Deep Water Triangle and the Pos- 
 sibilities Which Cluster About It. 
 
 A Round-Up of Turtles Balcones Ranch 
 
 The Tomb of Dr. Bayard How 
 
 Five Dollars Built 6OO 
 
 Miles of Railroad. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 IN SOUTH TEXAS, October 19. A strip of the 
 native prairie 25 feet wide, a ribbon of turned 
 sod 6 feet wide, and down the center of the 
 ribbon, straight as the needle points, a row 
 of pear trees. This, repeated thousands of 
 
 all that the great prairie, its sandy loam and 
 its sub-irrigation, with inexhaustible water 
 a dozen feet below the turf, was good for. 
 Then a man named Stringf ellow came down 
 from the North. He wandered around over 
 the prairie, poked holes in the sod, rubbed 
 the loam contemplatively between his fingers, 
 and said he thought pear trees would grow 
 there. The few people who lived on the 
 prairie laughed at him and said they had 
 never heard of such a thing. Mr. Stringfel- 
 low said he would try a couple of thousand 
 trees anyway. Then the natives looked se- 
 rious and talked as if a man ought to be re- 
 strained from throwing money away in that 
 fashion. 
 
 Mr. Stringf ellow went ahead. He bought 
 the land at $5 or $6 an acre, and could 
 have got thousands of acres for the ask- 
 ing at that figure. He put in his 2000 pear 
 trees of the Le Conte and Keiffer varieties. 
 It has been about eight years since the ex- 
 
 THE FIH3T HOTEL AT VELASCO. 
 
 times, is before the eyes of the traveler riding 1 
 from Houston to Galveston. It is only two 
 hours from the Magnolia City to tho Oleander 
 City. Much of the distance is over a coast 
 prairie, 50 feet above the level of bayou and 
 bay. From the car window the prairie seems 
 to be perfectly flat, but there are slight 
 grades, enough for surface drainage. A few 
 years ago this journey was through a great 
 pasture. As far as the vision reached 
 cattle grazed. And that was supposed to be 
 
 periment was begun. These pear trees bore 
 three, then five, then eight, and now they 
 havo reached ten bushels to the tree. A hole 
 is dug in the ribbon of turned sod, just large 
 enough to take in the year old roots. The soil 
 is well packed around the roots. On the surface 
 is strewn three good handful s of cotton- seed 
 meal. That is all. The little ribbon of turned 
 sod between the strips of unbroken prairie is 
 kept clean of weeds. Soil and climate do the 
 rest. Pear trees flourish as they do nowhere 
 
^IOC- 
 
 else under the stars and stripes. A jury of his 
 neighbors would have voted Mr. String- 
 fellow crazy six years ago. To-day 
 he is the biggest man on all the coast 
 prairie. He is Sir Oracle on fruit. His pear 
 trees have revolutionized conditions. The $5 
 land is $50 land a good deal of it. Thousands 
 
 THE SECOND HOTEL AT VELASCO. 
 
 of acres have been put into pears. And no 
 wonder ! Stringf ellow ' s orchard was yielding 
 $500 to the acre before it was six years old. 
 People no longer refer to the prairie as the old 
 salt marsh. Experiments in other directions 
 than pear culture have been tried. One man 
 
 dred bunches go in a box, and the box travels 
 1000 miles or more to some city in the still- 
 frozen North, where the Ipvers of nature's 
 sweetest odor quickly pay 15c, 20c and 25c a 
 bud. The grower receives from $8 to $10 a 
 thousand for the buds. It is a novel industry, 
 but all sorts of unusual ways of making a liv- 
 ing are being developed on the great prairie. 
 
 Next to the pears, Mr. Stringfellow, who is 
 now abundantly honored as he was ridiculed 
 when he came on the prairie, says the straw- 
 berry is the surest and most profitable crop. 
 
 He says this soil and climate will give $750 
 worth of strawberries to the acre. Picking 
 begins the last of February, and by the mid- 
 dle of March the harvest is on. Real estate 
 men, who still have some of the coast prairie 
 to sell, say that five acres will support a fami- 
 ly well; that a pear orchard five years old, as 
 prices for the fruit now rule, and as trees now 
 bear, is worth $1000 an acre. They say that 
 the coast prairie can ship pears to New York as 
 low as 37c a bushel and make a profit. The 
 prices realized have been, up to this 
 time, about $1 a bushel. It is one 
 of the odd sights in Texas to see these pear 
 trees shooting up so vigorously with raw- 
 prairie on both sides of the rows, and only the 
 narrow ribbon of ground broken. Out in the 
 
 IN THE SUBURBS OF HOUSTON. 
 
 has two acres in jessamine. He calls the 
 flower the double jessamine. Last spring he 
 sold $2000 worth from the two acres. As soon 
 as the bud appears he cuts it with a stem 6 
 inches long. Ten buds and stems are tied in a 
 bunch and wrapped in wet paper. One hun- 
 
 plain country, at Merkel, where everything 
 luscious grows now by windmill irrigation, 
 and where nothing grew except grass and 
 long horns ten years ago, the horticulturists 
 tell a story at the expense of the pioneer fruit 
 raisers. They say that when the women be- 
 
-101- 
 
 gan to get the idea that fruit could be pro- 
 duced around Merkel, they bored holes in the 
 prairie with a post auger, thrust in an apple 
 tree, rammed down on the roots three shov- 
 elfuls of fresh stable manure, and expected 
 
 AN OLD SOUTH TEXAS HOME. 
 
 to make cider the following year. This pear 
 tree planting on the coast prairie approaches 
 the Merkel experiment in labor-saving, but 
 then, oh, what a difference in results! 
 
 Somewhere on the Texas coast there will be 
 a deep-water harbor. Government millions 
 may make it or private enterprise may find 
 it. The experiment at the mouth of the 
 Brazos River is interesting. A city was laid 
 out there among the beautiful live oaks on 
 the 1st of July, 1891. The first lot was sold 
 ten days later. Within six months there was 
 a population of 1,800 people. In July, '91, 
 guests slept in a hotel made of timbers sup- 
 ported by a cross-piece. In July, '92, they 
 stopped at a house which cost $75,000. 
 
 A corporation took hold of the mouth of the 
 Brazos three years ago and ran jetties from 
 both sides of it. The engineer was a man who 
 had been associated with Capt. James B. Eads 
 in the successful work at the mouth of the 
 Mississippi. He planned a similar improve- 
 ment. When private capital began to build 
 these jetties there was a bar across the mouth 
 of the Brazos and the water on it was only 4% 
 feet deep. In just one year from the time of 
 beginning there was a channel of 10 feet in 
 depth across the bar. In nine months more 
 it was 13 feet, and at the end of the second 
 year the depth was 15 feet. There is now be- 
 tween 17 and 18 feet of water, and steamships 
 drawing from 14 to 16 feet go in and out of 
 the mouth of the Brazos. This was done with- 
 out a dollar of the Government's money. 
 Velasco now claims that a steamship load of 
 cotton has gone out of her port, drawing- 
 more water than any ship ever drew before in 
 leaving a Texas port, without lightening. 
 But Velasco wants 24 feet and more. 
 
 Houston, Velasco and Galveston are tho 
 points of a triangle, and within this triangle 
 
 lies the old salt marsh, which has been turned 
 into a great garden and orchard as the result 
 of the Stringfellow experiment. It is forty 
 miles from Galveston to Velasco across the 
 bars of the triangle. It is fifty-five miles 
 along one side of the triangle from 
 Velasco to Houston. It is fifty miles 
 along the other side of the triangle from Gal- 
 veston to Houston. Developments and possi- 
 bilities are near enough together here to be 
 interesting and somewhat confusing. Some- 
 where within this triangle, or, perhaps, at 
 one of the corners, or, it may be, along one of 
 the sides, destiny will create a center of vast 
 commercial importance. So the Gulf peo- 
 ple firmly believe. When deep water, 
 that is to say from 25 to 30 feet, is 
 obtained, the exports and imports of 20,000,- 
 000 of people living between the Mississippi 
 River and the Rocky Mountains will go by 
 way of the Gulf of Mexico. "Through Texas" 
 will take the place of "via New York' ' for a 
 dozen Western States. This is the prize of 
 trade for which Houston, Galveston, Velasco, 
 Aransas Pass and the other places with har- 
 bor terminals on the Texas gulf coast are 
 striving. The deep water will come. There 
 is no doubt about that. The diversion of the 
 foreign trade of the Mississippi Valley from 
 east and west lines to north and south lines 
 will follow. That is just as plain as the first 
 proposition. But will the result be a concen- 
 tration of the trade and all of its advantages 
 at a single point on the Texas coast? Is that 
 so certain? To one not interested in corner 
 lots it looks as if there may be a scattering of 
 benefits which will build up Houston, Gal- 
 veston, Velasco, Aransas Pass and, perhaps, 
 two or three other possible ports. Ifc 
 is very evident that the wise men of 
 this generation have not been able to 
 agree that one of these places, more 
 than all of the others is the city of deep- 
 water destiny. At Galveston they are pump- 
 ing sand from the Gulf and making the long; 
 island grow in a way nature never thought 
 of. When the jetties have done the work ex- 
 pected of them Galveston will have docks 
 where the tarpon used to play. The creosote 
 of the pile-treating works has not only- 
 stopped the ravages of the little toredo, but 
 it has played the mischief with some of the 
 great oyster beds of Galveston Bay. At Ve- 
 lasco they are planning for the time when 
 steamships too long to turn around com- 
 fortably in the bosom of the Brazos shall 
 come up to the docks, and they are preparing 
 for basins and chutes which will facilitate the 
 turning process. At an eligible looking place 
 on Galveston Bay where the Dickson River 
 empties, Chicago and Minneapolis capital has 
 laid out the site of a brand-new city, sixteen 
 miles from Galveston, thirty miles from 
 Houston, and on the edge of the great coast 
 prairie which is being cut up into orchards 
 
-102- 
 
 and gardens. Lumber is being delivered 
 at the new site by the ship-load, and 
 $1,500,000 " will be spent by men 
 who do not believe that Houston, Qalveston 
 and Velasco can take care, of all the commer- 
 cial advantages which are coming to the tri- 
 angle. At another place on the bay the man 
 who developed the whaleback idea in ocean 
 tonnage is seeking a location for a great ship- 
 building yard. Shipbuilding is one of the 
 coming industries of the Gulf region. . It is 
 accepted as a fact that ships must be built as 
 nearly as possible in the temperature where 
 they are to ply. 
 
 Houston keeps adding to her railroads until 
 a round dozen of them center there. The far- 
 seeing real estate men have laid out heights 
 and grand boulevards and parks for the 
 homes of a hundred thousand people, of 
 whose coming they entertain no skepticism. 
 There is fascination about Houston for homes. 
 When the landscape gardener comes he finds 
 that nature has left little or nothing for him 
 
 the city has lost its look of newness. Scat- 
 tered through the residence portions of the 
 city and out a little way in the country are 
 the old-fashioned Southern mansions, with 
 great columns supporting the roofs and the 
 wide galleries. The war dealt gently with 
 these relics in the Gulf region of Texas, and 
 they stand to show what the South was, archi- 
 tecturally, before armies marched over it. 
 Winding through the manufacturing district 
 and among the railroad terminals of Houston 
 is Buffalo Bayou. A deep, narrow river at the 
 bottom of high and steep banks, it seems to 
 be flowing at the bottom of a fissure. This is 
 Houston's waterway to the Gulf. The bayou 
 is no small part of the triangular situation. 
 Its water is a curious deep reddish hue, but 
 so pure that the boilers in the factories last 
 far beyond the allotted time. 
 
 Houston is like no other Texas city. And 
 it might be said that no Texas city is like any 
 other Texas city. There is Fort Worth on a 
 high plateau, with her proportions magnified 
 
 LOGGING IN THE PINERIES NEAR ORANGE. 
 
 to do but to lay out the drives and the walks. 
 This is the magnolia city. The magnolia 
 trees, 6 feet in diameter, are everywhere, and 
 whether in foliage or in bloom they are won- 
 derfully attractive to the stranger's eyes. 
 The suburbs of Houston are natural parks, 
 with pine trees towering towards the clouds, 
 great wide spreading live oaks with the Span- 
 ish moss garbing their gnarled limbs and 
 swaying in the breeze that blows from 
 the 'Gulf less than fifty miles away. 
 Houston has the old and settled look. 
 Save in the additions which have sprung up 
 under the impetus of this more recent growth, 
 
 as by a mirage, until she looks like a second 
 Chicago as seen five or ten miles away. And 
 there is Dallas, nestled down by the Trinity 
 and among the trees, without any revelation 
 of her long business thoroughfares until the 
 stranger is in the midst of them. Waco, with 
 her seminaries and colleges almost as numer- 
 ous as her hills, and cleanliness next to god- 
 liness in the form of a cluster of magnificent 
 artesian wells scattered over billowy slopes 
 rising and rolling back from the Brazos. 
 Austin, the capital city, looks down from im- 
 posing heights reached by gradual ascent 
 from the Colorado. And across the river 
 
103 
 
 there is another gradual ascent, on which 
 loom up several of the State institutions, 
 until the vision rises to a summit wooded 
 and rugged almost as a mountain range. 
 The capital of Texas is a city 
 of magnificent views. And not the least in- 
 teresting of her features is the great dam, 
 thrown boldly across the channel and raised 
 to a height of 50 feet, which suggests daring 
 on the part of the engineer. This dam, it is 
 said, has no parallel in the country. It is 
 nearing completion and will have cost about 
 $1,500,000. For this expenditure Austin ob- 
 tains 16,500 horse-power. She will use the 
 dam for her water works and her electric 
 lights, and for other municipal purposes, and 
 will have 14,000 horse-power to lease for man- 
 ufacturing establishments. It is a bold scheme 
 and illustrates the spirit with which Texas is 
 awakening to her opportunities. 
 
 Without counterpart is San Antonio. And 
 this is not wholly because of the large Mex- 
 ican element which lives "over the San 
 Pedro' ' and gives a foreign air to population, 
 streets and architecture. A few miles above 
 San Antonio, reached by a boulevard 100 feet 
 
 of this strangest of rivers San Antonio is 
 built. Within the limits of the city there 
 must be two score or more of bridges over the 
 river. In the days of early settlement every- 
 body tried to have the river in his back yard, 
 and this led to some queer surveying and 
 street platting. Water for all household pur- 
 poses was at the back door, and a bath house 
 was a part of the equipment of every lot. On 
 a Monday, the idler can lean over a San An- 
 tonio bridge and see the Mexican servants on 
 both sides of the river, as far as the view ex- 
 tends, down by the river wrestling with the 
 family wash. 
 
 South Texas is full of strange things. The 
 strangeness is not the oddity of the freak. It 
 is rather in the nature of surprises in products, 
 in development, in industries, in scenery, in 
 social conditions. In South Texas the trav- 
 eler rides by rail thirty miles through one 
 man's pasture. Within the limits of the 
 pasture is a city and half a dozen settlements. 
 In South Texas three distinct crops of grapes 
 have been taken from the vines in twelve 
 months. Two crops is the regular thing in 
 the vineyards below San Antonio. The Iruit- 
 
 BALCONES RANCH. 
 
 Bancroft library 
 
 wide and paved from curb to curb, the river 
 has its beginning in a collection of immense 
 springs. Right out of the bosom of Mother 
 Earth the water rises. The pools are 50 feet 
 across. They are transparent to the bottom. 
 Down in the depths of vegetable growth 
 waves and bubbles are continually arising. 
 These are the only indications of the inflow. 
 But from the lowest rim of each pool there 
 soes out a stream of water perhaps as large as 
 a man's body, perhaps equal to the largest 
 main in a city's water works. The stream 
 j )ins with other streams, close at hand 
 and the San Antonio River, biggest at its 
 birth, starts on its way to the Gulf. It wrig- 
 g-los and curves until it almost returns to itself 
 in a dozen places, and close up to tho borders 
 
 growing development of California andFlorida 
 has been heralded to the world. But the pos- 
 sibilities of the Texas Gulf region in that 
 direction are only just beginning to be known 
 to the people who have lived there all of their 
 lives. From South Texas came a man who 
 built 600 miles of railroad with a five-dollar 
 bill and faith, and the bill was a borrowed 
 one. He moved up from Corpus Christi to 
 San Antonio with all of his possessions 
 heaped on a two- wheeled cart. He got a 
 charter to build a railroad from San Antonio 
 to Aransas Pass. He graded a mile of it, 
 throwing a good deal more than one shovel of 
 dirt with his own hands. The receiver of an- 
 other road loaned this indefatigable builder 
 enough old rails for a rnilo of track. In a dis- 
 
104- 
 
 tant part of the State was purchased an engine 
 which had been condemned six years before 
 and sent to the shops to be wrecked for scrap- 
 iron. Two old cars were picked up some- 
 where else at a bargain. And that old engine, 
 drawing those old cars, steamed into San 
 Antonio. On engine and cars in bold letter- 
 ing was painted in lamp-black, "S. and A. 
 P." With one mile of old-rail track and with 
 the equipment of the old engine and the two 
 old cars Uriah Lott started the Aransas Pass 
 system. There has been some tall financier- 
 ing in the history of railroad building in this 
 country, but there isn't anything 
 which, for dazzling pluck, quite approaches 
 the story of the building of this 600 miles of 
 road in South Texas. To the one mile of track 
 three were added three miles by a dicker for 
 some second hand rails which a street car 
 company had bought from a narrow-gauge 
 company. On this basis a credit trade was 
 made with a Pennsylvania rolling mill for ten 
 miles of rails. When they arrived there 
 
 go without ever showing themselves willingly 
 on shore. The old idea of turtle hunting is to 
 catch the unwieldy animal napping on the 
 sand and flop him over on his back before he 
 can wabble down to his native element. But 
 that is not the kind of turtle catching pursued 
 at Aransas Pass. Nets like those used for 
 fish, only made of much stronger twine, are 
 strung along in convenient places near the 
 turtle pastures. They are attached to floats. 
 The turtle catcher knows the hours at 
 which the herds usually seek or leave 
 the pastures. He leaves his camp on 
 the beach and goes out in his boat 
 to a convenient distance frem the nets, and 
 there he waits and watches for a violent agi- 
 tation of the floats. The nets are not set with 
 the idea that they will inclose the turtle. They 
 are stretched out to cover as much space as 
 possible with the expectation that, going 
 to the pastures or coming from them the 
 turtle will strike the net with his flippers and 
 become entangled in the meshes. Early morn- 
 
 THE GREAT DAM AT AUSTIN. 
 
 wasn't money enough in the treasury to pay 
 the freight. But it was got somehow. Ten 
 miles of track gave the foundation for bonds 
 which built forty miles more, and so the sys- 
 tem grew into its present proportions. This 
 man Vho built the Aransas Pass system rode 
 from San Antonio to Chicago, at one critical 
 period in his enterprise, without a cent in his 
 pocket. He had transportation , but he hadn ' t 
 anything to buy food, and he went through 
 hungry. 
 
 The strangest thing at Aransas Pass is a cer- 
 tain live-stock industry. Behind the pass, 
 upon what are called "the middle grounds," 
 grows a peculiar kind of sea woed. It has its 
 roots far under water. This weed is the favor- 
 ite food of the green sea turtle. There aro 
 bull turtles and cow turtles and turtle calves. 
 They come in herds from nobody knows 
 where, to graze fathoms deep on the tender 
 ends of this weed. The7 come and feed and. 
 
 ing is the best time for catching. And the 
 turtle is hoisted out of the tangle and into the 
 boat as quickly as possible. There is no dan- 
 ger of the net being cut for the green sea tur- 
 tle, unlike his snapping relative, has no 
 teeth. But the species is very strong with the 
 flippers, and may break some of the net if left 
 to flounder around too long. 
 
 On his back in the bottom of the boat goes 
 the monster, and there he is harmless and 
 helpless. The state of captivity is completed 
 by tying the flippers across the under shell. 
 After that the catcher goes on looking for 
 more. Unless the head is allowed to drop too 
 far back the turtle will live comfortably a 
 month or more on his back in the bottom of 
 the boat. But it isn't usual to apply the test 
 of endurance to such a degree. Once a week 
 the turtle-catcher hoists sail and runs over 
 the bay to the store houses. There are pens 
 in shallow water made safe by heavy stock- 
 ades of posts driven close together. In these 
 
pens the turtles are turned loose with about 
 the same freedom that cattle are given in the 
 yards at a shipping point. And they are as 
 docile as cattle usually are when thus sudden- 
 ly deprived of liberty. 
 
 Affliction 's sons are brothers in distress 
 in turtle as well as other kind. The turtles 
 lie quietly in the pens, with only an occasional 
 protest. Now and then some monster will 
 rise to the surface, raise his head and bellow 
 hoarsely. The sound is rather awe-inspiring, 
 but really the only danger in handling the 
 turtle is from a stroke of the flippers, and the 
 kick is not very bad. It is no easy job, how- 
 ever, to lift them about. Some of the bull 
 turtles run up to 650 pounds. That is as 
 much as a yearling Texas steer will weigh. A 
 good average weight is 400 pounds. The 
 turtle calves weigh from 40 pounds upwards. 
 
 A VELASCO HARBOR SCENE. 
 
 The turtles selected for shipment go all of 
 the way to New York and other epicurean cen- 
 ters alive. They are put into wooden frames 
 called crates. There they lie on their backs 
 with their heads propped up. The pillow is a 
 very essential part of the preparation for the 
 journey. A turtle's back breaks more easily 
 than one would suppose, and then he is a no 
 account turtle for a long journey. From thirty 
 to fifty turtles go by a single shipment. They 
 are sent to Oalveston, and from there they 
 travel by steamer. People who pay for green 
 sea turtle soup at the rate of about 5c a spoon- 
 ful can figure out the profit in a 650-pounder. 
 There is more profit in Texas turtles than in 
 Texas steers. For four years Aransas Pass has 
 been shipping turtles in large numbers, and 
 the herds show no diminution. 
 
 For the disposition of those turtles which 
 are not sent out alive there is a cannery on 
 the island. Turtle canning is as interesting 
 as turtle catching. Scrupulous cleanliness is 
 the first rule. It even precedes the "first 
 catch your turtle." The turtles are dressed 
 and then all of the flesh is put into great 
 cooking pots. This part of the process stops 
 before the flesh is entirely cooked. It is con- 
 tinued just long enough to separate the 
 divisions. There are sixteen kinds of meat 
 in a turtle. Each kind has a distinct flavor, 
 and at the cannery it is known by a separate 
 name. It is called by what it most resembles. 
 ID. a turtle are found chicken fat, pork fat, 
 
 veal, mutton, beef meat, duck, and so on 
 through the sixteen varieties. Partial cook- 
 ing makes it possible to divide the varieties. 
 When this has been completed, each variety is 
 cut into small fragments. Experts take the 
 cans and passing from heap to heap take from 
 each the proportion which experience has 
 shown to be about right for obtaining the 
 true combination flavor. Into each can is 
 dropped a contribution from each of the six- 
 teen varieties. The contents of the can are 
 brought to the boiling point and then the can 
 is sealed and is ready to carry the material 
 for genuine green sea turtle soup to any part 
 of the world. With one of these cans and a 
 pot any cook can turn out green sea turtle 
 soup on short notice. 
 
 THE TOMB OP DR. BAYARD. 
 
 In no Northern cities and towns of corre- 
 sponding population can such costly private 
 residences be found as in Texas. Perhaps an 
 exception should be made of the East, where 
 millionaires retire to their early homes and 
 build palaces. But where is there the city of 
 20,000 people in the Mississippi Valley with 
 a private residence that cost $200,000. Texas 
 can show a dozen homesteads which represent 
 that investment. She has a hundred which 
 cost half as much. As for the $75,000 and 
 $50,000 mansions, they are to be found in all 
 parts of the State. 
 
 The peculiar Texas homestead law is per- 
 haps largely responsible for this. In his flush 
 period the merchant, the ranchman, the spec- 
 ulator socks his cash into the brick and mortar 
 
106- 
 
 of a home, and he knows it will stay there. 
 No execution can reach the homestead, even 
 if it cost a million, so long as the taxes are 
 paid. A Texas homestead is $5000 worth of 
 land in city or town, or 200 acres of land in 
 country, with all the improvements there 
 can be upon it. Once paid for it 
 can not be taken away for any debt 
 or business misfortune that may come upon 
 the owner. To the Texan who wishes to lay 
 by for a rainy day or for heirs the homestead 
 is safer than life insurance. It is his castle. 
 The law's porticullis falls in the face of the 
 creditor. If the homestead be a farm, the 
 growing crops share the exemption. If upon 
 his $5000 worth of city property, the Texan 
 chooses to build a business block at the cost 
 of $100,000 or more and call one room in it his 
 dwelling place he can bid defiance to all bills 
 and judgments. The law is occasionally 
 abused, like most other laws. There have 
 been unscrupulous men who put not only 
 
 PICKING GRAPES IN THE COAST COUNTRY. 
 
 their own, but other people's money into a 
 Texas homestead and then "failed.' ' But th* 
 general tendency of the law is to encourage 
 the building of homes, and fine homes, too. 
 "Here is something that can't get away," 
 the home builder says, and he puts in the 
 money with a free hand. The result is this 
 unusual array of costly mansions in all of the 
 Texas cities. 
 
 The exemption law of Texas has many pro- 
 visions. It is almost a blanket. Besides the 
 home, all furniture and provisions are beyond 
 the reach of the creditor. Implements and 
 tools and books cannot be touched. And in 
 addition to these the resident of Texas can 
 hold, against execution, five cows and their 
 calves, and two yoke of oxen, one gun, two 
 horses and a wagon, a carriage or buggy, all 
 saddles and harness necessary for family use, 
 twenty head of hogs and twenty head of sheep 
 and the current wages. This is a curious law. 
 The men who sell sugar and flour, meat and 
 potatoes, clothes and shoes and other things 
 sometimes grumble because they can't collect 
 
 their bills. But then, on the other hand, this 
 is a great State for the poor man. It is easier 
 to accumulate in Texas than anywhere else 
 in the Union. Even the Texas tax-gatherer 
 has a thus-far-and-no-farther . line drawn 
 across his pathway. Death and taxes may bo 
 the sure things everywhere else, but in this 
 State taxes stop short of something. Farm 
 products in the hands of the farmer and fami- 
 ly supplies for home and farm use are not tax- 
 able. The sewing machine is beyond the 
 reach of the collector, and with it 8250 worth 
 of furniture. The laws of exemption from ex- 
 ecution and from taxation are very favorable 
 to the agriculturalist, more so than anywhere 
 else in the South or North. This may explain 
 why only 9 per cent of the population of 
 Texas is found in cities, while in Illinois the 
 urban proportion is 53 per cent, and in other 
 States from 40 to 50 per cent. 
 
 There is another class of queer things in 
 Texas. At Boerne the people show the visitor 
 the strange conceit of the late Dr. Bayard. 
 It was so many years ago the Doctor came to 
 Texas that nobody can tell just the date. He 
 was eccentric as long as the neighborhood 
 chronicles reach back. By the occasional 
 practice of medicine, by tilling a little farm 
 and in various ways the Doctor made an easy 
 living and had much leisure. In his spare 
 hours he chiseled out a tomb for himself in 
 the rock. In the first place he dug a shaft, al- 
 most perpendicular. On top he placed a door. 
 A ladder let him down as the work proceeded. 
 At what he conceived to be a convenient 
 depth, this eccentric character slowly and la- 
 boriously hewed out in the solid rock a niche 
 in which he could lie comfortably. For sev- 
 eral years before he died he was in the habit 
 of going down into the tomb, stretching him- 
 self out and waiting for the summons. Death 
 did not accede to the hermit's wishes. It 
 came like a thief in the night. Neigh- 
 bors carefully carried out the instructions 
 left. They took the body down the ladder, 
 put it in the niche and cemented the cover. 
 Dr. Bayard, in an unusual fit of confidence, 
 told that he was one of the Bayards, of Dela- 
 ware, but he never explained his self- 
 imposed exile or accounted for his peculiar 
 ways. 
 
 In Southwest Texas is the famous Balcones 
 ranch. It is a monument to a class who 
 helped to give Texas her peculiar reputation. 
 Balcones ranch was "improved" by a 
 wealthy Englishman who came out from the 
 old country with a pocketful of money and 
 his head full of ideas of a good time. Ho put 
 on the raw land the usual improvements, and 
 then he added a race track, a polo ground and 
 various diverting institutions. While the 
 money lasted and "Me Lud" lived the fun 
 was fast and furious for everybody who 
 chose to come. But the end of a check book 
 and of a fast life were reached together. Bal- 
 
-107- 
 
 cones ranch is now conducted on more sober 
 lines for what there is in it. 
 
 Orange, on the Sabine, is where the saw 
 mills are eating up the pine logs at a rate 
 which would exhaust a supply less magnifi- 
 cent than Southeast Texas furnishes. On the 
 principal street in Orange stands a massive 
 oak tree. Until a few days ago there projecte d 
 straight out from the tree over the street a 
 strong limb about ten feet from the ground. 
 On one side of the Sabine is Texas and on the 
 other Louisiana. The lawless element for 
 many years found it easy to cross from one 
 side of the Sabine to the other and dodge the 
 consequences of crime until the indignation 
 of the public mind had subsided. Twice 
 Orange lost a Sheriff at the murderous hands 
 of this element. And twice the murderer was 
 brought in and swung off from that oaken 
 limb so conveniently overhanging the chief 
 thoroughfare of the city. On one or two other 
 occasions nature's gallows has borne fruit. 
 But the limb has gone. A man with a saw 
 climbed the oak tree and in ten minutes the 
 limb fell, while the city looked on approving- 
 ly at the unspoken suggestion that hereafter 
 the law be allowed to take its course. 
 
 When Sam Bass, the famous stage and train 
 robber, died, his body was buri d at the cem- 
 etery at Round Rock. One morning the com- 
 munity arose to find that a neat monument 
 had been placed at the head of the grave by 
 unknown hands in the night. The inscription 
 was, "Here lies a brave man. Why was he not 
 true?' ' 
 
 This class of queer things the oaken limb at 
 Orange, the hurrah life at Balcones, the career 
 of Sam Bass and his imitators, the Dr. Bay- 
 ardsis mentioned to point the assertion that 
 it belongs to the past of Texas. It gave the 
 State a reputation for eccentricity and for gen- 
 eral wild- and- woollyness. That reputation is 
 not sustained by what can be seen now in a 
 trip "Through Texas." W. B. S. 
 
 THROUGH TEXAS. 
 
 A Look Backward, from the Exit, at 
 tlie Great Commonwealth. 
 
 Gov. Hogg Coming North For Capital 
 and Immigration, "By Gatlins!" 
 Some Facts by Way of Com- 
 parisonMr. Exall 
 as a Seer. 
 
 Special Correspondence of the Globe-Democrat. 
 
 TEXARKANA, TEX., October 28. "Through 
 Texas!" It means much. Due west across 
 the State from this eastern edge to El Paso on 
 the Rio Grande, straight as the crow flies, is a 
 longer ride than from St. Louis to New York. 
 If one travels over all of the railways within 
 the borders of Texas he will pay $558.66 in 
 fares. So a railroad man with a head for 
 
 statistical information figures. But it is pos- 
 sible to get some idea of the immensity of the 
 State at less expense. Any one can take a 
 map of the United States and fold it. Try the 
 experiment lengthwise first. The northern 
 boundary of the Texas Panhandle will follow 
 closely the middle crease, and the southern- 
 most point of Texas will lap far over North 
 Dakota into the British Dominions. More 
 than half of our latitude is embraced within 
 the north and south line of Texas. Now fold 
 the north way with Texarkana in the crease. 
 El Paso's opposite is out in the Atlantic Ocean 
 far east of Savannah and the line of Georgia. 
 Fold again on El Paso as the axis. Texarkana 
 lies in the Pacific Ocean beyond San Diego. 
 "Through Texas' ' is more than one-third of 
 the way across the continent from Charles- 
 ton, S. C., to Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
 Take the map again and clip out all of New 
 England. It drops upon the Panhandle of 
 Texas and nowhere touches the border. Add 
 to all of New England all the so-called Em- 
 pire State of New York, the Keystone State 
 of the Union, Pennsylvania, that foreign 
 power, New Jersey, little Delaware, Mary- 
 land, My Maryland, and the Old Dominion, 
 Mother of Presidents, Virginia. Now the 
 broad domain of Texas begins to disappear. 
 
 Just out of Dallas Mr. Henry Exall has what 
 many consider the model farm of Texas. He, 
 however, says he cultivates only "fairly." 
 The farm embraces 500 acres. This year Mr. 
 Exall had 100 acres of wheat, 100 acres of 
 oats, 100 acres of corn and 200 acres of grass. 
 
 "My wheat," said Mr. Exall, "yielded 
 thirty bushels to the acre and my oats sixty 
 bushels. That is actual machine measure, 
 not estimate. The corn will go at least sixty 
 bushels. It stands two stalks in a hill with 
 the ears turned down. I don't know that these 
 crops can be attributed to an unusual season. 
 We have had favorable weather; but it is a 
 fact, I think, that there is no country in the 
 whole universe which has the equal of this 
 black land. The soil is of peculiar formation. 
 It is the combination, in just the right pro- 
 portions, of decaying vegetation and disinte- 
 grating limestone. We have land here which 
 has been in cultivation every year for twenty- 
 five years, and without a pound of fertilizer. 
 It produces just the same now as it did at 
 first. It seems to have the inherent quality 
 of entire recuperation without any outside 
 help. Our land averages 41 per cent of a bale 
 of cotton, and there isn't $5 paid for fertilizer 
 in the whole State. In the cotton-growing 
 States outside of Texas, the average is 38 per 
 cent of a bale with all of the hundreds of 
 thousands of tons of fertilizer." 
 
 "How much can you make on cotton at 
 present prices, Mr. Exall ?" 
 
 "I don't raise any cotton. I have land be- 
 sides my Dallas place, in other parts cf the 
 
-108- 
 
 country, rented on shares. In wheat and oats 
 this land pays me over $7 an acre for my share 
 of the crop." 
 
 "For what can such land be bought in 
 Texas?" 
 
 "The same character of land a little further 
 from town can be got for from $10 to $25 an 
 acre. Near town the prices are higher. But 
 let me tell you our land is held at only one- 
 fourth the price of land similarly situated in 
 the North. Land in Illinois, for instance, held 
 at $40 an acre can be bought in Texas for $10 
 an acre. This $10 land will produce as much 
 as the $10 land in Illinois. Here we have the 
 advantage of mild winters. It takes less to 
 care for stock. Food is fuel, you know. If 
 you don't have to supply the fuel the material 
 goes into growth and flesh! ' ' 
 
 "There is money in thirty-bushel wheat 
 even at low prices, isn't there ?' ' 
 
 "I don't grow wheat for wheat. My object 
 in sowing is to have grazing for my horses. I 
 pasture them all winter on the wheat and 
 take them off in February. My purpose is to 
 show as high- classed horses bred here in 
 Texas as can be exhibited anywhere in the 
 Union. Not only that, but I want to show 
 the people here that the period of most profit- 
 able growth is youth. I have yearling colts 
 and not sixteen months old which are 15% 
 hands high. This is not because there is any 
 thing extraordinary in the colt, but because 
 he has had what he needed. I don't believe it 
 is well for a colt to starve to make him tough. 
 Nor is it the thing to raise stock on climate, 
 as some farmers do. The idea in Texas has 
 been to apportion to the animal so much grass 
 for the year and then exercise no discretion as 
 to how the feed shall be distributed through 
 the period. We have got the limestone for 
 which Kentucky claims so much, and we've 
 got milder winters, so that we can have our 
 colts come when we please and keep them 
 growing all the time." 
 
 Mr. Exall is the owner of Electricite, bred 
 by Senator Stanford and the highest-priced 
 horse in Texas. He has great hopes of devel- 
 oping a famous trotting strain that shall be 
 peculiarly Texan. 
 
 "I wouldn't exchange him for any other 
 horse that lives," he said. "I have no price 
 put upon him, but I wouldn't take $100,000 
 for him. For a long time I have known that 
 the toughest horses were these Texans, but 
 we didn't get very good results. The reason 
 was that we didn't have the proper pedigree. 
 I believe now we've got it. Electricite is one 
 of the best bred colts ever foaled. His sire 
 was Electioneer, the greatest progenitor of 
 trotting stock." 
 
 Mr. Exall is not a Texan by birth; he is a 
 Virginian, but, like a good many other Tex- 
 ans by adoption, he is more intensely loyal 
 than the average native. 
 
 "When this country of ours had 30,000,000 
 of people where were they ?" asked Mr. Exall. 
 " East of the Mississippi, weren't they ? And 
 when the population had swelled to 60,000,- 
 000 what had happened west of the Missis- 
 sippi ? * When we have 100,000,000 people, where 
 will they live ? Have you ever thought of that? 
 When the population of the country went up 
 from 30,000,000 to 60,000,000, the whole region 
 west of the Mississippi was open to receive 
 them. Now. when our population is to go 
 from 60,000,000 to 100,000,000, the only pro- 
 ductive land that is open is in Texas. The 
 
 line of settlement, without irrigation has 
 been pushed about to the limit in the West and 
 Northwest. Texas alone presents any great 
 amount of unoccupied land. You may 
 think I am something of a crank on this 
 subject, but I only ask you to look at 
 what has happened in the last thirty years. 
 Immigration is still pouring in and the 
 country is growing faster than ever. 
 People have got to live somewhere. Texas 
 cities are too small instead of too large. In 
 Illinois 55 per cent of the population is in 
 towns of over 10,000 population. Texas has 
 9 per cent of her population in towns of over 
 10,000. The city of Dallas, with 50,000 people, 
 has 1,500,000 people within 125 miles. No 
 such condition exists in America, where there 
 isn't a city two or three times as large as Dal- 
 las. Yet we are the largest city within 500 
 miles of us in any direction. With such a 
 country, such products and such opportunities 
 for immigration there should be a city of 200,- 
 000 people. We shall wake up here some day 
 and find that we haven't the commercial 
 center to meet the demands of trade around 
 us. I tell these people they don't realize 
 what the conditions will be in Texas in ten or 
 fifteen years." 
 
 When people live as thickly in Texas as thev 
 do in Illinois, this State w'ill have 14,000,000 
 population. With as many people to the 
 square mile as New York State has to-day, 
 Texas could show a population of 27,600,000. 
 With the same number in proportion to area 
 that New Jersey counts Texas would be sup- 
 
 Sorting 63,800,000, or more than all counted 
 i the last census for the whole United States. 
 
 There will have to be some mighty changes 
 down here before Texas realizes on her possi- 
 bilities. In Dallas the sales of agricultural 
 implements amount to $12,000,000 annually. 
 No other city in the United States makes such 
 a showing. 
 
 Henry Exall said to John Deere, the plow 
 maker, not long ago, "Why don't you manu- 
 facture implements in Texas for Texas trade?' ' 
 
 " It isn't any use," said Mr. Deere. "You 
 people will buy and pay for the cost of trans- 
 portation." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Exall, "we are going to 
 manufacture implements in Texas." 
 
 "That's different," commented Mr. Deere. 
 "Then we'll come to Texas and manufacture, 
 too." 
 
 Texas has everything in natural resources, 
 It is only a matter of development. Metal and 
 wood working in all branches will have to 
 come. That there should be a haul of hun- 
 dreds of miles between the manufacturer and 
 the millions of Texas consumers is not in the 
 nature of things, with such forests and such 
 ore deposits as there are here. To-day there 
 is a string of cotton factories from Denison, 
 on the north line of the State, to Galveston, 
 on the Gulf. This is only a beginning. Texas 
 will not only raise her own wheat, save her 
 bacon and make her clothes, but she wi 1 
 manufacture her own implements and 
 vehicles, and roll her own steel rails, which 
 will make her first instead of third or fourth 
 among the States in mileage. It is in the 
 direction of varied industry that the future 
 greatness of Texas lies. 
 
 " We want young blood and more money in 
 Texas. I believe I can assist in getting both. 
 As soon as my duties will admit, I am going- 
 North to mingle with the people and tell 
 them what we've got for them in Texas.'' 
 So said Gov. Hogg a few days ago. 
 
 "Yes, sir," he added, "in a few months. 
 when I shall have entered upon my second 
 term, I am going to make a trip through the 
 North, and, by gatlins, I am going to say to 
 the people up there that their sons and 
 daughters will be as safe in Texas as they are 
 while walking the streets of Boston." 
 
 W. B. S, 
 

y