TOPOGKAPHY OF TEXAS. 23 



stead may find it more valuable, more attractive than the last, and 

 leave it better still. 



Farmers of Texas ! I bring you mainly old and homely truths. 

 No single suggestion of this Address can be new to all of you ; 

 most of them, I presume, will be familiar to the majority. There are 

 discoveries in Natural Science and improvements in Mechanics 

 which conduce to the efficiency of Agriculture ; but the principles 

 which underlie this first of arts are old as Agriculture itself. Greek 

 and Roman sages made observations so acute and practical that the 

 farmers of to-day may ponder them with profit, while modern liter- 

 ature is padded with essays on farming not worth the paper they 

 have spoiled. And yet, the generation whereof I am part has wit- 

 nessed great strides in your vocation, while the generation prepar- 

 ing to take our places will doubtless witness still greater. I bid 

 you hold fast to the good, with minds receptive of and eager for the 

 better, and rejoice in your knowledge that there is no nobler pursuit 

 and no more inviting soil than those which you proudly call y6ur 

 own. 



TEXAS... THE STATE MATERIALLY CONSIDERED. 



[EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE TRIBUNE.] 



HousTON^, Texas, May 25. — " How do you like Texas ? " I have 

 been many times asked during the week I have been in the State — 

 asked even before I was at all qualified to give an answer of any 

 value. Now that I have ti-aveled some hundreds of miles, mainly 

 in the valleys of the Trinity and the Brassos, I can speak somewhat 

 more to my own satisfaction. Still, it should be considered that I 

 have as yet seen only the south-eastern quarter of Texas, and but 

 a small proportion of that. Of course, I knew long since that Texas 

 has a warm though variable climate, and a soil generally, though not 

 uniformly, fertile. Few who read considerably can need to be told 

 so much. Let me endeavor to indicate the points on which obser- 

 vation has modified my former impressions. 



I. Texas seems to be better timbered than any other prairie State 

 with which I am acquainted. I do not mean that the timber is ex- 

 ceptionally good, for it is not. Eastern Kansas, with her Hickory 

 groves and the stately, luxuriant forests that cover the intervales 



