rNDEVELOPED EESOTJRCES OF THE SOUTH. 31 



valuable and marketable ; to wliich end, they will sometimes give 

 away a part to enhance the value of the remainder. Only a few 

 will do this ; but almost any one will sell a part very cheap in or- 

 der to obtain a price for the rest. And they are quite aware that 

 a Yankee or German colony raises the value of the lands all aroimd 

 it. 



The Railroads are in like circumstances. Some of them have 

 land-grants ; all want the population and prodiiction along their lines 

 rapidly increased. Their interest leads them to invite settlement 

 and encourage the transfer of lands from non-residents to cultivators. 

 Hence, while lands near railroad junctions and other locations of 

 predicted cities are held for higher rates, I judge that half the soil 

 of Texas is this day in market at prices ranging from 50 cents to 

 $2 per acre, and that $1 per acre in cash would buy the greater portion 

 of it. And, while a rapid rise along some of the railroad lines is 

 inevitable, I judge that $2 per acre will buy good wild laud in this 

 State for at least ten years to come. 



The least favorably situated of this vacant land is more eligibly 

 located to-day than the best was twenty years ago. Railroads are 

 bringing markets and comforts to every man's door. Milk sells for 

 $1 per gallon in this city ; there is not a quart of it to every thou- 

 sand cows throughout the State ; and you whiten your tea or coffee 

 with the condensed article from New York or you don't whiten it at 

 all, even at petty hamlets in the far interior, where a likely cow and 

 calf will bring not more than $10. 



As yet, the Mineral wfealth of this State sleeps undisturbed and 

 useless. She has Iron enough to divide the earth by railroads into 

 squares ten miles across ; but no tun of it was ever smelted. She 

 has at least five thousand square miles of Coal (probably much 

 more) ; but no tun of it was ever dug for sale. She has Gypsum 

 enough to plaster the continent annually for a century ; but it lies 

 inert and valueless-— a waste of earth-covered stone. She has more 

 land good for Wheat than Minnesota, yet imports nearly all her 

 Flour ; she has millions of acres of excellent Timber, yet builds 

 mainly of pine from Louisiana and Florida ; she sends to the Ohio 

 for her Hams and to New York for her Butter, and would import 

 Berries and Fruits if her people had not learned, while they were 

 unattainable, to do without them. If ten thousand Northern farm- 

 ers would settle just below Houston, and devote themselves to 

 supplying that city and this with fresh Milk, Butter, Strawberries, 



