AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



77 



CONDUCTED BY 



Greenville. Texas. 



No. 3. — Texas and Her B-esources. 



As the black lands are all about the 

 same as described on pages 780 and 

 781, we will drop down to south and 

 southwest Texas. Here we strike as 

 pretty a country as eyes ever saw, with 

 its mountains and valleys and broad 

 prairies and fine woodlands. 



I will begin near Galveston, and lead 

 you along the first and second tiers of 

 counties all the way around lo El Paso, 

 about 600 miles. I will call your atten- 

 tion to Brazoria county first. Here we 

 have a county rich, healthy, and pro- 

 ducing fruits and vegetables by the 

 train load. Horticulture is beyond all 

 question the leading industry of this 

 county. Its development during the 

 past three years has been very remark- 

 able indeed. It is estimated that more 

 orchards have been planted in the last 

 two years than ever existed before. We 

 have only begun to reach the markets 

 of the world. South Texas is fortunate 

 in being able to grow to perfection hor- 

 ticultural products that can be raised on 

 a commercial basis in few, if any, other 

 parts of the United States. Among 

 these are the orange, lemon, lime, citron, 

 fig, olive, English walnut, apricot, 

 raisin, grape, prune, and all kinds of 

 winter vegetables ; such as cabbages 

 grow best in winter. 



A mine of wealth lies in the soil of 

 Brazoria county and south Texas for 

 the tiller of the soil. When I was there 

 two years ago they were harvesting 

 their third crop of Irish potatoes, about 

 Nov. 10th, and they were exceedingly 

 fine. Sweet potatoes grow and yield 

 bountiful crops, some reaching the enor- 

 mous yield of 500 bushels per acre. 

 Drouths are almost unknown in this 

 part, as it lies only about 2 to 20 miles 

 from the coast, and reaching the west 

 in some places ; one at Velasco, the deep 



water part of Texas ; from 4 to 10 feet 

 under ground you get plenty of fresh 

 water, clear and sparkling, and the 

 lands are more or less sub-irrigated, 

 which makes vegetation grow to im- 

 mense proportions in a single season. I 

 saw pear trees there that were two to 

 three inches in diameter at the ground, 

 and as tall as a common house, that 

 grew in one season. 



The growing of winter vegetables has 

 become one of the leading industries, 

 and these are shipped North. Many 

 carloads of vegetables left Alvin last 

 winter, and in early spring a number of 

 carloads of strawberries were shipped. 



FLOKTICULTUKE IN TEXAS. 



Some countries raise millions of dol- 

 lars worth of flowers annually, and why 

 not south Texas ? While at Alvin I 

 saw one florist planting out several acres 

 of the cape jessamines. He was ship- 

 ping them to New York at large profits, 

 and said this was the finest place in the 

 world for that business. 



If one is not satisfied to raise one kind 

 of crop, it will allow diversified farming. 

 Cotton grows luxuriantly, as this used 

 to be a large slave cotton-growing coun- 

 try before the War. Rice will grow also, 

 as well as most other cereals and nutri- 

 tious crops, etc. 



Now, I might write a book as large as 

 Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, and 

 not tell the half of what Texas is. But 

 I must necessarily be brief, as my time 

 is limited. Jennie Atchley. 



(Continued next week.) 



Tons of Honey Taken. 



Mrs. Atchley :— We have taken 183^ 

 tones of honey from 176 colonies so far 

 this season, and expect some more yet. 

 Emerson Bros. 



Santa Ana, Calif., June 1, 1893. 



Killing: Ants— Mating of Queens. 



I notice in a late issue of the Bee 

 Journal that a correspondent gives as 

 an ant exterminator "Rough on Rats." 

 I tested the remedy the next day after 

 reading it. I made it into a thin dough, 

 aud put a small piece of the poison on a 

 little strip of brown paper, folded the 

 paper around a stick, and placed a bate 

 under each nucleus. In 10 or 12 hours 

 I examined the hives, and found that it 

 had successfully killed two different 

 varieties of ants. But the meanest tribe 



