THE TEXAS RICE BOOK. 61 



been regarded as of too small moment to be mentioned at all in 

 the year book of Agriculture, while other States producing less 

 than half the product of Texas are listed as among the great rice 

 producing States of the Union. 



In his visit to Texas in 1899, the Secretary of Agriculture 

 made several public addresses, one of which was before our Leg- 

 islature, in which he urged the necessity for diversification in 

 agriculture. In each of these addresses he stated that Texas ought 

 to be producing as much as 2,000,000 pounds of butter. 



The census reports of 1870 showed the product of that year to 

 be 3,712,474 pounds. The report of 1880, 13,899,320 pounds, and 

 the reports of 1890, 21,100,500 pounds, and if the rate of increase 

 sin.ce 1890 had been the same as in the previous ten years, was 

 producing over 50,000,000 pounds in 1899. 



Up to this date the greatest quantity of rice ever produced 

 in the State, according to United States estimates, was less than 

 110,000 pounds, when all know that the most conservative esti- 

 mates will give us all the way from 25,000,000 pounds up. 



These illustrations are not cited to disparage the great value 

 of the Agricultural Department at Washington, but rather to for- 

 tify the estimates based upon its reports. 



In order to get some idea as to the changes brought about 

 by the results of the Civil War, we may note that the assessed 

 valuation of all property in the State in 1860 was $294,315,639. 

 The first assessment after that war was in 1866, which showed 

 a shrinkage of $122,749,233. Among the items of assessed values 

 in 1860 was $106,698,920 of slave property. This was, of course, 

 a total loss, but in addition to this there was a shrinkage in other 

 property of $64,977,596. It took the State eleven years, or until 

 1877, to gain sufficiently to overcome tHis loss in property values. 



The cotton product of 1860 was 431,463 bales, and it re- 

 quired seven years to reach that point after the war. 



It is a fact worthy of notice that those counties which had 

 an excess of negro population in 1860, and maintained that excess 

 up to 1890, with an increase in white population of 61 per cent, 

 and an increase of 114 per cent in negro population, produced 31 

 per cent less cotton and other crops in 1890 than in 1860. To be 

 more specific, the Counties of Brazoria, Fort Bend, Grimes, Har- 

 rison, Marion, Matagorda, Walker, Washington and .Wharton 

 had, in 1860, a white population of 30,746, and a negro population 

 of 39,939, and made 124,417 bales, or about one-third of all the 

 cotton produced in the State. These same counties, in 1890, had 

 a white population of 49,649, and a negro population of 85,520, 

 and made only 93,148 bales, or about one-fifteenth of the State's 

 product for that year, or about one and three-quarters of a bale 

 per capita in 1860, and about two-thirds of a bale per capita in 

 1890, the disparity in other products being still greater. 



The State started out in 1870 with a population of 818,579, 

 an increase of 36.47 per cent over 1860. In 1880 the population 

 was 1,594,749, an actual increase in numbers of 773,170, the ratio 



