EAST TEXAS. 29" 



Hon. George \V. Smyth,, writing of Jasper and its people, about 1858, 

 says: "I take pleasure in bearing my testimony to the integrity the 

 great moral worth of these early pioneers, a very few of whom I have 

 mentioned. Rarely, if ever, have I found among an equal number of 

 persons a greater amount of all that is most valuable in the American 

 character." Mr. Smith had an acquaintance with the people of that 

 section as far back as 1830. It can be said of that particular section,. 

 which cannot be said of any other in East Texas, that it was ever ex- 

 empt from feuds, so common elsewhere, that the peaceful pursuits em- 

 ployed the time and talents of its people, and neighborhoods were bound 

 together by the ties of genuine fraternity. 



From the beginning of the settlement of this section up to the 

 present time it has maintained the largest per cent of pure Anglo- 

 Saxon blood among its population of any other section of the same size 

 in the United States, 



The first settlers selected the most favored spots places where the 

 land was rolling and pines \vere absent. Woodville, the county seat of 

 Tyler county, was built in "the midst of a grove of magnolia trees/'' 

 Livingston, the county seat of Polk county, was noted for its schools- 

 and churches before the Civil War, and an abundance of peaches were 

 produced there sixty years ago. It should be stated that in all the well 

 drained country the Long Leaf Pine Belt peaches were cultivated with, 

 wonderful success long before the Civil War. 



The cut over lands of this section are beginning to attract marked 

 attention. As stated elsewhere, the pioneers selected the most desirable 

 spots, and left the great forests entirely alone. The long leaf pine 

 forests had no value. The land upon which they grew was thought to- 

 be almost worthless, and as there was no demand for lumber and no 

 way to create any demand for it, the dismal solitude of the thick, tall 

 pines reigned supreme until a few decades ago. Railroads first pene- 

 trated the wilderness, sawmills came as a matter of course, and trains 

 from the trunk lines reached out gradually, bringing in the logs as 

 fast as the mills could cut them into lumber. Forest after forest 

 melted away, new mills came, and soon millions of dollars were in- 

 vested in machinery until the great belt reaching from the Trinity to- 

 the Sabine, and from Orange to Lufkin, the busy hum of the ravenous 

 steel teeth never ceased day or night. And now the scene is beginning^ 

 to change again. Hundreds of thousands of acres, bereft of their huge- 

 forest?, wall in the next decade assume an entirelv different aspect. The- 

 homeseeker will not very long defer the last opportunity in Texas to 

 avail himself of a cheap home. 



Mr. T. 0. Walton, Agricultural Agent, appointed by the Department 

 of Agriculture of Washington, D. C., in reply to an inquiry from the 

 writer with reference to the "cut over lands" of the Long Leaf Pine 

 Belt, says : 



"LIVINGSTON, TEXAS, May 9, 191. 



"DEAR COLONEL MILNER: Beginning with Polk, I believe the fol- 

 lowing will be an approximate of the lands cut over in the Long Leaf 



