EAST TEXAS. 31 



transportation prior to the building of railroads, which now traverse 

 every county in the Long Leaf Pine Belt. Near this belt are the cities 

 of Galveston and Houston. Galveston is already the largest cotton ex- 

 porting city in the world, having -received last year over 4,000,000 bales 

 and exported to foreign countries 3,876,936 bales. It also exports vast 

 quantities of cotton seed meal and cake, lumber, logs, wheat, corn, 

 packing house products and staves. Houston, which is almost adjacent 

 to the southwestern corner of this belt, is destined, in my opinion, to 

 become, during the next fifty years, the largest and most prosperous 

 city of the Great Southwest. Its growth and commercial importance 

 are attracting the attention of prospectors and investors from all parts 

 of the United States and from foreign countries. Hence the facilities 

 already exist for handling, marketing and exporting the products of this 

 belt, and as the cities mentioned turn their attention more and more 

 to manufacturing enterprises the demand will increase for the innum- 

 erable horticultural products for which the Long Leaf Pine Belt is par- 

 ticularly adapted. 



Besides these facilities it has churches and schools throughout the 

 large area, and many of the county seats are noted for a large degree 

 of interest now manifested in every movement which represents a 

 higher standard of intelligence, prosperity and morality. 



The country was originally settled by people representing the pure 

 Anglo-Saxon race from the Southern States east of the Mississippi 

 river. No foreigners and very few negroes ever lived in that section. 

 In 1858 the total number of negroes rendered for taxation in the coun- 

 ties of Polk, Jasper, Liberty, Jefferson, Newton, Orange, Sabine and 

 Tyler amounted to 5904, over 1200 less than Harrison county possessed. 



A county abounding in innumerable springs, clear running streams, 

 timber for all practical purposes, which ages will not exhaust, a climate 

 free from the cold blasts of winter and cooled by the Gulf breeze in the 

 summer, traversed by railroads, a soil capable of producing all vegetables 

 peculiar to any pait of the world north of the tropics, and many of the 

 fruits, also a largo variety of field crops, right in the lap of a civiliza- 

 tion which ha? existed since 1836, with millions of acres of land which 

 can be purchased for less than $10 per acre on easv terms a country 

 like that ought to interest a large number of the millions of good farm 

 tenants scattered throughout the land who would like to have homes. 



NEGLECTED AND OVERLOOKED. 



This neglected and overlooked section of Texas has furnished more 

 wealth, by far. than anv other area of the same size in the Southwest. 

 Hundred? of millions of dollars worth of oil have been taken from the 

 earth, and a? many more, perhaps, from the forests, and the streams con- 

 tinue to flow. Xo telling how long the oil will last, and the timber is 

 sure to hold out for about another quarter of a century. Besides these, 

 iron ore abounds in quantities so great that in the absence of the esti- 

 mates of geologist? I would not hazard a guess. But it is as a farming 

 country that East Texa? is to bestow its greatest blessing upon human- 

 ity. Not since the country wa? settled has there been a failure of all 

 crops. There are so many types of soil, adapted to so great a variety 

 of plant?, that though a few may once in a while fail, owing to ex- 



