34 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES 
Texas was probably less than 30,000. Ten years later it was 100,000, 
with 35,000 slaves. The density of population is now 22.2 to the square 
mile. The largest city is Houston, with a population of 292,352, and 
the other large cities in order of size are Dallas, San Antonio, Fort 
Worth, and El Paso. The population includes about 20 per cent of 
persons regarded as ‘‘Mexican,”’ most of whom live in the southern 
part of the State, and every season many laborers come from Mexico 
to assist in harvesting cotton and other crops. 
Texas has vast agricultural interests, for, according to the census 
reports for 1930, nearly 75 per cent of its land area is in farms or 
ranches, which, with buildings and machinery, are valued at 
$3,779,593,795. Among the principal items of production in 1929 
were rice, 5,158,544 bushels (from 105,616 acres); hay, 650,992 tons; 
and cotton, 3,793,392 bales (500 pounds each), or 40 per cent of the 
cotton produced in the United States. In 1926, a record year, the 
cotton crop was 5,620,831 bales. In 1929 vegetables valued at 
$14,125,151 were produced, and grains other than rice 217,000,000 
bushels. The aggregate value of agricultural products in 1929 was 
more than $1,000,000,000. The production of grapefruit in 1929 was 
997,551 boxes, but as yet only one-third of the trees are productive. 
Although most of the great ranches of former days have been sub- 
divided, the number of cattle in the State in 1930 was 6,602,702 head, 
and of sheep and goats, 10,163,655 head.” In 1929 the wool and mo- 
hair clip was 50,302,601 pounds, valued at $16,636,096; 4,726,363 
pounds of honey was produced; the fig crop was 8,425,468 pounds; 
peanuts, 2,290,000 bushels; and pecans, many of them from cultivated 
trees, 9,588,376 pounds. Pecan trees, some of them 3 feet in diameter, 
grow wild in most parts of central and eastern Texas. According to 
the Texas Almanac, Texas ranks seventh among the States in lumber 
production, with a cut of 42,000,000,000 board feet in 1910-1930, not 
counting poles, posts, ties, and unrecorded wood for local use. 
Texas leads in sulphur production, having shipped in 1930, accord- 
ing to the United States Bureau of Mines, 3,372,338 tons, valued at 
$30,841,065, or between 80 and 90 per cent of the world output and 
97 per cent of the output of the United States. This mineral comes 
from the Gulf coast region not far west and southwest of Houston. 
The petroleum output was 296,876,000 barrels in 1929 and 290,457,000 
barrels in 1930, and a large amount of natural gas was utilized. Much 
of the petroleum is produced in the portion of the Gulf coast region 
traversed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Extensive deposits of 
lignite occur, also some bituminous coal, of which in all about 1,000,000 
tons is mined annually. The cannel coal of Santo Tomas, in Webb 
Many of the Boats are Angoras, | The first ones were introduced in 1849, 
J p of 3 to 8 pound h, | a gift from the Sultan of Turkey. 
