318 THE IRON ORE DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



HOUSTON COUNTY. 



BY E. T. DUMBLE. 



Lying immediately south of Anderson County, and situated like it between 

 the Trinity River on the west and the Neches on the east, is Houston County. 

 This county, which has a total area of eleven hundred and seventy-six square 

 miles, is bounded on the south by Trinity County, and is the most south- 

 western county of the iron ore district, as far as we were able to ascertain 

 during the past field season. 



Its topography somewhat resembles that of Anderson County, particularly 

 in the northern portion, where the formations are a continuation of those de- 

 scribed in that county. In the south, however, beds of a newer formation 

 appear, and with different conditions a somewhat different topography exists. 



The divide between the Trinity and Neches rivers is an elevated ridge or 

 backbone running approximately north and south through the centre of the 

 county, and the general surface of the country is rolling, and even becomes 

 quite broken and hilly in the northern portion. There are several small 

 lakes in the county, and the creeks, which are slowly cutting into the dividing 

 ridge, flow southeast and southwest respectively to the rivers which bound it. 

 Many of these creeks are well supplied with fish and differ from the streams 

 further west in that they are never-failing. The principal tributaries to the 

 Neches are Cochino, Hickory, Camp, Piney, and San Pedro creeks, while on 

 the west we have the Big Elkhart, Little Elkhart, Hurricane, Caney, Negro, 

 White Rock, and Tantobrogue flowing into the Trinity. 



About one-fourth of the entire area of this county is prairie land, scattered 

 here and there in small bodies, while the balance is covered with timber, 

 some parts of it being heavily wooded with various kinds of oak, pine, ash, 

 and hickory, with some pecan along the Trinity River. 



According to the report of the Department of Agriculture for last year 

 there was only eight per cent of the total acreage of the county under culti- 

 vation. Corn, cotton, sorghum, oats, and sweet potatoes are the principal 

 crops, but orchards are being planted, and the entire suitability of the soils 

 of certain localities for this purpose, and the presence of greensand marls for 

 fertilizing, offer every condition of success for this industry. 



The soils of this county, depending as they do on the varied underlying 

 geological horizons, are of considerable diversity. The soil of the prairies 

 varies from a sandy to a clayey loam. The timbered lands in the valleys 

 vary from light brown to chocolate loams and clay soils, while the uplands 



