winter months and during July and August. 

 Farther north the heaviest rainfall occurs during 

 the winter and in April and May; here August is 

 the driest month of the year. There is no part 

 of the unit that receives less than 2 inches of rain- 

 fall per month. The mean temperature during 

 the winter months is between 50° and 60° F., 

 while the mean during the summer months is 

 about 80°. Variations in temperature are greatest 

 in the uplands. Sudden changes in temperature 

 occur during the winter in connection with cold 

 waves that sweep across the unit at irregular 

 intervals. The average date of the first killing 

 frost is about December 1. while the last in the 

 spring is about March 1 . 



EROSION 



The terrain generally has such a gentle topog- 

 raphy that run-off is gradual and advanced erosion 

 is comparatively lacking. From systematic ob- 

 servations made on the 12,528 sample plots sur- 

 veyed, it is estimated that marked erosion occurs 

 on about 4 percent of the gross area. 



Economic and Industrial Conditions 



Active settlement of this unit began with the 

 establishment of the Republic of Texas in 1836, 

 when settlers began to drift in from other Southern 

 States. The population growth was slow for 

 many years, and it was only with the building of 

 railroads and the establishment of the lumbering 

 industry, in the latter part of the nineteenth 

 century, that the population of southeast Texas 

 materially increased. In 1901 oil was discovered 

 at Beaumont, leading to an influx of people from 

 every State in the Union; and since 1900 there has 

 been an increase in the population of the unit of 

 200 percent. 



PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES 



The total population of the unit, according to 

 the 1930 census, is about 740.000 people, 290,000 

 of whom live in Houston, the largest city in the 

 unit. Beaumont and Port Arthur are thriving 

 industrial cities, each having slightly over 50,000 

 inhabitants. Outside of these three cities the 

 population is chiefly rural with an average of 19 

 people per square mile. The county seat in each 

 county is usually the largest town and the center 

 of retail trade for the surrounding territory. 



Seventy percent of the people in the unit are 

 American-born whites. Negroes are more numer- 

 ous here than in any other section of Texas, con- 

 stituting 24 percent of the total population. 

 Mexicans, foreign-born whites, and a few Indians 

 make up the remaining 6 percent. 



TRANSPORTATION AND SHIPPING 



This unit is well supplied with railroad facilities. 

 Four large railway systems — the Southern Pacific, 

 Missouri Pacific, Santa Fe, Kansas City Southern, 

 with several interconnecting lines — provide ade- 

 quate means of transportation. 



Deep-water seaport facilities are available at 

 Houston, Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Galveston. 

 The Intracoastal Canal connects Port Arthur and 

 Galveston with New Orleans and other Gulf ports 

 to the east. Continuation of this canal westward 

 to Freeport and Corpus Christi, where sulphur and 

 soda are found, is proposed. 



Paved highways radiate from the larger cities to 

 all parts of the unit with connecting improved 

 secondary roads at frequent intervals. Many miles 

 of woods roads recently constructed by the Civilian 

 Conservation Corps open up forest areas hitherto 

 inaccessible to motor vehicles. Excepting parts 

 of the "Big Thicket" in Hardin County, few areas 

 exist that are more than 5 miles from a road 

 passable at all seasons. 



Several thousand miles of pipe line within the 

 unit, extending many additional miles to other 

 States, facilitate the movement of crude oil and gas 

 to consuming centers, particularly to Houston, 

 Beaumont, and Port Arthur. 



AGRICULTURE 



According to the 1935 census, there are 3,180,000 

 acres of land in farms in over 35,000 ownerships. 

 The farms average 90 acres, of which 33 acres are 

 woods or woodland pasture. Since 1930 the area 

 in farms had increased 18 percent, but the land 

 available for crops had increased only 3.5 percent. 



Large-scale farming methods prevail in the 

 coastal counties of the unit. On the grasslands not 

 suited to rice or other crops, great numbers of beef 

 cattle are produced. Nearly 200,000 head were 

 on the range in the early part of 1935. Rice is the 

 chief cultivated farm crop, as it is well suited to the 

 dark clay soils. Power machinery is used for 

 planting and harvesting. Control of irrigation 



