b CHANGE OF VEGETATION ON SOUTH TEXAS PRAIRIES. 



Grande City, and Falfurrias, and may become one of the agricultural 

 resources of the intervening region. The warmer spring season of 

 south Texas entibles the palms to flower earlier than in southeastern 

 California, which compensates for lower temperatures later in the 

 season. 



The same qualities of soil which have produced desert conditions 

 by making the land relatively impervious to water while uncultivated 

 now render it extremely retentive of moisture under tillage. The 

 sand which has drifted in from the Gulf and covered extensive tracts 

 in the region south of Kingsville and Falfurrias often serves the use- 

 ful purpose of a mulch. The rain is absorbed and has time to soak 

 into the tenacious subsoil, and is there preserved from evaporation. 

 The presence of small, delicate types of soil-inhabiting animals 

 (scolopendrella, campodea, japyx, etc.) shows that these more sandy 

 prairies of south Texas are able to retain permanent supplies of 

 moisture instead of being subject to the complete drying out which 

 precludes the existence of such creatures in many of the more northern 

 parts of the State. 



The effect of tillage on the retention of moisture in the soil is also 

 shown sometimes in a very striking manner. Digging in the undis- 

 turbed soil of the prairie under the grass or among the desert shrubs 

 may find the soil dry and hard, with no evidence of moisture within 

 the range of the roots of crops. A few rods away where land of the 

 same kind has been cleared and tilled, digging shows a loam-like sub- 

 soil, darkened with moisture that can almost be squeezed out with the 

 hand, though no rain may have fallen for many weeks. 



It may be that in south Texas dry farming will be reduced eventu- 

 ally to an exact system, for it will be possible with modern scientific 

 appliances to measure the water in the ground almost as accurately 

 as if it were stored in tanks or reservoirs. The farmer can with- 

 hold his seed till he has water enough and may become less dependent 

 upon the vicissitudes of the weather than in regions where soils are 

 less retentive and plants must have rain during the growing season. 

 Excellent crops, especially of cotton, are often raised in south Texas 

 from this earth-stored moisture alone without any rain or irrigation 

 durino' the frrowino- season. The drvness of the air and of the surface 

 soil precludes serious injury from the boll weevil, giving this region 

 an important advantage over the more humid parts of the cotton belt. 



Land-hungry thousands who have not been satisfied in Oklahoma, 

 Kansas, or the Dakotas are now hearing of the attractions of south 

 Texas, and are arriving by trainloads to spy out the land. Unfortu- 

 nate speculations and '' booms '• and many individual losses and dis- 

 appointments Avill doubtless mark the history of this as of other 

 newly occupied regions of the West, but the fact will remain that 



[Cir. 14] 



