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A short sketch of the Panhandle, which has recently become so note- 

 worthy as a dry-farming country, may be of interest. Twenty years ago 

 the nearest railroad point was 500 miles away, and this region 

 was best known as being the greatest ranching country in the world. It 

 was here that the cattlemen and cowboys of the famous " X.Y.Z." ranch 

 rounded up their vast herds every spring. This ranch consisted of 

 3,000,000 acres, and one line of fencing extended for 127 miles. The 

 reader may ask how such a huge tract of land happened to come under 

 the management of one company. It was in this wise : — 



The late Mr. Abner Taylor, of Chicago, an architect, gox a concession 

 of 3,000,000 acres of land from the State of Texas at one dollar per acre 

 on condition that he built a State Capitol at Austin. That is to say, the 

 State did not contribute one cent towards this project, but simply gave 

 this vast tract of land, and Mr. Taylor had to try as best he could to raise 

 three million dollars. Failing to raise sufficient funds in the United 

 States, Mr. Taylor called in three English capitalists and secured them 

 as the trustees of this enormous estate, which was then incorporated under 

 the name of the " Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company, Ltd."' 

 For a long time this land was considered worthless, except for grazing 

 purposes, and could not be sold at fifty cents (2s.) an <icre. To-day a 

 portion of this property has passed into the hands of an American syndi- 

 cate, and is now being sold to actual settlers at from $10 (£2) per acre 

 and upwards. Two reasons may be given for this rise. In the first place it 

 is due to the high price now being given for land in the Eastern States, 

 where farmers can easily dispose of their farms at $150 per acre. Leaving 

 the crowded and worn-out fields of the Atlantic States, they can come 

 to the sunlit plains of Texas, where land is one-tenth or less than the 

 price of their old farms. Take a farmer with 100 acres in the 

 East ; he can easily change that for a holding of 1,500 acres in the 

 Panhandle, more than enough for himself and his family. 



Secondly, the development of dry-farming all over the West has 

 stimulated the immigration of settlers into this region. To-day there 

 are few or no free homesteads to be had in the State of Texas, and the 

 intending settler has to purchase raw unbroken prairie at an average price 

 of $7.50 per acre. In the early days a section (640 acres) of land could 

 be purchased at one dollar . (4s.) per acre from the Government, payable 

 over a period of forty years, with a merely nominal residence. But with 

 the gradual settlement of the State land can no longer be had on these 

 terms. 



I stepped off at Amarillo, the chief town in the Panhandle region. 

 Amarillo is a Mexican word meaning " Yellow City." The name, how- 

 ever, does not indicate the presence of gold dust. Here you find a town 

 of about 15,000 inhabitants, which is the distributing point of four rail- 

 roads. The chief crops raised in the vicinity are Kaffir corn, milo 

 (sorghum), wheat, oats, alfalfa (lucerne), and corn (maize). A large 

 packing house has just been erected. The raising of hogs is becoming 

 a great industry, but as yet there are few sheep on these plains. Horses 

 do excellently, and Texas mares have been mated with English thorough- 

 breds with good results. 



Amarillo has always been an important cattle shipping depot, and in 

 the early days the long-horned Texas steers were rounded up in 

 thousands to this centre, for a radius of over 200 miles. But 

 the big-horned ox, like the buffalo, has entirely disappeared from the 

 plains of the Panhandle^ and his place has been taken by the placid 



