1883.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
277 
A Great State. 
BY CHARLES HALL0CK, AUTHOR OP “ SPORTSMAN’S 
GAZETTEER,” ETC. 
The territory of Texas extends 800 miles east and 
west, or one-fourth the distance across the United 
States, from San Francisco to the eastern coast of 
Maine. Two thirds of its surface is undulating, with a 
pleasant diversity of midland hills, locally termed moun¬ 
tains, though seldom exceeding 400 feet in hight, and 
these are as fertile as the plains. The State has no 
mountains except the rugged foot-hills of the Rockies, 
which flank her north-western border. She is well wa¬ 
tered, timbered, and spread with fields and pastures. 
Even the Staked Plain, which is designated on old maps 
as the “great American desert,” is composed of a fer¬ 
tile marl of the very best sort, excepting the sand-hills 
and a few other sandy districts; and even these same 
sand-hills are beautified in spring and early summer by 
myriads of trailing plants and flowers, and enlivened by 
humming-birds, quails, and hares. Indeed, this so- 
called arid tract is the supply reservoir of great rivers. 
In it the Colorado, Brazos, and Red rivers have their 
sources, and from its high table-lands richness is con¬ 
stantly drained, to increase the fertility of the river 
•valleys and the other lands lying below it. 
Mineral Wealllt. 
Texas has iron, coal, gold, silver, copper, load, nickel, 
antimony, and precious stones. She has granite, sand¬ 
stone, limestone, marble, slate, soapstone, lithographic- 
stone, graphite, asbestos, and grindstone. She has salt, 
petroleum, asphaltum, gypsum, cobalt, kaolin, potter’s- 
clay, fire-clay, manganese, arsenic, sulphur, soda, alum, 
bismuth, marl, and bat-guano, found in the numer¬ 
ous bat caves near San Antonio and in the Eagle River 
country on the Rio Grande. There are mineral, bitu¬ 
minous, and other medicinal springs in great number. 
Such of her coal beds as have been worked in Central 
Texas and on the Rio Grande, give great satisfaction, 
and the fuel is not only used for domestic purposes, but 
by the railroads. Wherever the coal formations are 
found, they are rich in iron ores. It is claimed that 
Eastern Texas alone has iron enough to supply the State 
for ages, while the ores which exist in the primitive dis¬ 
tricts of Llano and Burnet counties aro said to be the 
richest known, and the greatest in extent. They are 
chiefly magnetites, and often appear in great dykes of 
almost solid iron, yielding not less than 90 per cent of 
metal. As yet there is but one smelting furnace in the 
.'State 1 
Vast (ii.vpsuiii ISeils. 
The gypsum beds of North-western Texas are 60 
miles wide and 250 miles long, and some of the hills 
are 250 feet high I In quality it runs from the purest 
selenite to the more earthy varieties. There is gypsum 
enough in Texas to fertilize and thickly plaster the 
whole world ; and yet no railroad has ever reached this 
field of wealth. In South-western Texas are beds of 
solid salt, and lakes so impregnated with saline matter, 
that it is crystalized on the bottom in deposits eight 
inches thick; and these deposits, after being dug out in 
blocks and carted off, are renewed by Nature in two or 
three days 1 Hitherto these beds have been worked 
solely by Mexicans, after the most primitive fashion. 
On the Upper Pecos, near Horsehead Crossing, in North¬ 
western Texas, the salt has only to be shovelled up and 
sent to market; it is fit for table use without refining. 
A large number of counties in the State abound in 
copper ore, which is found in the hill-sides and on the 
surface, giving no trouble for mining or drainage. In 
Parker County four men took out 6,000 pounds in ten 
hours, averaging 60 per cent. Coal, timber, limestone, 
soapstone,and all the requisites for building furnaces and 
smelting the ores are found in the vicinity ! Of silver 
and lead, a sample from a three-foot vein in Llano county 
gave a yield of 286 ounces of silver and 74.45 ounces of 
lead. As to rock materials, I have seen dozens of quarries 
•of limestone, directly on the surface, that had only to 
be sawed on the spot, and fashioned into building 
blocks, which become hard by exposure to the air. Of 
marbles and the more valuable varieties of stone, there 
are many deposits, notably on the Colorado River, above 
Austin. These stones are largely employed in construc¬ 
tion of the better stores, warehouses, and dwellings. 
Agricultural Products. 
Of agricultural products—farm and garden—there may 
be enumerated all the grains, with their manufactured 
products of the distillery and mill—barley, buckwheat, 
broom-corn, Indian corn, cotton, jute, hemp, millet, 
wheat, rice, hay, grass, straw, and oats ; sorghum, sugar, 
molasses, honey, tobacco, tea, indigo, castor-bean* 
wine, and vegetables in profuse variety. Of grasses 
alone, there are at least 400 varieties, according to Four¬ 
nier. From the field and pasture come the cattle, 
horses, asses, mules, camels, sheep, goats, hogs, and 
poultry, with the manufactures of tannery, mill, and 
dairy. From tho sea-coast are derived oysters and fish 
in remarkable variety of species ; from the wild woods, 
game and fish ; while of miscellaneous products are silk, 
bricks, pottery, Mesquit gum, and ice, to say nothing 
of the issues of the foundry, the alembic, and the cruci¬ 
ble. Almost every considerable town in Texas now 
makes its own ice artificially ; and in the northern part 
of the State, Nature itself will do the work, for the 
winter temperature frequently drops nearly to zero. 
Nearly every other State has its few great staples, 
which constitute its sole source of revenue, but here is 
one which includes them all, and many more besides I 
Other States have a distinctive soil and contour—all 
sand, all rock, clay, swamp, or alluvium; open prairie, 
timbered forest, rounded hills, granite mountains, high 
table-lands, alkali deserts, or arid plains. Texas includes 
them all within her limits. Though her mountains are 
not conspicuous or abrupt, yet they are 5,' 00 feet above 
the sea level. The soil of Texas is so various in its 
character and color, that its combinations would equip 
a kaleidoscope. It runs through all the shades of yel¬ 
low, red, brown, and gray, with occasional marl tints of 
blue and green. There is the black waxy, red loam, 
black sandy, light sandy, chocolate loam, yellow clay, 
gray loam, red alluvium, red-brown, dark-brown, com¬ 
pact mulatto, black lime, and heavy “buckshot”—all 
locally different, and so distinctive that you can almost 
tell what part of the State a man is from by a glance at 
his boots—a fact which discounts detectives’ wages, and 
raises the fees of Pullman porters. While some parts 
of Texas are parched, cracked, and thirsty, others are 
as sticky as the Red River Valley of Dakota. 
American Horses lor llngiand. — 
Our horses are generally hardy, enduring, with good ac¬ 
tion. The fault most complained of with Englishmen 
is that too many of them are wanting in style, and that 
they are rather coarse in the head, shoulders, and 
haunches. We presume this comes from our paying too 
little attention to the choice of the stallion to which we 
breed. Those of the trotting class have hitherto been 
the greatest favorites to cross on common mares for the 
production of carriage horses. It is notorious that these 
stallions are frequently quite coarse, too short in the 
neck, carrying it too low, and with too large a head. A 
very fast trot has been the main thing sought for in 
these, while a fine, stout form and stylish action have 
been too much ignored. Englishmen do not care for a 
very fast trot; on the contrary, they rather despise it, 
as being more suitable for the butcher’s cart than the 
gentleman or ladies’ carriage. 
Dinkins si Wcll-Bncket. — Mr. “ M. 
T.,” East Point, Ga., sends us a simple method of sink- 
Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 
ing a well-bucket without the use of old plows, rocks, 
etc., which are commonly employed. Tie a small stick 
to the bail, that will reach the bottom, as shown in fig. 
1. When let into the water, it will tilt the bucket so as 
to sink it, as seen in fig. 2. 
Billet. —A farmer who has long grown the 
ordinary millet, and having a large dairy of over 50 
cows, says it is the best fodder of all he has tried (sor¬ 
ghum, amber cane, or sweet-corn, etc ), for making 
milk, whether cut green for soiling, or when first com¬ 
ing into bloom for hay. He gets two to three tons per 
acre, and will sow twenty acres this year. I have tried 
it repeatedly on my poor soil here, but never get a good 
—probably because not manured enough. Millet is 
cultivated like Hungarian grass. June is early enough 
to sow the millet, as it matures in six to eight weeks. 
In latitude of 40°, sow early in May, and again every 
two weeks through June, and thus get a succession of 
crops from July 1st through August. A. R. 
Priming* in June. —There is no better 
month than June for pruning small limbs of an inch in 
diameter or less. Whatever may have been done in the 
fruit yard at an earlier date, it is well to go through 
every pear, apple, and peach tree at this time, and re¬ 
move all superfluous wood, of which most cultivators 
leave far too much for pleasure or profit. Superfluous 
shoots start in just the wrong place, and the sap that is 
nourishing them is wanted in the fruit. To secure the 
largest and best fruit of which any variety is capable, 
we must have sunlight in the branches, as well as abun¬ 
dant nourishment within reach of the roots. The 
average apple tree in the orchard carries about twice as 
much wood as is needed to secure maximum profits. 
Thin the wood, and then thin the fruit upon the spared 
branches. A bushel of well grown pears will bring 
twice as much as the imperfect, half grown specimens 
often sent to market. And while you are looking 
through the tops of the trees, do not forget the collar, 
where the worm bores his way into the trunk, and leaves 
his mark outside. 
Sheep (iiriihs in tlie Head.— It is 
said that the grub may be easily removed by exposing 
the sheep to the sun during the day, and removing them 
to cover at night. The grub likes the light and heat of 
the sun, and for the sake of these is induced to leave 
its secret place up in the sheep's head, and crawl down 
so low in the nostrils that it can be blown out or pulled 
from them by the shepherd. Blowing tobacco or other 
sickening, disagreeable smoke up the nostrils, seems to 
have little or no effect in dislodging the grub, so irri¬ 
tating and often injurious. The best way is preven¬ 
tion, and to guard against the Gad-fly (CEstrus ovis) de¬ 
positing its eggs in the nostrils of the sheep, when 
the eggs hatch, the grub crawls up into the head. If 
the nostrils be kept well smeared with tar during July 
and August, the fly is prevented from depositing its 
eggs. Instead of doing this smearing by hand, a much 
easier and more expeditious method is to put fine salt 
in a trough, and cover this with tar. As the sheep come 
up to lick the salt, they get their noses well smeared. 
A good thing, also, is to turn up a furrow in the pasture 
for the sheep to thrust their noses into the loose ground. 
This also assists in keeping off the fly. 
Tlie American (’ontological So¬ 
ciety.—The biennial session of the American Pomo- 
logical Society is the most important horticultural event 
of the present year. We are pleased to see that President 
Wilder has caused early notice to be sent to all the mem 
bers that the next meeting will be held at Philadelphia, 
in Sept. The members are thus officially notified, but we 
would direct the attention of fruit-growers who are not 
members to this meeting. No one who grows fruit as 
an occupation can afford to remain outside of this So¬ 
ciety, and all who come under the head of amateur 
fruit-growers may derive much pleasure from its meet¬ 
ings. Nothing so encourages and helps one engaged in 
any occupation as to meet with others who follow the 
same pursuit, whether as a business or for pleasure. 
These meetings bring together fruit-growers from every 
State and Territory; and while the official reports and 
revisions of catalogues are of great importance, the real 
value of these gatherings is in bringing fruit-growers 
from distant points into personal acquaintance with one 
another. Though the society is large, it may well be 
larger, and every one interested in fruit culture will find 
the volume of transactions worth the cost of member¬ 
ship, which is $4.00 for each biennial meeting, or one 
can become a life-member by paying $40.00. The meet¬ 
ing will be held at the time of the Annual Exhibition 
of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which is al¬ 
ways attractive, and is expected to be of special im¬ 
portance this year. The timely notice sent to members 
will suggest the early selection of specimens, especially 
of new fruits, for exhibition at the meeting. 
Tlie Dentil of Henry D. Hooker, 
which occurred on April 12th, removes one of the 
prominent horticulturists of Rochester, N. Y. Mr. H. 
had been in the nursery business for the last forty years 
upon the same grounds, at times associated with others, 
but of late years alone, and enjoyed a wide and most 
favorable reputation. His loss will be felt by the 
American Pomological Society, of which he was an ac¬ 
tive member, and in the city of his birth, where he was 
highly esteemed for his genial private character and as 
a public spirited citizen. 
Ferns lor Stable llcddlng.— Those 
who have tried ferns say they are a better absorbent, 
and in other respects quite equal to coarse hay or straw 
for littering horses and cattle in the stable. Ferns grow 
plentifully in open woods and some other places of the 
country, where they are now suffered to go to waste. 
When they can be easily cut and dried, it is well worth 
doing so with farmers who are scant off for other bed¬ 
ding for their stock. After being cut and well dried, 
ferns may be stacked and kept as well outside as straw. 
The sides of the stack can then be cut down with the 
hay-knife, and the ferns taken to the stables as wanted. 
