The Texas Almanac for 1869 and Emigrant's Guide to Texas. Page: 101
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PRODUCTIONS OF TEXAS. 101
ground requiring much less labor. Of course he makes some additions to
house-room, and makes other improvements. Meantime his small stock of
cattle, sheep, and pigs increases without any cost to him but a little attention.
This second year he cultivates some 15 acres in corn, and 10 or 12 in cotton,
while he sows several acres in oats, barley, wheat, or rye, and plants an acre
perhaps in sorghum. . This year he makes 7 or 8 bales or more of cotton, at a
moderate estimate, and about 30 bushels of corn to the acre. He is now able
to repay his neighbors for such assistance as they rendered him the first year
in the way of corn and bacon, or otherwise. He finds other immigrants set-
tlingin his neighborhood, and they furnish a market for any surplus of provi-
sions he can spare.. He has now some goats large enough to kill, or some
sheep for mutton, as there are none who may not have both. Indeed, he may
have pigs, chickens, and eggs to sell, as well as corn, and perhaps some small
grain and potatoes.
'he third year his force has increased, as his sons are able to do much more,
and he can now increase his teams and the number of his plows. The spare
money from the sale of his second year's crop enables him to get improved
agricultural implements, and thus increase the products of his small farm
without adding much, if any, to his expenses. He is now able to cultivate
well some 50 or 75 acres, and, under ordinary circumstances, he raises cotton
enough to command $1000, besides what he realizes from sales of other pro-
duce at the nearest market or to immigrants. If he has paid early attention
to fruit-trees,, he has now a supply of peaches and other fruits. He can now
purchase a cotton-gin and corn-mill, either by himself or conjointly with one
or two neighbors. By this time his stock of cattle, sheep, hogs, etc., has more
than doubled, and if he owes $200 or $300 on the purchase of his farm, he is
able to pay it, and to buy additional land if necessary. Indeed, he is now
quite independent, and his farm and stock have become valuable; and it is
easy to see that it only requires a few years more of steady industry, economy,
and good management to make him a wealthy man. There are, indeed, many
such in the State who commenced with almost nothing but a few years ago,
and there would now be many more such but for the heavy losses by the late
war.
The aboveisbelieved to be a fair and unexaggerated statement of what has
been and is now being done by small farmers in Texas, and may be done by
all. Nothing is needed but industry and an average business capacity. We
could cite instances of a much more rapid accumulation of property; but as
they are partly attributable. to unusual good luck, or to successful.trading,
they would be no fair criterion, and might awaken expectations that would
often end in disappointment.
PRODUCTIONS OF TEXAS.
THE immigrant to a new country naturally desires to know what kind of
products the soil and climate will enable him to raise profitably. We ill-
here remark that there is not probably another country in either the eastern
or western hemisphere adapted to so large a variety of valuable productions;
and we will here proceed to enumerate some of them, stating, at the Same
time, that we can think of no product of the temperate zone that is not suc-
cessfully raised in Texas, or may not be, though, as is elsewhere stated, some
articles are better adapted to some parts of Texas than to others. Corn and
potatoes, (both sweet aid Irish,) all kinds of beans and peas, pumpkins,
squashes, melons, cabbages, cucumbers, rhubarb, or the pie-plant, the egg-
plant, beets, turnips, carrots, onions, ochre, tomatoes, and indeed nearly all
kinds of vegetables, are produced abundantly and about equally well in
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The Texas Almanac for 1869 and Emigrant's Guide to Texas., book, 1869~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth123774/m1/93/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.