Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1876-04-21
TEXAS As 1T is.

A SuperNbandauce Of GentIeme en-
and Not Enough Parmers-Supel. /.
nuouR merchants and No Manufae.
lures DFRwbacks OF the Climate.
Houston Correspondence Chicago Tines
The number of doctors and law
yers hereis out Of all proportion to
the population, These professions
are crowded TO suffocation, and
hundreds of young men are forced
to throw them up, emigrate, or find
some other employment, Men
who live upon their wits" are
found in swarms around the cities
and villages. l never saw more
litigation, more criminal prosecu-
tions, than here, but l never saw
more lawyers ready to do it. Of
doctors we have the greatest abun-
dance-some among them who are
not graduates, but quacks who
have played out at everything else.
Merchants and peddlers and
hucksters are as thick as negroes
in Guinea. In a word, there are
too many of all other classes in
Texas but farmers. A Georgian
said to me yesterday: al have been
all over the State, and have come
to the conclusion that if a man
wants to farm he can do better here
than anywhere else in the South,
but if he wants to follow anything
else he had better stay away" The
remark was not altogether correct
For instance, there is almost liter
ally nothing manufactured in the
State-no cloth, no agricultural
implements, and no paper mills
The two OF three hundred papers
and publication offices of one sort
or another, the merchants and all
who use paper, have to send else
where for every scrap they use.
Yet there is fine, pure mountain
water about Austin admirably
suited for the purpose, while waste
linen and other rags, waste cotton,
ETC., are thrown away because there
is no one to buy. Of course all
these things will be cured as the
country grows older.
WINDS AND RAINS.
One drawback to the successful
pursuit Of agriculture in Texas is
the uncertainty of the seasons.
Some years it rains almost every
day, and during some other springs
and summers it does not rain at
all. 1t rarely ever hits exactly
right. Old planters, however, in
sist that as the State is put under
cultivation, the seasons are becom-
ing regular-that the breaking up
and tilling Of the ground exerts an
influence over winds and clouds,
and that they do not have drouths
near SO often as fifteen or twenty
years ago. l have heard Californi-
ans say the same thing, asserting
that the rainy and dry seasons
known there twenty-five years ago
are not at all as they used to be.
But when a Texan gets rains at
the proper time his crops are sim
ply prodigious-one and even two
bales of cotton, forty or fifty bush
els of wheat, and fifty or sixty
bushels Of corn to the acre.
CATTLE ON A THOUSAND HILLS,
AND NO MILK,
One would suppose that a coun-
try which annually sends to Ohica-
60, St. Louis, New York and New
Orleans beef cattle by the ten thou
sand wonld flow with rich milk.
The first thing which struck me at
the hotel-table was a dish of Co
shen butter, and when the waiter
handed around ''oondensed milk"
put up in Maine, to go into my tea,
l was dumbfoundedl When l
called for q glass Of milk, the reply
was they had none except in those
little tin canisters. Upon inquiry
l learned that men owning cattle
by the thousand never have any
milk or butter save that which is
bought. True, there are beginning
to be little dairy farms around
cities and large towns from which
you can obtain limited supplies at
twenty cents per quart and some
thing resembling condensed whey
Or pressed lard for butter, at fifty
cents per pound,