The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-03-08
Texas Letter.

Texas Letter.
G1DD1NGs, Lee Co., Texas, !
w. - February 25th, 1876.
Editor Grange Advunce:-
In order that you may not consider me
entirely lost to view in this great al
mighty State Of ours, I will address
your readers again. I have been on
the wing somewhat since last wrote
you, and have seen considerable Of the
country and something of the people,
and I find my opinion of both is very
much the same as it was some time ago.
The first town on the Galveston, Har-
risburg and SanAntonio railroad, west
of Columbus, that is of any Importance
is Weimar. 1t lies considerably higher
than Columbus and is situated on the
prairie. l can describe it in one word
Kasson. 1t is as near like Kasson on the
Winona aud St. Peter railroad as two
peas. Next comes Schulurburg, which is
aourishing little town of five or six hun
dred inhabitants, but, as usual, in our
Texas towns, there are no manufactures,
unless a blacksmith shop or two and a
carpenters and a wagon shop can be
properly called manufactures. There
is no particular need for manufactures
no how as we find it so much cheaper to
buy our wagons at Racine, Wisconsin;
and our furniture at Evansville, Indiana;
our plows in st. Louis; our cotton goods
in New York and Massachusetts; and
everything else almost that we use we
find it to our advantage to buy up there
somewhere. A cook stove that can be
bought in your town to day at $25, we
can buy here at $45, and pound of
butter that you can buy there at 25
cents, we buy here at so cents. From
New York you see. 1t makes it so
much nicer for us as we have no cattle
here.
TEXAS CATTLE.
A word or two about those same cat
tie will not be out Of place here. Your
people would naturally form the idea, by
reading emigration documents, that cat
tie in this country are rolling in grass
the year round, and are fat all the time.
The fact is they do manage to get
their living without help from their
owners, but they ere not fat at this
season Of the year and beefsteak, in
this country, from November until April
is fully As tough and will bear as much
chewing as Minnesota beef. Through
out the balance Of the year beef here is
the finest in the world, juicy tender and
sweet. Cattle here are greatly given to
horn. 1t is nothing uncommon to see
cows, measuring from tips to tips of
their horns fully four or five feet. They
give but little milk, but that is partly
owing to their getting but little care.
The average Texan has never learned
that cows will sometimes eat salt, if it
is offered them. The usual maner Of
milking them is as follows: A farmer
has say p cows which are to supply him
with milk and butter. His milk maid
"Polly," who Of course is an American
lady of African descent, drives them up
in the evening and turns them into IL
pen with their respective calves, and
the calves, Of course, help themselves to
supper. Polly presently ropes one of
them off, and milks the cow moment
until she gets between gill and Thin
bic full. She then ropes off another
and another until finally, at the close OF
the performance, she has, perhaps
twelve quarts Of milk in her pail from
twenty two cows, and it remains an open
question in the minds Of the COWS
whether they have been most MIXED or
most sucked. The above is a true pic
ture of one case. in which III! of the
drove put together did not average
twenty-four quarts per day. Number
of COWS stated twenty.swo; and this
was last summer when feed was good.
Under a little different management. I
am satisfied they would do better.
TEXAS HORSES.
Now, to start on, l will say that there
are some fine horses in this state; but
among some thousands that have seen,
within the past seven or eight months.