The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1878-08-24
LETTER fRuM TEXAS.
BoAnAM, Eannin County, Texas, 4
August 18th, 1878,

4
BoAnAM, Fannin County, Texss,l
i August 18th, 1875.
Editor Registr:-
Dear Sir: After SO long a delay
write this in compliance with promis'
made to many of the readers of you
paper, and old friends and neighbors
We started from lola, Kansas, on the
18th day Of May, struck the Indian Ma
ton at Baxter Springs, then through the
Nation to Dennison, Texas.
There is some very fine land in the
Nation, but, in my opinion, it is greatly
overrated. The roads were good in some
places and in others 90 bad that they
did not deserve to be called roads. In
places they were mountainous and rock y
and when ~e reached the Doggy Bot.
toms We thought the name hardly any
comparison for the mud we had to drag
through. We got through all right,
however, our teams standing the trip
very well. The green head flies were
very bad in places. When we got to
Red river the ferryman told US we might
take the covers off our mules and that
we would not zee any more green heads,
which we found to be the case, for we
have not been troubled with them since
There is q small black fly here that
bothers stock considerable. 1t resembles
the house fly.
We got to this place on the 22d OF
June. After stopping around few
days we rented house for the family 70
stop in and pastures for our teams. after
which started out to take look at the
country. Harris Christy, of Terre
Haute, Indiana, and John Boyd, of Tex
As went with me. We started on the 9Th
of July and travelled four weeks, passing
through Gascon, Cook, Montague, Clay,
Jack, Polo Pinto, Earth. Commanche,
Brown, McCullock, Hamilton. Bosque,
Sumner, Vile, johnson, ut. Worth in
rarrant county, Dallas and Collan coun.
ties. We found crops good in all the
country that we saw except where the
land was fiat black soil that had been 50
wet that it could not be cultivated.
Land of that class is a failure this year.
In a portion of Brown and Comman-.
che they have had hail storm that
destroyed their crop Of corn and cotton
entirely for space of about 8 by 20
miles, as near as we could learn. We
saw a great deal Of corn that 1 consider
good for any country. l think it will
average 40 bushels to the acre on all the
rolling land that has been any thing like
well cultivated. The people here tell
me that this has been an uncommonly
wet season. There is great deal of
cotton that has not been tended at all OH
account of wet weather. but where it
was planted on rolling land that would
drain, it has been cultivated and looks
we'll. Stock of all kinds appears to be
healthy and doing well, except hogs.
They are poor and in some places are
dying with what is thought to be choI.
era.
Is to the county in general, in my
opinion, it has its bad qualities as we'll
as its good. The land is very spotted,
some being almost as rich and good as !
have ever seen and some As poor. In
most of the country that l have seen
timber is tolerably plentiful but it is
short and scrubby. On the uplands it
is mostly post and live oak but on the
streams it is larger and in places very
good walnut, pecan, hickory. ash. elm,
cottonwood and buoisdarc and many
other varieties. In some places, for
short distance, water is rather scarce, and
not good at that, in other localities it is
plenty and good. In Cook county there
are some as nice running streams of water
as have ever seen in my life. 1t was
so clear that fish could be seen at the
bottom in six feet of water and there are
a great many springs. Although the
water does not appear to be as cold as
your Kansas wells still it is very good
and there appears to be but little trouble
to get it by digging. Notwithstanding
this there are some people that haul their
water in barrels from the creeks and
pools and use it and appear to be satis-
fed. They say it is the best water in the
and contend that it is more
healthy. The people where we trav-
sled appeared to be in first rate health,
until a few days before we got home, we
found some sickness and here in Fannin
county there is considerable at present,
not of a very serious nature, Il ostly
chills and fever.
The weather is very warm here at
present. As soon as it gets little cooler |
we expect to move out west to what is
called the Keechi Valley. The line
Jack and Polo Pinto counties
runs through this valley. This, think,
taken all together is as good, if not the
best locality we saw. The land is most
ly dark sandy soil with plenty of water,
timber and rock. Here the mesquite
grass predominates making both summer
and winter grazing and the mesquite
timber will make good fire wood, besides
The beans which it bears are said to fat