Connecticut western news., 1881-07-06

ED. NEWS The good people of Blanco Go
 are at present in 2 state of excitement ovel
 the prospect of 8 railroad through their par qf the eeoppty: ,,The West Texas Marrow
 """ S. h' ss0eas!Y chartered ta F4P from p!
 houstan to klo u.. Grande, and of which Col. Fred. Grants cn... l engineer, they think will pass up the valley of
 the Blanco. The road will undoubtedly be
 built, but we may not have it, for the people either on one side or the other of us may may
 have more money or influence. Among other of the benefits to be derived from railroad through Blanco, the "Star Vindicator"-our Blanco paper-states the following:
 WHAT WE CAN CONFIDENTLY HOPE FoR.-As soon as a railroad reaches us, which we have little doubt will be by January 1st, 1888, at ! the very furthest, Blanco City will become one of the most popular places of resort in western l Texas. There is not another town in the state | that can afford the advantages it can. Being sheltered by the mountains, from the cold winds of winter, invalids from the North will come here and remain till warm weather sets in then those from the coast counties will come and stay till winter. This will give us 8 transient population sll the year round and 6 class of people too, who will have money and l necessarily spend it with us, all of which will greatly benefit the town. And then in addi- ! tion to this there will be 6 continual accession to our permanent population, which in a very few years will make Blanco 8 thriving town with several thousand inhabitants. We of course Dever expect to be 6 great railroad center, and consequently can never hope for it to become 8 great city, but we confidently be- lisve it will, before many years have rolled around, be quite lively railroad town and 8 most desirable pace to live in,
 Perhaps some of your readers would like to know how cotton is cultivated. It is usually grown on land that has had corn on it the year before, and after the old stalks and trash has been burned, the land is plowed with a %ho rows and throwing the soil towards the mid- dle, leaving 1t in beds the width of 6 row, throw open the top of the bed with g scooter blow, SOW the seed in the furrow and cover it scooter stock. In two weeks, if the weather is favorable, the turning blow is run with the | land side towards the cotton, which leaves the | ground nearly level, and it is thinned out with | 5 hoe, 10 one plant in place, from the width | of the hoe to two feet or more apart, as the | land is poor and rich then run your shovel blow around the rows to 'sdirt it." and after | wards keep weeds down with the hoe and sweeps of different width, until about the mid- dle of July, when you blow it with common blow, throwing the dirt to the cotton. Sweeps are like shovel blows only wider, some as wide as twenty inches. The different workings al known as bedding up, planting, barring of, ing by. It begins to bloom in July, and takes about six weeks to mature. Picking is the l most tiresome of all the work of raising cot ton, and it takes an extraordinary good hand to get 200 lbs. of seed cotton in day. find those that tell of getting two or three hum dred in . day, but when you come to work with them it dwindles down 100 or 125. Cotton that thirds itself, that is, turns out one pound of lint to three of seed, is reck oned as about the best There are gins in every netghbor- hood, and those who do not own one give one twelfth seed cotton for toll. A cotton gin is 8 machine about as large as 6 flaming mill. and is . set ofsforty or more saws ike circular saws, ,n cylinder, with two brushes back of them that brush of the lint and throws it into g .oom for the purpose, back of the gin. The 'aws run towards the man that feeds, and in ront is 6 space large enough to hold 6 quan- ity of cotton, which tulns with the saws, and he roll is kept full by the feeder the seed lropa under the gln st the feet of the feeder. With forty saw gin built for horses, two boys md man can gin tive bales in day.
 TEXAN.