Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-08-12
THE PANHANDLE.
Immigrants Pouring Into the Great
Garden Spot by the Hundreds.
Lands Rapidly Advancing in value, the Towns
Improving ana the Crops All that
Could be Asked.
Travelling Correspondence Of the Gazette.

Travelling Correspondence of the Gazette.
| WICHITA FALLS, Tex. Aug. 10.-We
have just returned, thus far, from tour
| of the Panhandle via the Fort Worth and
| Denver railway as far northwest as the
Canadian river The rapid development
| Of this country is certainly without par
aliel. The immigration pouring into these
| Panhandle counties is wonderful and
cannot be appreciated without being
| seen. During the day we passed train
| after train OF wagons going northwest.
We began to count the wagons, after
passing Henrietta, but after counting
| more than two hundred between that
| it up. More than one hun
| bred wagons passed through Childress
yesterday going west. ChiIdress county
however, is getting her share of the i'm
migration This is a magnificent county
| and as the railroad lands are beng placed
on sale excellent bargains can be had
there, and hundreds of good substantial
people are taking advantage of the
opportunity.
In Wilbarger and Hardeman counties
the price OF land is advancing rapidly
and the entire country is full of prospec-
tors. There is wonderful activity in real
estate ali the way from Wichita Falls to
Amarillo. There are hundreds of pros
pectors up here standing around with
their hands in their pockets and their
mouths watering over the tempting pros
poets, but have not the nerve to buy for
fear they may make a bad purchase.
Before twelve months these men will be
kicking themselves for being such fools.
There is an undesirable feature about
this real estate stir, however. There are
many parties up here purchasing simply
for the purpose of specializing. They
have no idea of settling in this country
and will never be any benefit, even TO the
community in which they live, until they
arAdead. Men who are coming here to
stay, to make their homes here, cam
come too soon.
This is no longer the e'wild and woody
West. - The first thing that greets the
eye on approaching oueof these live little
Western towns is the church spire
and schoolhouse. Why should this
be such a terrible country when
it is settled by our own people
from the old states? We have attended
public gatherings throughout the entire
Panhandle, and must admit that we
were little surprised at the solid, sub
stantial look of the people who assembled
on these occasions. Clay, wichita, Will
barger, Hardeman, Donley, Armstrong,
Potter and Carson counties are offering
rare opportunities to the home-seeker
who is looking after rich and cheap agri-
cultural lands
Farming is no longer an experiment IN
the first four mentioned counties. A mil
lion bushels of wheat were raised in Will
barger county this year. Possibly half
as much more was raised in Wichita
This wheat is of excellent quality weigh
ing from sixty to sixty-three
pounds to the bushel and yielding from
twenty-five to forty bushels per acre.
This yield, be it remembered, has been
obtained, much of it on new ground and
with only moderate and much of it with
wretchedly poor farming.
1t is the fertility of the soil that pro-
duces these wonderful results, the man
ner of farming here has little to do with
it. An utter disregard for scientific
farming seems to be the highest accom-
pllshment, not only here, bat all over
Texas. Even the Illinois farmer grows
wreckIess when he comes to Texas, on
account OF the small amount of labor re-
quired to produce better results than he
obtained in his native state with careful,
hard and scientific efforts
The best evidence of sue
cess and prosperity to those who
came into this county two or
three years ago, is the building of new
residences and charging their barns
Great ricks of newly threshed straw, or
immense stack yards of grain greet the
eyes on either side of the road all the
way from Wichita to Childress Thous-
ands of acres of new hand are being
broken, and possibly 100 per cent. more
wheat will be sown between Wichita and
Red river this fall than last.
Five years from now the Fort Worth
and Denver railway company will quit
blowing fire guards along their road and
will have to extend their side track to
enable them to handle the millions of
grain produced along their line in the
Panhandle. SELAH,