San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-12-29
AGRICULTURAL CENTER OF
THE GREAT SOUTHWEST.
The Delightful Home Of Coming
MillionS-The Garden and
the Granary of the Future
Climate, Soil and Opportunities
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Deep Water>at the Gulf,
Pure Air in the Hills.

Nature has lowered Southwest Texas
with thee inexhaustible sources of
wealth-her incompatible climate, her
rich soil, aud the vast deposits of clays,
rocks and minerals. that lie beneath her
soil. ANY one of these wealth sources
would make location within her bounds
desirable; the three combined present
greater attractions than can be found else
where on this continent. Florida and Cali
forrlia, the two greatest rivals for the EN-
pire of southern settlem mt, have eX.
hausted their claims to the notice of the
health, pleasure and investment seeking
CLASSES of the north and east, and find
themselves OH the eve of being aband-
oned for a country every way richer III
natural products, more directly upon
the great highway of empire, and offering
more inducements to investors, whether
for profit or health, than either of her
rivals can present. A change has come
over the spirit of the immigrants dream.
The vast wheat regions of the inhos-
-pitable northwest, with its months of
severe winter weather, its intense cold
and discomfort, and its expensive living
during the six months of unproductive
ness, are losing their charm as chosen
homes for agriculturalists. The no less
fertile soil and infinitely more desirable
climate of the southwest present attrac-
7tions which once understood become
irresistible, and knowledge is all that is
required to people this whole agricultural
southwest with the best labor and enter
been made within two years in making
known the agricultural and climatic adj
-vantages of Southwest Texas than in the
previous twenty, and at no period i'll the
past has enquiry been as active or as
general as it is today. The wealth of the
mineral deposit throughout this whole
region is as yet but very imperfectly
understood even by those who are most
familiar with the subject. So varied and
extensive are these deposits-underlying
as they do whole counties and embracing
every variety of building stone, marble,
clay for brick, pottery and porcelain, as
also the most inexhaustible deposits of
the finest iron ore OIL the continent, with
silver and other precious metals in paying
quantities-that any approximate idea of
the wealth they hold for the miner and
squarryman must be left to the magma
ton. Certain it is that i'll her iron mines
aud marbles alone, Southwest Texas has
no rival that she need fear and future
fortunes await the development of these
stores which nature has so lavishly
scattered throughout this whole region.
THE $. a p. COUNTIES.
What has been said concerning South
west Texas holds particularly true with
reference to the entire lines of counties
traversed by the San Antonio and Aran-
sas Pass railway tracks. Beginning
with Kerr county on the northwest
division of that road, and following its
track to the gulf through Kendall,
Bexar, Wilson, Karnes, Bee, San Patricio,
Refugio and Nueces counties then turn
ing eastward i'll Karnes county and fol-
lowing the line to Houston through
De Witt, Lavaca, Colorado, Austin, Fort
Bend and Harris counties; also, along
the lines of the Waco division northward
from Yoakum through Fayette, Gonzales
Lee and Caldwell counties, the agricul-
turist finds soil of inexhaustible fertil-
ity, en- which every variety of grain and
vegetable thrives, under a climate most
favorable to all growth conditions, and
during seasons of almost perpetual vege-
tation. Two crops of corn and vegetables
can be grown yearly, and the winter
seasons are so mild that cattle and horses
find ample food on the ranges the season
through. The entire range of counties
enumerated above are not only fertile, a
large part of their surface rolling prairie
well adapted to all modern methods of
cultivation, but they are exempt from