Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-25
TEX As IN MlD-JUNE.

TEXAS IN MID-JUNE.
A friend who took advantage of Your lib
efal offer to give paper to Texas SUD-
scriber, with an additional copy TO De sent
| outside of the state, all at the price OF one
| subscription, is kindly sending Inc the
| Weekly GAZETTE. L must say to you that
the excellence of the paper actually sur
prises me. | had no kind of idea that a
| new and thinly settled country like Texas
could sustain such publication as the Fort
| Worth GAZETTE, and / cannot for the life of
| me understand how you can afford so good
| a paper on such extremely liberal terms;
| that is, unless you own the whole state of
| Texas and are expecting to soon put up
| your property at auction to the highest
sadder. III such a case it would be best to
| let the world know all about your property
| before the day of sale comes on, of course.
| But s'jokes are free in HARVEST You
| know and this is harvest time with US here.
| The joke lives only in my reference to your
| ownership of the whole state of Texas,
myself. more's the pity. But laying
all jokes aside, allow me to put it among
| solid facts that THE GAZETTE gives me a
| clearer idea of Texas than anything | have
| before met with it is like seeing Texas
| through glass, and not "a glass darkly''
| at that ] well know that there is such
| thing as advertising only the bright side,
| or somewhere else. but The GAzETTE
makes everything so plain, and always
| gives such plausible reasons for the show
| ing made that no grounds whatever are left
| for doubts, or for suspicious as to sinister
motives. II is undoubtedly ''TeXas in
| Type''-there is left open no possible open
ing for one to make anything else out of it.
| have been much pleased with your de-
scriptiou of Texas wild flowers and Texas
| landscapes in spring, and L hope you may
continue to give US such pen-pictures of
Texas from time to time throughout the
summer and fall AS a native Alabalnlan
l am stuck on Alabama, but 1 will not deny
the fact that since reading The GAZETTE
longing to see Texas has sprung up in my
corporosity. My family talks Texas more
than anything else, and-well, if l come
your way soon l will call on you at THE
GAZETTE Office and tell you l am the fellow
who sent you this rambling note.
Opelika, Ala. HERE WE REST.
We make 4 rule of telling it just as it is
and as nearly as possible. There exists no
need for exaggcration when we are talking
about Texas. It must be admitted that we
have said a good deal to the favor of the
state, but all we have said has worked in
justice in but one way; the half has not
been told that might have been told in the
same direction.
But you desire to hear something of how
our landscapes are appearing at the present
season of the year, They are simply
splendid. Many of the early spring flowers
are gone, but as many summer flowers have
taken their places. Our floral display is
probably not quite so rich as it was a few
weeks ago, but the general landscape
is even more beautiful than
earlier on the season. The tree growths
along our streams and valleys have as
sumed darker and richer green, while the
open prairies have taken upon themselves
light greenish brown, viewed as a whole.
To give you a correct idea of it, as nearly as
possible, suppose yourself out with US on
some elevated headland taking in distant
views of the landscape. You see the tree
growths along the valleys and depressions,
as already mentioned, but these vary some
what in point of shade. Those patches of
very light green are boxelder trees. Those
patches only a little darker "a dark pea
greenl, are cottonwoods. That darker
shade here and there is made up of pecans,
hack berries and elms. Those very dark
tufts about the heads of the valleys are live
oaks On some of the high headlands in
the far distance are belts of something still
darker than the live-oaks-these are .cedars
Out on the open prairies you see shades
varying from reddish-brown to golden-yel-
low. These shades are impaired by wild
prairie flowers, the particular species Civ
ing the different shades having associated
themselves together, each after its kind,
and thus taken possession of broad areas.
Away off yonder is an extensive patch of a
yellowish shade, a little too light to be
called golden, and yonder another of the
same kind, and yonder still another, and so
on. These are wheat fields now Just being
harvested. Those patches of light green
are corn fields, and those whose shade of
green is a little darker are cotton fields
Those clupps far off on the highlands,
where you see the wind-mills, are orchards
The growths of ightest green in them are
LIE Conte or Kieffer pears those of shade
only little darker are peaches, and those
still darker are either plum or apple trees.
OF course this can convey to you but
poor idea of the Texas landscapes at this
time, but it is the best we can do at pres
ent. To be fully understood and appre-
ciated it must be seen. Our artists wander
off to the Old World, or to the mountain re-
gions of our own country in search of sub
jects worthy of their genius as landscape
painters, leaving these more beautiful prai-
Ne scenes in Texas entirely unstudied. This
is strange, but it will not always remain
thus. There is peculiar beauty about our
landscapes not to be met with elsewhere,
and at day in no distant future some true
artist will have discovered this fact, and
have made himself famous by Offering TO