The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1892-04-14
GREAT is TEXAS.
AN INTERESTING SKETCH OF HER
INExaAUsrIBLE RESOURCES.
Her Size, Her Fertile Fields, Her Pro,
gressive Cities and Her Thriving In
dustries Brought Out In a skillful
Manner By a Well-posted Man.

very great anu very IoIHdrhdolo
state. Every has heard of its
size, of the fact that it contains ga 600
square miles, or IT'S, 100000 acres, and
everybody has seen the comparison of
it's area with that of number OF
European countries which has often
gone the rounds of the press. These
figures and these comparisons do not
convey an adequate idea of its vast
ness. Let us take few others that
will help to show how big Texas is.
Entering the state at Orange on the
Southern Pacific railroad, in through
car bound from New Orleans to San
Francisco, you can travel thou
send miles on the same road
in line as straight as the usual "air
line road" before you cross the bor-
ders at FL Paso. And when you have
reached Ell Paso you are 500 miles
nearer to California than you are to
Orange. On the Texas and Pacific
you can also travel in straight line
about 900 miles without crossing the
borders of the State, and then on the
same road can go 800 miles further to
reach New Orleans. The Interna-
tional and Great Northern operates
about 800 miles of road in the State;
the Missouri, Kanass and Texas runs
up, believe, to over 1900 miles, and
the Houston and Texas Central 10
some 900 or 700. These figures are not
given as exact, but as approximate
estimates based the best data OBJ.
tainable as l write. The main point,
so far as can judge, is that they are
all well managed and excellently
equipped, and furnish every facility
to make travelling comfortable. Their
trains make good time and close con-
nections, and in every respect are far
ahead of what is generally supposed
by those who have never visited
Texas.
If you take the map of the United
States and draw an easterly line from
the southern end of Texas, it will pass
through the lowest point of the coast
of Florida, while line from the
northern limit of the State almost
touches Norfolk. The western line OF
Texas is about forty or fifty miles
farther west than Denver, while line
from the eastern border would pass
, between Jefferson and st. Louis, Mo
Another illustration will probably
show the area of the State better ever
than any of the foregoing facts. Take
correct map of the county-not 6
railroad map-and cut out the State
of Texas; stick q pin through thu
center of it and let this central poin
e rest on Nashville. The northern limi
] of Texas will then cover Chicago, thu
t southern will reach the Gulf a
Mobile, the eastern will strik'
. Raleigh, N. c., and the western sid
will reach Little Rock, Ark. All tina
mighty empire in area covered by tn
r map of Texas will give some concep
ton of the immensely of this State.
: Great as Texas is in area, 1T Il
I equally great in natural advantage
0 and resources. With climate cover
ing every range that could be ex
pected in O. state where bananas ant
Strawberries can be ripening in on
end while ice is being gathered at tn
other extreme; with vast prairies Of
which millions of cattle are feeding
and almost unnumbered millions Q
;, acres of fertile land that need but vt
be tickled with the pillow to laugh, !
with corn and wheat and oats ant
cotton and vegetables and fruit with
= out limit; with standing timber esti
! mated at somewhere-if memor,
!. serves me right-between 75,000,000
. 600 and 0,000,000,000 feet; witt
mountains burdened with minera
/ wealth, such as iron ore
' coal, granite, marbles, ashbestos
graphite, ETC.; with 700 miles of Sc,
t coast, and with many other great ad
e vantages, it would be bold man VIII,
: should attempt to predict what thi
Lone Star empire will be ten, twenty
or thirty years hence.
Texas has been mainly an agri
cultural state, and like all new purely
agricultural countries, has, of course
suffered from the lack Of industrial de
velopment. Everybody has been 9
producer of corn wheat and cotton
with but few consumers. This has
resulted in the shipment from the
state of almost everything produced
in it and the shipment into it of al
most everything consumed except the
staple foodstuffs. Raising nearly
100000 bales of cotton a year
Texas buys its cotton goods
in New England; with unlimited pos.
sibilities in fruit culture, it is probably
BaltimoPe's best market for canned
fruits; with unlimited forests of many
kinds of woods, it looks to the West
and northwest for it's furniture and
agricultural implements; raising more
cattle than any other state in the
Union, it buys its beef in Kansas City
and its boots and shoes in Massachu-
serts; with the highest grades of
Bessemer ores at Llano ever dis
covered, as shown by reports OF
able experts, timber for charcoal at
hand and coking coal only 125 miles
distant, it gets its pig iron and its
steel from Alabama and Pennsylvania
respectively; with vast coal region
awaiting development, it purchases
Alabama and Virginia coal. 1t must
not be understood that these state
ments are intended as reflection
upon the enterprise of Texas people.
They are simply given to show the