San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-06-07

We will soon be in the midst of
hot weather and the dullest season
of the year. Among the causes for
dizziness this year is the almost
total failure of crops over the larg-
est and most productive section of
the county adjacent to our city.
The sandy land farmers seldom
fail to make crop OF corn or cot
ton, or watermelons, but this year
they are cutting down their corn to
save the fodder, and the melon
crop is still uncertain.
A population of two or three
thousand people who look to our
city as a market are cut short in
their ability to, either buy or sell.
Our section can be classed as a
good agricultural region, but years
of drought warn us that irrigation
must be resorted to to make certain
the yield of the soil. With irriga-
ton the common field products
would take a secondary place.
Small fruits, and truck gardens
would occupy large acreage. The
vegetable stands on our plaZas are
supplied with table vegetables
from irrigated garden spots within
our city limits,-land worth over
$1,000 per acre.
With irrigation upon the sandy
loan soils the city gardens would
be more profitably turned into
building lots.
A long season free from frost
would ensure two or more crops a
year on irrigated land, an advan-
tage not possessed by the north
western states.
Build up the country about our
city and it will be easy to keep the
city up. A few thousand dollars
put into artesian wells will bear
more fruit than any other enter
prise yet suggested.
In these times when people are
talking about state and local poll
tics when all the speculation is
new lines of railroads, it may look
stupid for Short Stops to preach
the doctrine of agriculture.
San Antonio is today the best
market for agricultural products
in the Southwest. Besides our own
10000 people, the people west and
south of us draw their supplies
from this city. To supply this
trade large agricultural popula-
ton could be not only supported
but made rich. Before we attempt
to build up factories let us be able
to feed our own people.
When our city had only a popu-
latiOn of six or ten thousand it
was easy for it to keep up prosper
ity from the great stock range that
stretched about it. We could af-
ford to buy every article we had to
eat from abroad, and even veget3-
bles were sold by our grOcers
brought from st. Louis and New
York. No wonder we were all pre-
vented from becoming millionaires.
Ny banker friend had some
cause for his query what keeps
San Antonio up. l have recited
many Of the causes of our pros
perity. Yet big town is always
in danger of decadence from natur-
al causes. We have big flourishing
rich town,we must not only see how
we keep up but how we
are to go ahead. II we can
maintain our present pop
ulation we shall do we'll for the
next year, but towns that stand
still don't do so very long; they
generally go backward.
An article in the st. Louis
Globe Democrat depicting the
decadence in Western Kansas,
shows that it takes more than rail-
roads to keep up cities.
The state reports show, for in
stance, that twenty-five counties
in Western Kansas, which had
1O2,669 people in 1884, have only
1868 today, nearly half of the pop.
ulatiOn having left because Of an
inability to raise crops on their arid
Lands. Those who remain hope