The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-15
MADE SECURE AGAINST SNAKES.
Precautions Rendered Necessarily I'm
Homes Along the Rio Grande.
From the Philadelphia Times.

1
From the Philadelphia Times.
j. d. Mason. well known travelling man
who has just returned from business trip
through Southwestern Texas. gives the
| following interesting account of a pecu-
liar phase of life in that part Of the
world:
There is a little strip of country"
| said Mason. ''in Texas down by the Rio
Grande where snakes are literally too nu-
merous TO mention. They are really as
! thick as the proverbial dead leaves of
Nallombrosa, and the most abstemiOus
man IN existence sees enough snakes in a
minute 10 Knock him silly I have a friend
Jim Hughes by name living down in that
region who owns cattle ranch consist
ing OF 1900 acres of land, and really and
truly the trail of the serpent was over
them all. Jim has a wife who is the pref
tlest little woman west of the Mississippi
and two of the dearest little girls in the
whole world, / reckon, and for a long time
Jim was put to IL to know how to protect
his family from the snakes. He said that
It used to be so that during the first warm
days OF early spring, when the snakes
were Just awakening from their torpor,
he and his ranchmen, cowboys, etc.
would just have to leave the cattle to
their fate and form a Gordon about the
muse ~ http the IeptlieS out. Nowadays,
though, such constant precaution is not
necessary, as he has hit upon a device to
circumvent the snakes to a certain extent.
He managed to do this by fencing in the
house yard with closely woven wire net
ting.
To begin with. however, he had to dig
ditch all around the place to the depth of
about four feet and plant cedar posts, let
ting them stand about six feet above the
level of the ground. Then on these posts
he stretched ten foot wire netting and
threw the dirt back in the ditch BY this
means, you see, he had four feet of net
ting underground, which prevented the
snakes burrowing beneath and coming in
10 the yard, and a six foot fence above,
which only the more adventurous reptiles
try TO surmount. Now and then little
snake will manage to wriggle through the
meshes of the wire and get into the yard,
but the big fellows are practically circum-
vented. Every morning though, a man
goes all over the yard on a tour of inspec-
ton, killing all the small snakes that may
have crept in before Mrs. Hughes or the
little girls venture out Of the house. 1t is
not very pleasant prospect either, al
though you are seated in the house in
comparatively security, to see the reptiles
writing and squirming in the sun, now
and then butting against the fence or
clinging TO the wire In hideous coilng
festoons. About two miles away from the
place is little bog or marsh, whence a
streamlet makes into the river, and here
the reptiles breed. Hughes inveigled me
into going over one night to the neighbor-
hood of the bog, and ! shall never forget
the horrible noises that emanated there
from. The snakes were evidently fighting
among themselves and the bog seemed to
be alive with them. Deliver me from
another experience like the one that night,
and from home in Texas down by the Rio
Grande. Hughes thinks it is the garden
spot of the universe, however, and says
that when he succeeds in getting that
marsh properly drained the snakes will
disappear"