Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1901-03-13
SAM JONES ON TEXAS.
Says that State is Prosperous and Booming.

- HaFc SPUN aUOuI u Wcck GIaVcl-
ing through the cotton belt of Texas,
from Sherman to San Marcos, from
San Marcos to Shreveport, Louisiana
Texas is still picking cotton every
day now. Texas has, perhaps, one
million bales in the cotton yards over
the State unsold. Some of the towns
have 5000 bales in the cotton yards,
some 10000, some 1000, some 1000,
but everywhere you see the unsold
cotton. have looked over the
farms along the way. The farmers
are very late in the preparation of
the ground for new crop. No rain
in the Black Belt of Texas since the
1st of November, and the ground is
too hard to plough.
The wheat crop of Northcan
Texas is not looking well. The
drought and Hessian fly are the
cause /; but / never saw such glow
of prosperity on Texas as she mani
tests today. The farmers are on
top, cotton on hand, money to lend,
banks overlooking and merchants
busy. A member of firm in Den
ton, Texas, said to me 81 can't sup
ply my customers with implements.
I've sold 100 buggies since January
1st. Drummers from ST. Louis tell
me that their houses have instructed
them to sell no more load lots,
but in small amounts to the trade"
Texas's supply this year in the
pockets of the farmers is just what
the Georgia farmers would have but
for the enormous outlay for guano.
Georgia must have commercial ferti-
lizers. Texas don't need them.
The tenants on these rich farm lands
i'll Texas pay the landlords SO money
rent per acre, and that's what it
costs fot guano per acre in Georgia.
If | were farmer I would rather
rent land in Texas than own it in
Georgia.
The black cotton lands of Texas
are selling for $50 to s75 per acre !;
$50 per acre will buy the best lands
ten miles from towns.
The question is not how much cot
ton can Texas make, but how much
cotton can they pick out. l have
travelled through Texarkana to EI
Paso, from Texas line to Galveston,
and, stay within the facts when
say that not one tenth of Texas cot
ton lands ever had plow in them.
If you will furnish Texas with half
million more plow mules and negro
plowmcn they will and can make in
Texas this year eight million bales
of cotton, weighing 500 pounds each,
The delta of the Mississippi in Lou
isiana and the good cotton lands of
Texas can make fifteen million bales
and not use pound of guano, and
with average seasons make bale tc
the acre one year with another
Alabama, South Carolina and North
Carolina must look to their manufac.
turing interests and their farmers to
diversified crops and home made
fertilizers or go broke in a few years.
Texas can produce her own wheat
corn and oats and ship millions OF
dollars worth of cattle, hogs, sheep
mules, horses, etc, annually. Gcor.
gia is no longer the Empire State Of
the South. Texas has the blue rib
bon tied on her now.
The thing marvel at in Texas is
that her cities do not grow apace
with her towns and rural districts
Dallas seems to be full grown, Fort
Worth is dwarf, San Antonio ;
conglomeration, with her population
half invalids, and the other half,
am told, made up of q different ma
tionalitics. Austin, minus her dam
is dead. Waco ought to be namct
Wake. No More. Houston is the onl,
city of growth and commercial en-
tcrpTise since the Galveston horror
put that city in the background
but there are hundred prosperous
growing towns in Texas, with grow
ing populations ranging from 5000 tc
$4,000
| have talked with farmers, mer
chants, cotton buyers and the gene
raj impression prevails that Tcxa.
will not increase her acreage in cot
ton very largcly--may be ten pei
cent. Texas never raised n larger
crop Of cotton in much Of the cottor
belt than the crop of 1900.
Farm wages in Texas arc doubl,
what they arc in Georgia and Ala
bama, but farm hand can produc,
more than double out here.