Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1901-03-06
SAM JONES ON TEXAS.
Says Texas IS Prosperous and
Booming, Bat Needs the
Services of Mrs. Nation
Lockhart, Tex, Feb. 6, 1901.
Editor of the Atlanta Journal:

Editor of the Atlanta Journal:
I have spent about q week travel
ing through the cotton bslt of
Texas from Sherman to San
t1arcos, from San Marcos to
Shreveport, La. 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
bave 5000 bsles in the cotton
Yards, some 10000, some 1000,
some 1000, bu, everywhere you
see the unsold cotton. l have
looked over the farms along the
way. The farmers are very late
i'll the preparation of the ground
or a new crop. No rain in the
Black Bolt of Texas since the
1st Of Noyemb Der, and the ground
is too hard to plough.
The wheat crop of Northern
fexas is not looking we'll. The
drought and Hessian fly is the
cause but I never saw such a
glow of prosperity on Texas as she
uanifests today. The famers are
on top, cotton on hand money to
end, banks overaowing aud
Merchants busy. A member of a
firm in Denton, Tex, said to me,
ST can't supply my customers
with implements. I've sold 100
5uggies since January l. Drum
mers from St. Louis tell me that
their houses have instucted them
ITO sell no more carload lots, but
in small amounts to the trade"
Texas supply this year in the
pockets Of the tanners is just
what the Georgia farmers would
have but for the enormous outlay
for guano. Georeis must have
commercial fertilizers. Texas
don't need them. The tenants on
these rich farm lands in Texas
oay the landlords So money rent
per acre, and that's what it costs
for guano per acre i'll Georgia. Ii
I were farmer I would ratht +
rent land in Texas than own it III
Georgia.
The black cotton lands OF
Texas are selling for $50 to s75
per acre; $50 per acre will buy
the best laLds tea miles from
towns.
Thequestion is not how much
cotton can Texas make, but how
p,uch cotton can they pick out
I have 'traveled through Texar-
sana to Ell Paso. from TexasliDetc tc
Galveston, and, l stay within the the
facts whenI say that not one.
tenth of Texas cotton iands ever
had a pillow ON them. If you will
furnish Texas with half-a million
more plaw mules and negro rlow-
men they will and can make in
Texas this year eight million
bales of cotton, weighing SOU
pounds each. The delta of the
Mississippi in LOUISIANA and the
good cotton lands of Texas can
make fifteen million bates and not
use pcInd of guano, and with
average seasons make bale to the
acre one year with another. Ala
bama, South Carolina and North
Carolina must look to their
manufacturing interests and their
farmers to diversified crops and
homemade fertilizers or go broke
in a few years.
Texas can produce her own
wheat, corn oats and ship millions
of dollars worth of cattle, hogs,
sheep, mules, horses etc., annually.
Gaorgia is no longer the Empire
State of the South. Texas has the
blue ribbon 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 ia a dwarf, San
Antonio a conglomeration, with
her population half invalids, and
the other half, am told, made up
up of 27 different pationalities.
Aust in, minus her dam is dead.
Waco ought to be named Wake
No-More. Houston, the only city
Of growth and commercial enter
prise since the Galveston h"rror,
put that city in the background;
but there are a hundred prosper
Gus, growing towns in Texas, with
growing populations ranging from
three to fifteen thousand.