Bryan morning eagle. [volume] (Bryan, Tex.) 1898-1909, 1902-01-12
BRAZOS COUNTY IN 1909
An Agricultural Pipe Dream that may be Reolzed Some
Duy--Who Knows?
BY wILLEPEE


since 1902"
"Well, old boy, it's like this
Long bout 1900, some kind oI
bugs got to eating up all the cottor
in the country and kinder give the
people a scare; and what little cot
ton they did raise didn't seem tC
sell for much, and they got up q
great notion in this country about
diversified farming. The people
all over Eastern and Southern
Texas got to organizing truck
growers associations and studying
10 plant new crops adapted to this
section, both to sell and TO feed tC
stock.
"In the fall of 1900, they started
in in Brazos county with a littl,
truck growers association. They
didn't do no great things the frs
year, but those who tried it made q
little. They learned something
too, and had lots of grit and stuck
TO it. They shipped potatoes and
beans and green corn, tomatoes,
cucumbers and such truck to far
off markets and got in a little
money at the time Of year when
they needed il worst; they began
TO study also how to save n great
deal of stuff that they never could
save before and hold it for good
prices.
"The farmers got TO building
barns on purpose to keep potatoes
and other similar products in
They built houses Of brick with
lots of ventilation and overhead
lined with a dirt or brick ceiling to
keep the heat out, and good roof.
In these, they found by spreading
out such things as potatoes and
onions thin in layers, they could
keep them and wait for good mar
kets. They dug cellars about in
their patches-underground houses,
the sides built up with logs, and
arched over tops, covered thick
with dirt. In these, they kept fall
potatoes over winter as we'll a. they
do anywhere, and fall tomatoes, "a
fresh and nice az you please, were
kept as long as they wanted them
not only these, but lots of other
things. They found there was
money in it. They got to planting
grasses, mangel wurzel beets for
stock feed, rape and other winter
forage crops for stock, and quit de-
pending entirely on corn for feed.
"And then, the abundance OF
vegetables raised got the people TO
building canneries-in town at first
and afterwards on the farms. Now
the farmer has his home cannery,
and cans lots Of stuff TO sell TO the
town folks and people in manuiac-
turing centers at home and abroad.
They have planted orchards and
can up lots of fruit, and everything
like that pays better than all cot
ton. They plant cotton, too, some
Of them, but they geta stavin' good
price for il.
"The result of all this has been,
old man, that old BrazCs county
has come out Of the kinks. The
farmers live about az well as any
body here now, and a little better
than lots of folks. The country
has built up wonderfully already,
md is still building up and i'm.
proving all the time.
81 lay it all to diversified farm
ing. the farmers raising something
all the year round-raising hogs
md selling them to the packeries
and saving their own meat, raising
good winter az we'll as summer for
age crops for stock, etc.
Farmers have got to studying
farming, in other words, and they
have made it pay"
STAMP
The office bov came in, in great
excitement, and dropped a dollar
On the table that a fellow paid on
The paper for last years account,
md awoke the sleeper from his
pleasant dream.
II is only drearn--a pipe
dream, perhaps--but it is one that,
# the like of It were dreamed by a
sufficient number Of people with
heir eyes open, there might follow
some day in this country an
weakening to better things.