Durango semi-weekly herald., 1903-02-09
MORE
TEXAS
NOTES
Especial Correspondence)

This letter is being written whilc
passing over portion OF the state
| covered by the San Antonio & Arkan-
sas Pass railroad this morning.
Leaving Galveston this morning moth
ing of interest arouses one until Hous-
ton is reached. the land being low and
more or less covered with water. al
though a great cattle feeding section.
the grass being prolific.
The gulf breezes reach this point
| during the summer months and make
life endurable. The temperature along
| the Gulf coast of Texas, winter and
summer rarely varies to exceed 10
degrees daily. January is the coolest
month in the year; during twenty
years the minimum temperature has
fallen below 20 degrees in five only
below 25 degrees in ten years, and be-
low 80 degrees in thirteen years The
temperature along the immediate
coast has not reached a maximum OF
| 100 degrees in this period, the high
est record beins 9S degrees in August
| 1874. July is the warmest month.
| Killing frosts do not usually occur at
| Houston or Galveston until after De
cember l and the unwelcome vista
| ton is frequently delayed until Janu-
| Iry Four years in twenty there was
no frost whatever at Galveston, and in
! five different years there was but a
single frost The last hard frost ap-
pears any time between January and
February /.
Only short time was spent at
Houston. a town of about 10000, possi-
bly, the largest in the state. 1t is the
headquarters of the Southern Pacific
railroad and is a hustling city. The
government is providing the money to
make Houston a seaport city for the
largest vessels by way of the Calves
ton jetties. Houston is the center OF
extensive numbering interests, the
largest in Texas, to the east being
immense forests OF pine, oak, etc,
where are located sawmills employing
great many men, the pine timber
lands covering an area of 40,000000
acres. Fourteen trunk lines of rail-
road enter Houston, seven having gen.
eral offices and shops. The jobbing
houses are reported to have handled
sales of upwards of forty millions last
year. We have passed through sever
NJ cities of five to ten thousand popu-
lation of the ordinary kind. which ap-
parently are backed up with pros
porous country.
The state covers such vast
amount of territory that climatic con
ditions are as varied as will be found
in half dozen eastern or middle wes-
tern states. While it is a great cat
tie raising state, it outranks most
other states in agriculture. Cotton Is
one of the big crops and has been
paying proposition except where
where drouth prevailed. The Mexi-
can bollweevil, however, is affecting
large areas and is causing much APP
prehension to growers. as in some
instances entire paintings have been
destroyed and in others only partial
crops raised. So far no remedy has
been found to get rid of the bollweevil
This has resulted in more attention
being paid to rice growing, large sec
tons being well adapted to rice cul-
ture. Rice is becoming more and
more a food throughout the country
and the home production is far from
supplying the demand. Again, rice
affords splendid food for stock and
contains more nutrition than corn and
wheat Rice requires moist cii-
mate and must be irrigated-in fact
for a time it must be covered with wa
ter. 1t is said the gulf coast of Mexi-
co contains ten million acres suitable
for rice culture, but the amount
which can be successfully irrigated
will not reach over three million acres.
The best results demand rota-
tion in crops, the same as sugar
beets. For rice culture one must
have high, smooth, not necessarily lev
eD. well drained land. You plow the
land for rice just as you would for
wheat or oats, cut the sod with disc
harrow, and SOW about one-third of
barrel of rice seed per acre with press
drills. The land must be as dry for
sowing as any wheat land.
Then while the seed is sprouting or
growing its first six or eight inches,
levees are made to hold the water.
These are simply constructed by plow-
ing along the levee line about twelve
furrows wide, the earth is thrown to
the middle by scraper about one foot
above the level of the field. The lev
ee lines are always carefully staked
out by an engineer. and must be so
placed that there is no more than
three inches of fall from levee to
levee-so that II water is three inches
deep at the upper edge of the field 1t
viii not be more than six inches deep
at the lower edge. When rice is six
inches high or more, and levees all
properly constructed, water Is turned
on at the highest point on the land.
and by temporary cuts through the
| levees delivered from level to level
| till the lowest is standing in three
inches of water. and so IL Is kept
flooded for sixty or seventy days.
When rice is ready to harvest, the wa
ter is drained off. Harvesting is done
with the latest improved self-binders;
grain is shocked and stacked like
] wheat or oats, and threshed with a
steam threshing machine.