Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-01
CITY Of FORT WORTH
e Ed
For Years the Headquarters
Of the Cattle Trade.
IMMENSELY OF TEXAS
COULD HOLD "a STATES LIKE
MASSACHUSETTS.
Disappearance Of the Range and APP
pearance Of Crops-Farmers
Feeding Their Stock.
BY WILLIAM e. CURTIS
Special Correspondence of The Star and the Chicago
Record Herald.

BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence The Star and the Chicago
Record Herald
FORT WORTH. Texas, June %, 1905.
Fort Worth has been the headquarters of
the cattle trade for three generations, but
a rapid transformation has been going on
and the country immediately tributary to it
is row being very largely plowed up and
planted in wheat. corn, oats, cotton and
other crops. Fort Worth is situated at the
apex of a great triangle, taking in about
twenty million acres in western and north
western Texas which not long ago was
considered worthless except as range, but
turns out to be one of the richest spots on
the globe. The tangent lines of the tri-
angle stretch two hundred and fifty miles
to the northwest and the other boundary is
about one hundred and fifty miles long. Ten
years ago it was entirely covered with cat
tie, but now it is a big producer of several
agricultural crops. While not absolutely re-
liable for corn, there is sufficient rainfall
nine years out of ten, and it produces large
crops of wheat and cotton under ordinary
circumstances.
Not 10 per cent OF the land has been
taken up. On September / of this year
the state land commissioner puts on sale
six million acres, NEARLY all of IL in this
area, and it is the cheapest agricultural
one dollar to three dollars an acre, payable
in forty annual instsIlments. with. interest
at per cent on the deferred payment.
immensely of Texas.
But that six million acres is only a spot
of land" in Texas. You will remember that
Daniel Webster once said in speech in the
Senate-in 1850, think it was--that Texas
was so big that it would take bird a
week to fly over the state, and il was only
the other day that l read In one of the
newspa pers down here a calculation that
thirty-four states like Massachusetts could
be carved out of it and have room to
spare for a couple of little ones like Rhode
Island.
Texas is five times as large as Great
Britain and Ireland. If all the people of
the globe were divided into families of five
persons each, all of those families could
be taken care of within its limits. Each
could be given half an acre of land and
there would be 20, 600, 600 lots of similar size
left for churches schools, charitable in
situations, parks and other purposes. Only
one-seventh of all this land is under cul-
tivation. Most of the unoccuDied territory
is for sale. and you can realize what an
empire this is going to he some day. The
legislature has fixed the prices of the land
as I have given them above, and by law
mas provided the rules and regulations I'M
der which it shall be sold. for most of the
territory belongs TO the state.
Procedure in Buying Farm.
Whoever wants to buy a farm must first
select his location and file with the clerk
of the county an application for it, together
with a certified check for one-forteth part
of the appraised value, which can be ascer-
tanned at any land office. In the meantime
the buyer can move on the property, If 1t
Is unoccupied, and settle there. The county
clerk sends the application and the check
to the land office at Austin, where GER
tificate is issued containing a receipt for
the first payment This certificate is prima
facie evidence of ownership. The purchaser