Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1918-02-14
THEY ARE MAKING
MONEY IN TEXAS
Hon j. {. BOnwell Says Farmers are
Making Plenty of Money There

Making Plenty of Money There
Brownsville, Texas, Jan. 2S, 1918
Mr.. Hoogenakker;
Audubon, Iowa.
Since my last letter | have been
over this section interviewing the
farmers. l find most all of them
we'll satisfied with the country and
all of them are making all kinds of
money. The high prices for pro-
ducts of both fruit and truck farms
makes the present a bonanza for
them. They also raise corn broom
corn, sugar cane alfalfa and Rhodes
grass. The latter is cut eight times
each year and makes one ton per
acre each cutting IT is now selling
at thirty dollars per ton wholesale
and higher at retail. l interviewed
a Swede from Minnesota who runs
truck farm about three miles from
here. His name is John Lind, a
nephew of the John Lind whom our
President sent to Mexico several
years ago on a diplomatic mission.
He came here two years ago, bought
twelve acres of brush land at two
hundred dollars per acre. cleared it,
broke the land and began truck
farming in February 1916. He is
rustler and looks after the selling
end of the business as well as the
producing. In two years he has sold
enough off of the twelve acres TO
pay for the land, build $4,000
house and other out buildings, buy
Ford car, keep his family, and have
a little money in the bank. He keeps
three hired Mexicans most all of the
time at one dollar per day, they
boarding themselves. He also had
on hand about one thousand dollars
worth of cabbage ready for market.
He has bought eight acres more of
land Joining his land at two hundred
and fifty dollars per acre and was
clearing ii when | was there. He
had two rows of red peppers about
as long as block in Audubon from
which he had sold one hundred-sixty-
five dollars worth of peppers.
found others who had not done SO
well.
l was out on the old battle ground
of ROsacca, when the U. S. troops
under Gen. Taylor, defeated the
Mexicans in 1916. There is now no
indication that battle had ever
been fought there. l am informed
the country was all prairie in 1916,
now it is covered with brush. The
old battle ground is just outside the
city limits of Brownsville. There is
a brick plant on the edge of the
field. Rosacca means ''old river
bed" in Mexican, or the Battle of
the Old River Bed. There are many
such beds in this valley. In the far
dim and misty past the Rio Grande
did not follow it's present course and
in no distant ages past changed it's
course many times, always cutting
west and south. 1t is claimed here
the Mexican side is lower than the
American side, causing most of the
cutting from the Mexican side.
was on one farm that had one and
one half mile river front that had
gained $50 avres OF land in the past
ten years. This Belongs to the own
er of the original tract. Just below
this farm, year ago, the river cut
new channel across a neck of land
and annexed over one thousand acres
to the state of Texas. The title how
ever remains with the Mexican own
er. Inc no Grdnue at one Tune ran
twenty miles north of here, empty
ing into the bay some forty miles
north of its present mouth. The old
river bed is plainly marked with
much water in it in places and many
other channels between there and
here
There is not much good well water
in this section. The farmers use the
canal water for home use. Along
the Rosacca, good, pure well water
can be had at depth of twenty feet
while in other places it is salty and
not fit to drink. There is a small
salt lake of fifty acres five miles
from here in part of the old river
bed, the only one. in the whole coun-
try | ever heard of. The hard salt