Year: 1879

I | t '

 May IS, 1879.

 ! FD. DENocRAT Our staunch old steamer hes been tied up to a bunch of mesquite grass at what is known as Little Arkansas, in this county, for the last week. IL is called so l from the fact that there are about fifteen or twenty Arkansians settled here in this nelghborhood, all from Pope county; and we tied to the grass because the trees are so low ! that if we tie to them the horses skin their ankles on the line-the grass is higher than the trees. To make fences here only requires a post every eight feet, four feet high with wire stretched on them two feet from the ground; q string of blanks or slats one foot above that, and another wire at the top. And it generally requires two trees to get 2 post the proper length. When they wish to cut tree down they trim it l up first, this they can do standing on the ground. Now, you and your l Arkansas readers may not feel just like believing the above to be the plain, unyarnished truth, but I as sure you that l should find it quite easy to swallow when compared with q great many of the stories which have been told me here, and which the tellers find no difficulty in prov ing by all their neighbors. This is either tie most perfectly banded set of liars in Che world, or else thls 6 wonderful country. To prove which will give.yo . few passages from the modern Baron Munchausen as sworn to by the people of Texas. For instance: when they want to plant cotton, and no better chance offers, they just go out into the wild prairies with q good team and a blow, turn over the sod and every third or fourth round drop the seed in the bottom of the furrow and turn the next sod on them, and without doing anything more than to chop out a few weeds, they make from 600 to 1000 pounds of seed cotton to the acre. I have seen the cotton planted that way, but only have their word for the amount they make. Again: Uncle Tom Turner (whom you well remember, tells me that last year after cutting his wheat, he put hls stubble in cotton and only worked it once and gathered seventeen hun dred pounds to the acre. But it was reserved for Fin Hearn to put the top sheaf on the shock. He says he planted corn between old cotton rows without breaking the ground, and only cutting the cotton stalks off at the ground as the roots go so deep the stalks cannot be pulled up. Well, when he come to blow the corn, he found that the old cotton roots had sprouted up, and after knocking off q great many with the hoe, he made good crop of corn and 500 pounds of cotton to the acre, and says he be- lieyes he would have made two bales to the acre had he allowed all the sprouts to grow. After hearing the above was fully prepared to believe what was told me of another man, who sowed cotton seed in his corn when he laid it by, or plowed it the last time, and never done anything to the cotton but gather it, and he made so bushels of corn and 1700 pounds of seed cotton to the acre. These arc Q few of the samples of what they tell me of this country.

 But l believe I promised you my impressions, and not what others tell me. Well, my impression of this part of Texas is about this; taking part of Hunt, all of Collin, Dallas,  and what ofEllis 1 have seen, tho soil is very deep and rich, the land clear of weeds and easily cultivated; water not abundant, but enough for all purposes, and timber plenty for firewood, which is all that it is need cd for in this country; and from what I see of the farming, I am con vinced that a man can raise a great deal more stuff with Q great deal less labcr than in any country 1 ever saw before, and whileit would not suit everybody, still there are a great many in Arkansas who would be bet ter off were they here, The health here is good, and there are several persons here who left Pope county sufIerino with uno disnase and not