TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS.
The soil is exceedingly rich, from two to ten feet deep, and when the seasons are favorable it produces from sixty to one hundred bushels of corn, and from one and a half to two bales of cotton, per acre. From twenty-five to thirty acres of corn, or twelve to fifteen acres of cotton to the hand, are usually cultivated.
Our country upon the whole is fertile and well watered, has timber enough to supply its demands, and an everlasting amount of stone for building; it has an eternal range of mesquit grass, on which horses and cattle that never smell corn keep perfectly fat all winter. The climate is delightful, the nights pleasant, a fine south breeze in summer continually playing over the face of our broad prairies, and the atmosphere so pure and invigorating, that it is more conducive to good health to sleep out in the open air than to sleep in-doors. There is something so attractive in this section of country, that those who live here a short time are seldom satisfied to live anywhere else.
Our citizens are generally intelligent, enterprising, industrious, religious, sober, and, laying politics aside, honest.—Texas Almanac.
COMAL COUNTY.
BY THE ASSESSOR.
Mostly settled by Germans. In this county there are in cultivation 600 acres in cotton, 15,000 acres in corn, 500 acres in wheat. The acre yields 500 pounds of clean cotton, 40 bushels of corn, 20 bushels of wheat. From 3,500 to 4,000 white inhabitants; 188 slaves; 396 farms. Improved lands $30, unimproved $3 an acre. Most of the farms are cultivatd by white labor; a white hand cultivates thirty acres of corn. Peaches yield abundantly; apples and quinces have been tried successfully. The wild grape, plum, cherry, mulberry, and blackberry grow luxuriantly. Wine of good quality has been made here.
New Braunfels is the county seat. It has 2,000 inhabitants, and boasts of having the only free school in the State, supported by aid from the State school fund, and by direct taxation on the property of the school district. Four teachers are employed, and there are 250 pupils.
The letters of my Texas friend give the following description of the climate of Texas:—
The climate of Texas is very peculiar. This is owing to the body of water to the eastward of it, and to the dry and elevated plain of the Llano Estacado, and the lofty mountains which lie to the westward. To these two causes are due the moisture and the cool temperature, and at times and in certain localities the excessive dryness of Texas.
The Gulf stream, in its course along the coast of Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico, has beneath it, running to the south, a cold stream, nearly down to the freezing point. The great equatorial current which strikes north of Cape St. Roque and through the Caribbean Sea is suddenly narrowed between Cape San Antonio and Cape Catoche; here the upper and warmer current, being condensed, strikes deeper, and forces to the surface the cold water from the under current, sometimes occasioning a roaring and very peculiar noise. By this means the Gulf stream is divided, part turning to the eastward around Cuba and between that island and Florida, and part turning to the westward, north of the banks of Campeachy, and striking Padre Island, an island upon the coast of Texas, about one hundred and forty miles this current strikes, there are very deep soundings, almost up with the land. South of this point, upon the beach, are found mahogany and other tropical drift-wood, brought there from the tropics; while north of it the drift wood is oak, ash, and cotton-wood, brought from the north by a current running counter to the Gulf stream, which I will hereafter describe. From Padre Island the Gulf stream strikes off to the north-east to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence around the coast of Florida and through her keys, until it joins the other branch. Inside the Gulf stream, along the coast of Texas, is the counter-current before referred to, making down the coast at the rate of two to three miles per hour, and bringing down the silt and mud of the Mississippi, Sabine, etc. I have seen the water off the Island of Galveston the color of chocolate, after a long norther.
Above the centre of Padre Island the coast of Texas deepens at the rate of about a fathom to the mile, until at twenty fathoms there is a coral reef, and on the easterly side of this reef the water deepens, as by the side of a perpendicular wall, to a very great depth. This reef marks the boundary of the Gulf stream, and also the boundary of the terrible tornado. The tornado of the Gulf of Mexico never passes this barrier, never strikes the land, nor has it been known within memory of man upon the coast.
It seems to confine itself to the course of the warm water of the stream, and the great 'Father of the Waters' spreads his counter-current down the coast of Texas, like a long flowing garment, fending off the storm and the whirlwind, and thus still better fitting Texas for the white man and the white man's labor.
With this freedom from violent storms comes the delicious southerly wind in the summer, which gives health and moisture to the larger part of Texas. This wind varies in the point from which it flows. From Sabine to Matagorda its course is from south-east to south-south-east, growing more and more to the south as the coast tends to the south, until at the Rio Grande it blows from due south with perhaps a little westing in it. The course of this wind will explain the three belts of Texas, the rainy, that of less rain, and that of great drought.
This wind from the south-east corner from across the ocean and gulf (being a continuation of the south-east trades) laden with moisture and of a delightful temperature, when it is met by the cool air from the mountains, and condensed, giving the rains of Eastern and Central Texas. The more southing they have in them, the less moisture, until the extreme south-eastern portion of Texas, or the country near the mouth of the Rio Grande, is one of almost constant drought. There are thus three belts of moisture: first, from the Sabine to the mouth of the Brazos, may be called the belt of greatest rain,—from the Brazos to Lavaca or Victoria, that of moderate rain,—and from Lavaca to the Rio Grande, the dry belt. But even in the dry belt there is moisture enough to give fine grasses, and make the country a fine one for grazing, and the streams taking their rise in great springs, which probably have their source in the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, flowing under the Llano Estacado and breaking out in great numbers in a line almost north and south, never dry up, even in the dryest seasons.
In the winter months, Texas has winds from the north, which come on very suddenly, and produce great variation in the temperature. They are disagreeable, but wholesome, and clear the atmosphere. They do not extend north of the Red River, nor very far west, but increase in intensity as they go south.
No country in the world can be healthier than Texas, and consumption and pectoral complaints never originate in the area of the northers.
Eastern Texas is generally well wooded; Middle and Western Texas have wood on the banks of the streams, and frequent spots of timber on the prairies.
Most of the country is covered with nutritious grass, affording good pasture throughout the year, capable of supporting an endless number of cattle and sheep, and almost all the soil is suited to the growth of cotton. There are more than five thousand square miles of bituminous coal in Texas, presenting seams five feet thick, and hills of pure gypsum seven hundred feet high. These are all covered by a generous sky and climate beneath which the white man can live and work without fear of malaria or sickness, and where he can enjoy all the blessings of the tropics without their attendant disadvantages.
It is this superb country which we trust General Lane and his forces may soon redeem from the curse of slavery.
The woolen manufacturer has an equal interest with the cotton-spinner in demanding that this shall be done, for with this unequaled country for the production of wool remaining under the curse of slavery, we import annually nearly thirty million pounds of wool,—about one-third of our whole consumption. With Texas free, and emigration from abroad—for a long time reduced almost to nothing—freely encouraged, we should become exporters of wool, not importers.
But I am warned that I have exceeded the space allotted me. The absurd assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism and will not work, can only be met by the question, 'If he will not work except by compulsion, why does he work extra after his compulsory labor is over?' Evidence that he does so work can be presented ad infinitum, upon Southern testimony; witness that De Bow's Review makes only a few selections.
The peculium of Southern servants, even on the plantation, is sometimes not trifling. We make a few selections, showing—
THE NEGROES' CROP.—A friend has reported to us a sale, on Tuesday, of a crop of cotton belonging to Elijah Cook, of Harris Co., Ga., amounting to $1424 96-100.—Columbus (Ga.) Sun, Dec. 29, 1858.
Mr. J.S. Byington informs us that he made two cotton purchases lately. One was the cotton crop of the negroes of Dr. Lucas, of this vicinity, for which he paid $1,800 in cash, every dollar of which goes to the negroes.—Montgomery (Ala.) Mail, Jan. 21, 1859.
Speaking of negroes' crops, the sales of which our contemporaries are chronicling in various amounts,—the largest which has come to our knowledge is one made in Macon, for the negroes of Allen McWalker. It amounted to $1969.65.—Macon (Ga.) Telegraph, Feb. 3, 1859.
Upon Louisiana sugar plantations, the exhausting work of the grinding season can only be maintained by a system of premiums and rewards equivalent to the payment of wages. Under that system the negroes of the sugar plantations are among the most healthy and contented in the South; while the same labor performed in Cuba, under the most severe compulsion, causes an annual decrease of the slave population, and the product of the island is only maintained by fresh importations of slaves from Africa.
With the following Southern testimony as to the intelligence of the negro, I leave this subject:—
Without book learning the Southern slave will partake more and more of the life-giving civilization of the master. As it is, his intimate relations with the superior race, and the unsystematic instruction he receives in the family, have placed him in point of intelligence above a large portion of the white laborers of Europe.—Plantation Life, by Rev. Dr. McTeyire.
We claim emancipation for the white man; it can only be secured by the freedom of the negro. The infinite justice of the Almighty demands both.
If we now fail to accomplish it, to bear in the future the name of 'American Citizen' will be a badge of shame and dishonor.