The Land of Corn and Cotton.
The Southwest at this moment is enjoying a prosperity unexampled in its annals. Last year's yield of corn, wheat, and cotton proved better than was expected early in the season, the corn crop being particularly good. Land values have doubled in much of this region during the past five years; though prices are still so much below those prevailing in Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana that the inrush from those States continues to be large.
Traveling salesmen report better business in Oklahoma, Texas, and their neighbors than in any other part of the West. More visitors came to the St. Louis Exposition from the Southwestern States and Territories than from any other part of the country, in proportion to population—which was a good test of that region's financial condition.
Before the Civil War, when the South was proclaiming cotton to be king, cotton's realm was in the Atlantic seaboard States. But Texas now produces nearly a third of the country's entire crop. Her recent average has been about three million bales; last year the yield was a little less than that. The Indian Territory and Oklahoma are beginning to figure prominently in cotton production. Cotton accounts for much of the prosperity of the Southwest. More and more the farmers of that region are raising other crops for a living, and using the proceeds of their cotton-fields as a surplus fund.