Galveston lies in twenty-nine degrees north latitude, and midway between the mouth of the Mississippi River on the east, and Mexico and the Rio Grande on the west. If you draw an imaginary line commencing at the mouth of the Columbia River, in Oregon, running southeast; another line commencing at Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi, running due south, and another commencing at Portland, Maine, running due southwest; all these lines will intersect at Galveston. One of the driving wheels of the great commercial wagon of the United States stands at Galveston, and the steam of progress is driving the mighty vehicle westward, keeping pace with the "star of empire."
When that network of railroads which but for secession would now have been thrown over all Texas, east, west, north and south, tapping the wheat regions of Northern Texas, the lumber regions of Eastern Texas, the stock regions of Western Texas, and the cotton and sugar regions of Southern Texas; we say, when this railroad system shall be achieved for that great country, thus developing and bringing to the markets of the world the productive resources of Texas, a country six to seven hundred miles square, large enough to lay down on its surface the State of Massachusetts more than thirty times, and not lap anywhere, the result will be wonderful beyond all present calculations. Every variety of soil is found in Texas, and all kinds of grain and fruit can be produced there, with sugar, and cotton one to four bales to the acre.
Texas is a country of great extremes and contradictions. It is the hottest and coldest; the driest and wettest; it has the most streams and the least water, some wet and some dry, and mostly dry at that; the best soil and the poorest, very little of the latter; the most cattle and the least milk, and butter, and cheese, and beef; the most salubrious climate and most sudden changes of weather; the least rain and heaviest rain-storms; the sunniest sky and most terrific thunder-storms; the most balmy Gulf breezes and most bitter biting northers; long rivers and least navigation; the heaviest pine forests and least pine lumber; the best types of society, and the meanest the sun ever shone upon.
Portable saw-mills, located along projected railroads in those pine forests lying in Eastern Texas, hundreds of miles in extent, taking Brazos River as the dividing line between Eastern and Western Texas, would coin money for the proprietors. And the prediction is safe that the time is not far distant when the railroads will be built, those forests felled and cut up into lumber, towns spring up, and the "wilderness bud and blossom as the rose."
The wet and dry seasons come in pretty regular alternations, each in a series of seven to ten years. And nature, ever faithful, with her "canny hand" has recorded these meteorological histories in trees of the forest, and the record may be traced back through a period of two hundred years. The unmistakable record is traceable in the thick and thin rings or grains of the trees, varying in thickness from that of a wafer to a quarter of an inch, in grades from thin to thick, the former representing the dry, and the latter the wet seasons.
Now some crops of the country are more successfully raised in the dry seasons, and others in the wet. Cotton is produced in the greatest abundance in a comparatively dry season; corn the reverse. So that, by keeping and observing a critical meteorological record the planter can calculate with a good degree of certainty what crops would promise best from year to year. Thus, we believe, Providence has made it feasible, through science and art, for man to live and prosper in any country or climate under the sun. And further, the normal products of the different countries and climates are most suitable for the industries, health and happiness of the inhabitants thereof.
If the labor question of that country is ever properly settled and harmonized—in regard to which we are more hopeful than doubtful from recent data—the leading productive interest of Texas will continue to be that of cotton, particularly in the southern-central section. But we think the future will show that the strongest rival interest will be grape culture and wine making.
It is now conceded and agreed by practical men in the business of grape-growing there, that the soil and climate of Texas are admirably adapted to grape culture; and though in the past cotton has engrossed the attention of the people to the exclusion almost of every product except corn, now the cultivation of grapes is assuming prominent and tangible shape, and commanding the practical attention of the citizens of the State. Besides, the next few years will probably bring into the State thousands of vine-growers from the South of France and Germany, who will make this their principal business. If we look at the progress made with the vine in Ohio and other Northern States, with a less favored soil and climate, increasing from four thousand acres, ten or twelve years ago, to two millions of acres now devoted to wine-growing, yielding large profits and immense fortunes for those engaged in the business, how much greater success may be expected to accrue from an equal outlay of money and effort in the warm loamy soils of Texas.
The change in the labor system, resulting from the late war, is bringing the subject into more public notice. The system of forced labor no longer overshadows and oppresses the spirit of progress and improvement there. The inveterate slowness of the country must give way before the advancing step of reform, and as increasing light breaks in, bringing to public view the ponderous follies of the past industrial history of the country, new ideas will be allowed and patronized; new experiments made on scientific principles, and the present and prospective resources of the country, heretofore undiscovered or neglected, will be developed to a degree of profit and fortune that will astound the people themselves. When the people see that, in the matter of grape culture, a few acres cultivated in the vine will yield as large a profit as a cotton plantation ten times as large, and requiring ten times the labor, many more will be tempted to plant vineyards and reap the easy reward; so that after they are well planted and cared for, and by the third year have reached the profitable bearing period, instead of fifty dollars per acre, at most, net profit, as with cotton, for wine only a clear profit of five hundred to one thousand dollars per acre may be realized from grapes, and equally so for table use. Nor is there danger of overstocking the market with so useful and healthful a delicacy. The greater the supply the greater the demand. Our remarks on profits of grape culture are not imaginary guesswork, but based on well ascertained facts in the experience of vine-growers in Texas, with whom we have a personal acquaintance. They recommend the following varieties as doing well and being profitable there: The Concord, Clinton, Diana, Delaware, Iowa, Ives' Seedling, Herbemont, Creveling, Hartford Prolific, Perkins, Black July, Jacques, and Rogers' Hybrids numbers 1, 3, 4, 9, 15, 19, 22; and they say the beginner will do well to commence with the Clinton, Concord, etc., which will almost take care of themselves. The Diana is a fine grape for either table or wine. The Delaware and Isabella are fine table grapes, and the best native growers they have. But in Texas the trouble is to choose, for they nearly all do well.