The Texas Coast Section Filling Up.
At Velasco, Texas, recently several carloads of fine draft stock belonging to newly arrived farmers from Nebraska were received, and the next day several carloads of household goods for another colony from Kansas, who had bought farms in Brazoria county, were unloading. M. M. Miller, of the Velasco National Bank, and others have received letters from parties who are coming with families and stock from both of these States and from New Mexico, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
At the present rate Brazoria county’s population, it is said, will be doubled by the end of the present year; at least 90 per cent. of increase began coming in less than two years ago.
Colonization Plans for Florida.
Mr. O. J. Johnson, excursion, land and colonization agent, of Minneapolis, has been prospecting in Florida for a site for settling immigrants from the North and Northwest.
Mr. Johnson will take a good many hundred people South, he says, if he has the right encouragement. He was the immigration agent of the Northern Pacific railroad for nine years.
Four business men of Minneapolis are interested with Mr. Johnson. They are Mr. N. C. Westerfield, Dr. William E. Wheelock, Messrs. P. S. McKay and C. E. Channel. Their idea is to purchase a tract of land of from 10,000 acres upward, divide it into smaller farms and lots and then sell these lots to such settlers as they want.
“I’ve had a deal of experience in this line,” said Mr. Johnson, “and know what is to be done. I am well satisfied with Florida’s climate and attractions, and know that we can settle many hundreds of good people. We have a large number of inquiries already, and I am satisfied we can place all the people we want to handle. The farmers of Dakota and other points in the Northwest are dissatisfied, and hundreds and hundreds of them will come the moment they are assured that this State promises them a fair living with the work they have to devote now to a mere existence.”
A Fruit-Growing Association to Locate in Texas.
Officers of the Rock Island Fruit Growers’ and Improvement Association are in Texas inspecting lands. It is the purpose of the association to acquire a large tract of land in the Gulf coast region of Texas, in the centre of which to lay out a town site, giving to each member of the association a town lot. A maximum and minimum ownership of land is restricted by the by-laws of the association. Reservations are made for school, church, town hall, park and cemetery purposes. No lands can be held in unimproved state for speculation; a certain portion of each owner’s land must be improved during the first year by planting fruit, vegetables or other horticultural products, and at least two acres additional each succeeding year until each owner’s lands are under cultivation. When the products are ready to ship the shipments will be made in car lots to the most advantageous markets of the country.