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Show TEXAS CONTINUED. 431 of three or four counties, and then the heat increases rapidly till you again get within range of the tempering breezes from the gulf. The thermometer never ranges quite as high as in latitudes a long way north. In Houston the climate seems nearly perfection. For twenty years the thermometer has never been above ninety- five degrees. At one time, in the coldest weather, it sank to ten degrees above zero, but rarely goes lower than twenty degrees. The average of the " heated term," one day with another, is there recorded at eighty- four degrees. There has never been a case of sunstroke at Houston. Only half a dozen are recorded at Galveston. Necessa-rily, over such an area as I have outlined, we find every product of the temperate zone, and many of the torrid. In popular language, then, Texas is considered in four grand divisions. Eastern Texas includes the country from the Sabine to the Trinity River; Central Texas, that from the Trinity to the Colorado ; Northern Texas means the two or three tiers of counties nearest Red River, and all of Young Territory; and Western Texas the whole region from the Colorado to the Rio Grande, including the grazing district. The old Texans are not very enterprising. With seven million cattle they import most of their milk and butter; there has been too much sameness of production ; the climate invites to ease and repose, and the people are too' contented. A man with ten thousand cattle upon the range, is content to live on corn- bread and boiled beef, sit on a hickory " shakeup" chair, sleep on shucks, live in a board or log " shantie," chew " home- made" tobacco, and spit through the cracks. " An undeveloped empire," hackneyed comparison for the West, is literal truth applied to Texas. In 1850 the population was only 212,592; in 1860 it was 604,215; in 1870 it was returned at 818,579, and at 1,592,574 by the last census. And even now an area nearly three times as large as Ohio, with an equal average of fertility, and climate suitable for corn, cotton, tobacco, and a dozen kinds of fruit, is literally begging for inhabitants. |
