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Show 616 WESTERN WILDS. the cost of bringing a full- grown ox into market is less than half what it would be in Ohio.' The best of unimproved land, near the railroad, sometimes sells as high as twelve dollars per acre; from that it ranges down to four. In 1875 the surplus crop of the State was worth twelve million dollars. The report for that year showed that the corn raised in the State, if shelled and put in box- cars, would have loaded a train sixteen hundred miles long ! The Indian Territory is much talked of, but I would not advise any one to go there with a view to permanent settlement. Government can not open the land to immigration without a shameful breach of good faith, and for one, as an humble citizen, I protest against it. There is such an abundance of good land elsewhere that we can afford , to leave this to the civilized Indians for the next fifty years. Then their progress will have been such that they will themselves throw it open and invite white settlers. Texas, just south of it, offers a far better field. Dallas is the center of a region two hundred miles square, which offers great inducements to Northern men. The win-ters are sharp enough to insure health and energy ; and the summers are not, as far as I could observe, any hotter than in Minnesota. Land through all this section can be had at from four to eight dollars per acre. There are no Congressional lands in Texas ; it is all State land. This comes of the State having been an independent republic when it came into the Union. It reserved the ownership of all lands within its borders, though there are not wanting lawyers who assert that the general government might have rightfully taken those lands from the State after the latter had seceded. Look out for those beautifully colored maps which divide Texas into various agricultural sections, and locate the " wheat lands " away up on the heads of the Brazos, Colorado and Red River. One can put in his eye all the wheat they will raise up there without an ex-pansive and expensive system of irrigation, and it will puzzle them to find water to irrigate with. If half that region is fit for grazing land it is the best we can expect. Southern Texas is not very suitable for Northern men. Along the gulf are immense areas of fine sugar and cotton lands, but the climate is not favorable. Not that the heat is so great; but the summers are long, the autumns dry, and the winters first warm, moist and debilitating, and then very chilly. Central and north-ern Texas are free from these disadvantages. The immigrant from the North must learn a new system of agriculture, but that he can easily do. Society ? Well, I found it very agreeable. If there is any special hostility to Northern men, or Republicans, I never noticed it. The |