MAURY COUNTY, TN-NEWSPAPERS- Maury Newspaper Excerpts, 20 Apr 1877
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Abstracted by S. Armistead from Maury Co., TN newspaper

April 20, 1877

				ALL ABOUT TEXAS

To the Editor of the Herald and Mail:

Since my return home almost every one asks,  "Well, how did you like Texas?"

I would like to answer this question according to my honest impressions, and 
to the satisfaction of any one and every one, who may entertain an idea of 
emigrating to that State.  I will state in the first place, that every business 
is overdone, except farming.  Texas is a good country, and as a farming country, 
is the finest in the South or West, and equal to any on the habitable globe.  

Texas, as a State, does not want any more lawyers, doctors, preachers, mechanics, 
printers, office-seekers, clerks, bookkeepers, barbers, school teachers, soldiers, 
insurance agents, peddlers, gamblers, etc.  But all that it does want, and want 
it bad, is the honest, hard-handed, hard-working farmers, who are anxious to till 
the soil and to make an honest living by the sweat of his honest brow.  If 
anyone wishes to go there otherwise, my advice is to stay at home.  But if 
you are willing to go to work on the farm at good and paying wages, go to Texas.

I find farm hands are in demand.  A farm hand will get twenty dollars a month 
the year round, or one dollars and fifty cents per diem during the busy season. 
Almost everything that you plant will grow in Texas.  The richest lands are 
the prairie lands.  The timbered lands are poor, but even then are rich in 
comparison to some other countries.  It matters but little where you settle 
in Texas, so that you go to work.  I find the farming land to yield more per 
acre of wheat, cotton, and corn, on an average, than the best farm in Maury 
County.  One peculiarity of that land is that the more it is worked, the better 
it is, and after it has been worked year by year, for one hundred years or more, 
then it is richer and more productive and fertile than when first cultivated. 

One great difficulty is breaking up the soil, as this waxy prairie black mud 
will stick to the plow; and as no plow has yet been invented that will "scour," 
they give three dollars and fifty cents per acre to have the land broken up.  
This is the great trouble with Texas lands, but even then you discover it is 
easier put in cultivation than lands anywhere else, for when lands are once 
broke up and put into cultivation, your fortune is made forever afterwards, 
as long as it is cultivated it remains loose and easily plowed by one horse, 
yielding easily a bale to two bales of cotton per acre, and twenty to forty 
bushels of wheat, and about ten barrels of corn.  And oats are indigenous to 
the soil, and flourish almost spontaneously. 

Peaches do well, but apples do not get ripe in this country; it is not called 
a good fruit country.  Vegetables of all descriptions does well, such as 
lettuce, radishes, peas, snaps, okra, squashes, tomatoes, etc. 

Next to farming comes the sheep and cattle business.  A young man went to 
Texas four years ago, without a single cent in his pocket.  He was hired as 
soon as he landed to herd sheep at twenty dollars per month.  At the end of 
the year he invested this $240 in sheep, (120 sheep) at $2 each.  At the end 
of two years his herd had doubled; he re-invested again, and then herded to 
himself.  At the end of the four years he had sold six thousand dollars worth 
of wool and mutton, and had two thousand good and thrifty ewes left.  But 
sheep has to be watched day and night, and the most successful sheep raisers 
are the best herders.  A Mexican can be hired to shear sheep at three dollars 
a hundred, and they will shear from 150 to 200 a day and so close, as if to 
seem that the sheep had been sand-papered. 

Next to sheep is the cattle business.  This, at present, is the best and most 
money making business, as your only trouble is to mark and brand in the 
spring of the year.  Every man's mark and brand is registered.  And you may 
kill and rob a man, and not much said or done; but just happen to brand the 
wrong calf by mistake, and you will be hung sure.  Four year old beef cattle 
sell at from eight to twelve dollars.  A yoke of broke oxens will sell at 25 
to forty dollars each.  

Next to the cattle business is the horse business.  Every person has a herd 
of horses; but this business if not now so profitable as it has heretofore 
been, good unbroke horses selling at from seven to fifteen dollars; and even 
at this price there is big money, as it cost nothing to raise a horse. 

But right here, I will again say if you want to till the soil by the sweat of 
your brow, go to Texas.  But if you have an idea of raising sheep, cattle, 
or horses, or building houses, or practicing law, or physic, or do anything 
else but work the land, don't come, for I say unto you, you will do no good.  
All that Texas wants is good farmers.  But if you are willing to pull off 
your coat, and roll up your sleeves and take hold of the plow handles, go to 
Texas, for it is certainly the greatest farming country within the borders 
of the United States; but don't go there thinking that you will find an easy 
place, for it is not there. 

But if you are rich and have plenty of money and nothing to do, you may have 
a good time hunting and fishing.  But people there have to work for their 
living, and there they are the thriftiest and most energetic and enterprising 
men and women I ever saw.   

Lands are worth from 50 cents to $50.00 per acre, according to improvements.

Now my dear reader, I have given you my honest opinion of Texas.  It is a good 
country.  There is no gainsaying in that; but I say to you, if you go to Texas, 
you will have to work.  In conclusion, I will say, if you are willing to work, 
go to Texas; if you are not willing to work, stay where you are.  But go and 
see for yourselves.

I am very respectfully,

SAM R. WATKINS