Ranching in Texas #4

In 1839 a little company of immigrants came from Mississippi to Texas.

While wild game was plentiful. The presence and hostility by the local Indians, who stole corn from their first crops made bread hard to come by. It was a rough life for the next few years.

The country thinly settled, little farming was done. Thousands of acres of sparse trees and tall grass,feed horses and cattle, they required no other feed. Stocks of mustangs,deer and turkey seemed abundant and limitless. After several years the land was tamed. �This poem (on the right) written in the early 1900's was cut from a news paper of that time, author unknown

A bounteous store of meat at hand,
No vicious Red-Skin in the land,
The little fields afforded bread,
And cows came home with udders spread;
While oft, in the hollow of trees,
Were found the nests of busy bees,
And pails of of golden honey-comb,
Were no rare sight within the home.

So here, mid scenes that pleased them well,
With a land so rich and fair,
As Canaan's brightest vallys were,

The offspring of that little band,
are scattered to every point of the land,
While they like silent years that come no more,
Are over on that distant shore.�

Next, Texas Cookin'