THE AUSTIN PAP.ERS 251 defer saying any thing more on this subject until I meet with an opportunity to send you a rough map which I have made of Texas which will enable you to understand this matter better- I have sent my map to T. F. Leaming of philadelphia (a distant relative by Mothers side) to have it engraved- It is accurate in the general, but cannot be minutely so because it has not all been com- piled from actual survey As regards the country on the Rio Grande, so far as my information extends it is calculated entirely for pastoral purposes and can never be valuable as an agricultural section The soil is rich and fertile, but the seasons are dry and so very irregular as to destroy every thing like certainty in crops, unless where there are facilities for irrigation, and those can only be ob- tained by means of machinery for i·aising the water out of the river- an expedient which would be expensive and I think inadequate- tho many have had it in contemplation, as I have been told, to .use steam for this purpose- Should the temperature of that climate, and the peculiar[ities] of the soil be well adapted to coffee, a plantation would doubtless justify the expense of an engine to supply water for irrigation- y our observation in all quarters of the world, will enable you to form a much more correct opinion as to this, than any one who has ever visited there. You say nothing in your letter of the fur business. tho I have understood that the privilege of trapping is also granted- My in- formation on this point is limited and contradictory. Some have assured me that the Rio Puerco (an eastern branch of rio Grande) afforded as fine a trapping region as any of the missouri waters- this river has also been represented as affording large bodies of rich and heavily timbered land well watered and seasons regular- Such , is the account which some have given- Others say quite the re- verse- That section is but little known and I presume the contra- dictory statements may have originated in partial views of it- One would cross the river where the country was good and beaver sign plenty, and another would pass it at a place where the appear- ance was unfavorable and each would form a general opinion of the whole from what he saw- Beaver is very scarce on all the waters of the Colorado, Brazos, Trinity and other rivers of Texas-- There is, no doubt a fine trapping country north of Santa Fe- I am not of opinion that Mexicans or Indians can be advantageously used as trappers-the latter are prefectly barborous, and faithless and haYe no idea of hunting for the skins or peltry- A party of Mexicans once trained to the business would be valuable and useful!, but it would requi~e much care and some time to train them, In O'eneral their enterprise is not of that daring and inflexible characte;neces-
Powered by FlippingBook