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Our Catltolic Heritage in Texas
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of small huts built on either side of an aceqttia (water ditch). These were built of adobe bricks and were generally roofed with straw. Along each row of houses there was a sort of street. The missionaries lived in their small friary, a two-story structure of stone and mortar, with three living cells on the second floor and offices and other rooms on the first. Next to the friary there was a large gallery where the Indian women worked at the looms to make the cloth for their dresses; then followed a granary for the mission corn and other grains, and beyond there were several rooms which were used as offices. The mission was well supplied with lands for the raising of crops and for pasturing the stock. The pastures were to the north and east. In the cultivated fields the neophytes sowed from eight to nine fanegas of corn which yielded as much as a thousand or twelve hundred fanegas in good years. They generally planted two fanegas of beans and harvested about sixty. Two fields were used for the cultivation of cotton and these yielded about forty arrobas (about one thousand pounds) each year. Two or three patches of watermelons, melons, and pumpkins were also grown each year. All the land under cultivation was irrigated by a large ditch which brought an abundant supply of water from the river. All the products raised by the neophytes were used for their maintenance. To cultivate the fields and carry on the other work about the mission, San Antonio de Valero had twenty-three yokes of oxen, twenty hoes, twenty adzes, twelve carts, four shovels, thirty axes, eleven handbars, a blacksmith shop with all the tools necessary to repair and keep in condition ail the farm implements, a carpenter shop with all its tools, and all the necessary chisels and hammers for stone carving and masonry. In the room where the women and such men as were not capable of working in the fields were employed, there were three looms, six pairs of cards, eight combs, six shuttles, and twenty spinning wheels. To weave the various kinds of cloth the neophytes used the wool from the mission sheep and the cotton raised on the mission farms. They made excellent sackcloth, brown domestic fabrics and coarse cotton weaves. During the inspection, Father Ortiz ordered all the cattle and other stock belonging to the mission gathered and counted. It was found that there were at this time two thousand two head of cattle, not including about three hundred which could not be rounded up on account of the proximity of the Apaches. There were also one thousand three hundred and seventeen sheep, three hundred and four goats, and forty horses. The latter were used to care for the livestock of the mission. The mission
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