The Pulaski Citizen

There appeared in your paper of Sept. 4, a letter from Plano, Texas, written by B. M. H. in which he accuses me of grossly misrepresenting that state I would like to say in the beginning of this letter that I do not have to rent a home here and that I have always managed to have plenty to eat and to wear. I had a good motive in writing what I did about Texas. B. M. H. asserts that there is less drunkenness and crime in Texas than in Tennessee. Would like to ask him if those cow boys out there are not pretty rough customers sometimes. Can say that I have seen a few muddy roads in Giles, but the mud didn't stick to our wagon wheels like feathers to a tar keg. Would inform B. M. H. that we live in a rich, productive and healthy portion of Giles. He says there are no more chiggers and ticks out there than in Giles. This is a most ridiculous assertion I was born and raised in Giles co. and have never seen a red bug yet. As to ticks, they are mostly brought here on Alabama cattle. I have gone hunting in those bushy bottoms out in Texas and when I returned I had to make a smoke of tobacco leaves to make the ticks drop off. I infer from what B M H. says of his profession that he is a would-be physician. His observations may have been good, but they were certainly very limited if he saw no severe cases of fever or a single case of consumption among the native Texans. I lived in Texas three years and during that time had two severe cases of fever. I certainly ought to know whereof I write. I saw two cases of consumption result fatally to natives of Texas within a year after I went to the state. I did not say the pleasures and comforts of life could not be enjoyed in Texas as well as elsewhere. I simply advised the boys, some of whom are my personal friends, not to leave good and comfortable homes and go to Texas with the expectation of making fortunes by working for wages or cropping on the shares. I didn't get lost in the pine woods of Western Arkansas as B. M. H. supposes. It is very likely that he measures other people's potatoes by his own half-bushel. would ask B. M. H. why so many of our citizens who are industrious, intelligent, persevering men and good farmers go to Texas and stay a year or two and return to Tennessee and settle down for life. It seems reasonable to suppose that a healthy climate, productive land, good water, fine fruits and cheap homes would be some inducement to them to stay in Texas. I didn't make a good crop in Texas on account of the drouth. These drouths make farming a very uncertain business in Texas. In the summer of 79, the last year of my sojourn in Texas, I saw cattle starving to death for the want of water. They had a drouth of nearly three months duration. For stock water in Texas as a general thing they have to depend upon ponds supplied by the rains and in the time of a drouth the supply of water soon becomes exhausted. I did not draw on my imagination for what I say about those Texas northers, as every Giles countian who has ever lived in Texas will testify. We sometimes scrape over rocks in plowing but we have the consolation of knowing that we can utilize them in making good roads. As to being "drawers of water," we are certain that if we lived in Texas and got any water to use we would have to draw it from an old well or cistern. We know that we wouldn't be hewers of wood from the simple fact that there is mighty little wood in Texas to hew. The scarcity of timber is another great objection to Texas.
G.E.A.