The Dallas Daily Herald

FROM THE SOUTHEAST.

Farming Interest—Grasshoppers—Cattle Business, Etc.

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS, APRIL 24, 1877.

To the Editor of The Herald:

Your summary of news items from the different counties, is certainly an interesting feature of The Herald, at least to one of your readers. Believing an item from this distant point from your city will be profitable, I write:

This point is within one mile of the corners of the counties of Caldwell, Guadalupe and Hays, and four miles from the town of San Marcos, in the beautiful valley of the San Marcos river. It is truly, a beautiful, picturesque, rich, fertile and healthy country. The valley is from one to five miles wide on both sides of the river, and many miles in length. Lovely farms are dotted about, but not one half the valley is cultivated. The season is a little backward, and the grasshoppers have caused at least a shadow of doubt in the minds of farmers, and planting has been delayed. This is, or has been, a cotton country, but the acreage of small grain—wheat, oats and barley—is now quite an item in this section; and where it has not been disturbed by grasshoppers, looks very fine and promising. The ravages of the hoppers is not general—many farms so far having escaped—but in places they have made a clean sweep, even the grass, weeds and cockle-burs have been devoured. The little creatures are growing very fast, and are "taking wings to fly-away," and it is hoped never to return.

That you may form an idea of the stock interest of the far west, I note the fact that a few days ago, there was between this point and Austin, a distance of thirty miles, fifteen herds of cattle, averaging eighteen hundred head to the herd. Think of it, twenty-seven thousand cattle within a distance of thirty miles, and their heads turned north.

JOHN.