The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, July 1922 - April, 1923 Page: 91

The History of a Texas Slave Plantation, 1831-63

Stock raising was commonly considered to bring the largest
returns with the least expenditure of time and effort. Austin
did not attempt to estimate the number of cattle in his report
of 1833. An editorial in a contemporary newspaper summed up
the whole matter in this comparison:
Corn, sweet potatoes, butter, honey, and every article of sub-
sistence are in demand at this place and bring a good price.
Corn is worth $1.50 per bushel, and butter 25 cents per lb. The
farmer or planter without the resources for acquiring a strong
force (say 50 hands) to engage in sugar making may turn bene-
ficially his attention to the planting of cotton with from 5 to 20
hands; and we know several who successfully undertake this
branch of agriculture with no other aid than the white individ-
uals of their own family; if, however, he prefer a more easy mode
of living, he may raise horses, mules, horned cattle, or hogs.2
Mrs. Holley at the same time discussed stock raising as follows,
The extensive natural pastures found in the prairies furnish
peculiar facilities for rearing horses, black cattle, hogs, sheep and
goats. They require no attention but to be branded and pre-
vented from straying too far from home and becoming wild.
Large quantities of mules are raised annually, many of which are
carried to the United States; and it proves a very lucrative busi-
ness, inasmuch as the labor and expense in rearing them are
trifling and the price they command good. . . . In many
parts of Texas, hogs may be raised in large numbers on the native
mast. Acorns, pecans, hickory-nuts &c. with a variety of nu-
tritious grasses and many kinds of roots, afford them ample sus-
tenance during the year.63
Beef, hides, milk, butter, pork, lard, poultry, and lumber were
some of the products of Texas besides the products of the soil.
An article in the Telegraph says in 1835 that many of the settlers
counted their herds by the hundred. And that great numbers of
cattle were annually purchased and driven to New Orleans by
drovers who visited the country for that purpose.64
On the whole the people seem to have lived on what they and
their slaves produced. Land was so cheap and fertile that they
made no effort to conserve the soil, but planted the same crops
on the same land year after year.
65Telegraiph and Texas Register, Columbia, September 13, 1836.
"H3olley, Texas (1836), 66-67.
"Telegraph and Texas Register, October 31, 1835.