Texas Almanac, 1859 Page: 68
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05 TEXAS ALMANAC.
pact, sound, and heavy. It always goes over the standard weight-60 pounds per
bushel-rarely falls under 65, much of it reaches 70, and some crops attain the ex-
traordinary weight of 74 lbs. per bushel. It produces flour which, for sweetness,
liveliness, and flavor, is decidedly superior to that brought from the North. There
is even a marked difference in the wheat grown north of the 32d degree, and that
south of that parallel. A bushel of each kind may be manufactured in the same
mill, and the wheat north of the line will turn out more flour and a better quality
than that south of it.
WHEN READY FOR MARKET.
New flour may be manufactured ready for market from the 15th May to 1st
June-depending, in a measure, upon the season, which is six weeks in advance
of Northern or Western flour, where the wheat does not ripen until July. This
will give Texas a great advantage over all other wheat-growing regions. When
facilities of transportation to market shall be afforded-when railroad connection
with the Gulf is opened, wheat-growers in Northern Texas can have new, fresh
flour in all the Southern markets, or in the Northern markets if necessary, before
the Northern wheat has ripened, and thus monopolize the trade for several weeks,
and command the highest prices. This will render wheat-growing in Texas a sure
and remunerative business, so soon as our prairies are brought into communication
with the Gulf
The price of wheat and flour in Northern Texas has ranged for several years
past, frorr $1 to $1.50 per bushel for the former, and $4 to $6 per hundred for the
latter. Last year the crop was cut short by a severe frost, which fell on the 5th
of April, and wheat and flour were at the maximum $1.50 and $6, towards the last
of the season. The largely increased quantities cultivated the past season, the ex-
tended region in which it was grown, the aggregate heavy yield and consequent
large surplus for which there is no accessible market, have combined to reduce the
price of both to unusually low figures-wheat to 50 cents per bushel, and flour $2.50
and $3 per hundred. These prices will not more than meet the expenses of pro-
duction, of which the following is believed to be a fair estimate:
Rent of land, per acre, ................................... $3 00
Seed wheat, one bushel,............................... 1 00
Cost of sowing and ploughing in,............ .............. 1 50
Reaping, binding, etc, ..................................... 1 00
Threshing, ............................................. 1 60
$8 10
Yield, 15 bushels per acre, at 50c. per bushel, ................ 7 50
Excess of cost of producing, ................................ 60
But taking 20 bushels as the average yield, and $1 as the average
price-a very moderate and safe average-we should have as the
product of an acre, .......................................... $20 00
Or excess, over cost of production, of ............................ 11 90
QUANTITY PRODUCED.
We have no reliable data from which to form an approximate estimate of the
yield in Northern Texas, the past year. Had the crop turned out as its appearance
promised, it was estimated that the counties of Dallas, Collin, Denton, Grayson,
Cook, Tarrant, Parker, Wise, Johnson, Hill, Jack, Ellis, Navarro, Kaufman, Fannin,
Red River, Lamar, Palo Pinto, Young, etc., would have produced 2,800,000 bushels;
but the yield has fallen materially short of that, and has, perhaps, not exceeded
2,000,000. The larger wheat-growing counties are, perhaps, as follows, in the
order in which they are named, to wit: Dallas, Collin, (about equal,) Graysoin,
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Texas Almanac, 1859, book, 1859~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth123765/m1/69/?rotate=90: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.