The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964 Page: 391
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Population Trends in the Western Cross Timbers
through seeding programs. Most striking, however, have been
the results of experiments involving no seeding at all. It has been
discovered that the native little bluestem and Indian grasses will
appear under certain conditions in pastures cleared of timber and
undergrowth. The success of this program in the Western Cross
Timbers province is indicated by the fact that the Texas section
of the American Society of Better Range Management held its
annual meeting in Palo Pinto County in 1959 to exhibit the
results of successful experiments with timber clearance and soil
improvement grasses.
Irrigation has not been a major factor in the heartland, but the
completion of great dams upon relatively minor streams in the
province has assured water for heartlanders during times of
drought. Even the counties of the lower heartland have benefited
from such projects. The Proctor Dam on the South Leon in
Comanche County, completed in 1963, has revived the hopes of
inhabitants of this region. It is doubtful that irrigation will ever
be of major consequence, but in 1959 there were 230 irrigated
farms in the heartland. This represented only 235,o81 acres under
irrigation in the entire province, but it is noteworthy that 212,o31
acres of this total were designed for grazing or stock-feeding pur-
poses (Table 13).
There are at least four significant factors of population com-
position which have helped maintain a certain amount of social
homogeneity within the heartland. These are (1) the absence of
large racial minorities, (2) a relatively advanced median age level,
(3) a reasonably high median number of school years completed,
and (4) the predominance of no more than two Protestant
religious bodies.
With the exception of a few Jewish merchants and Negro
laborers located mostly within the larger cities of Brownwood
and Mineral Wells, the ethnic composition of the heartland pop-
ulation is based largely upon Caucasian, western European
origins (Table 14). It is true that population increases have
brought a very slight increase in Negro inhabitants, but in 1950
they constituted only 1.55 per cent of the total population
(Table 15) -
As has been demonstrated, the heartland has long been an agri-
cultural area, and while change is evident, its culture remains391
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964, periodical, 1964; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101197/m1/453/?rotate=270: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.