Excerpt from Farm Ownership and Tenancy in the Black Prairie of Texas The prairies are characterized by black or dark-colored soils derived from a substructure of calcareous marl or chalky limestones, and are the most fertile of the whole-trans-mississippi region. This fact, together with the compara tive scarcity of untillable land, enables it to support the densest agricultural population of Texas. The black land soils are very sticky when plowed wet and very hard and cloddy when plowed too dry, but the clods readily break up 'when rains fall upon them. During droughts the soil is apt to crack if not frequently cultivated, but when cultivated enough to keep cracks from forming, it ranks among the most drought resistant soils In the State. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.