As in all new, warm, and highly fertile countries, the low rich river bottoms, especially of Southern Texas, which are covered with a profusion of semi-tropical vegetation, are unhealthy to unacclimated persons. The higher lands are healthy, if the emigrant make a proper disposition of himself, which is too frequently otherwise. The atmosphere of the lower Brazos, at Richmond and thereabouts, was particularly poisonous to the writer. Three days' residence there would suffice to bring on chills and fever, and then a retreat of a week up the country seventy-five miles would suppress them.
San Antonio has been in former years quite a favorite resort for consumptive invalids seeking the improvement of health. The native Mexicans used to tell a story of its healthfulness that has the Yankee smack to it. They said some travelers, approaching San Antonio, met three disconsolate-looking fellows, who were hastening away from the city. They asked them what was the matter, and where they were going. They replied that they had met with reverses, that they wished to die, and were going to some place where they _could_ die.
Yellow fever is imported into the coast towns as it is into New York and Philadelphia, but it does not originate there. Its ravages, as would be expected in such a climate, are sometimes severe, but it does not penetrate into the upland and hilly regions any more than it does into the interior of New York or Pennsylvania.
_Times of Planting and Harvesting._--Plowing can be done in every month of the year. This is an immense advantage by way of economizing labor. It is done in January and February for the field crops. Early garden vegetables are planted in January. In February the prairies are green, corn mostly planted, and oats, barley, peas, etc., are sown. In March fresh pasturage is quite abundant, though the old has not failed during the winter, and about half the corn is planted. In April the balance. Then sheep are shorn, and potatoes, peas, and wild berries appear in market early in the month. In May small fruits are gathered; apricots ripen toward its close. In June corn is ready for harvesting, and peaches are ripe. In July first cotton-picking comes. We have seen new bales of cotton for sale in Galveston on the 4th of July. Cotton-picking continues to the close of November. December is a plowing, cleaning, and picking-up month.