Show se fi FACTS t FIGURES L J J jr OI U Texas has more than people as Texas writer Bill hill Porterfield Por For points out in a special issue of Context the Du Pont Company's current affairs magazine devoted to Texas Texas is i's still the leading producing cattle state he he says aYI and 80 percent of ot Texas beef beet is raised by small operators who never have more than 20 head at a time Mathematically this means that the more than 12 million head of cattle are tended by at least dudes he says 5 But there is more in Texas than cows Porterfield says flays the state ranks first in goats and sheep second in turk turkeys ysl and eighth in chickens And AM c certainly certainly r- r first in buzzards armadillos armadillos armadillos arma arma- dillos horned homed toads rattlesnakes rattlesnakes rattlesnakes rattle rattle- snakes coyotes and deer In spite of droughts and the sprawl of urban outposts continues Porterfield in spite of the spread of superhighways superhighways ways way and the passing of f fa farm to-rural to county seat life in spite of the decline in the number of farms Texas still ranks third behind California and Iowa in crop receipts Farms are fewer ewer larger specialized more expensive expensive expensive sive to operate but tar more efficient and productive 5 As a result Texas is the leading producer of cotton grain sorghum rice watermelons watermelons water water- melons cabbage spinach onions onions on ions and carrots When you youE E Combine bine livestock with crops pS and timber and anil call it agribusiness ness you have the states state's leading industry a 20 billion a year production which even outsells oil he declares Americas America's bounty can be depended upon to such an extent that according to the US U.S. Department of Agriculture UI ture the average American eats over 77 pounds of fresh fruit annually |