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combine to render farming north of Port Lavaca, in general, hazardous. Exceptionally rich and favorable local areas occur in Jackson, Matagorda and Brazoria counties. The area, however, in general, is mostly devoted to grazing, and supports great numbers of cattle, in many of the herds Brahma blood being quite apparent. Between Port Lavaca and Kingsville, the annual rainfall is favorable for agriculture and this portion is largely under cultivation to cotton.

Shrubby Iva, Baccharis and wax myrtle are common as far south as Calhoun County, the last named giving such character as to have prompted the name "myrtle prairie," by which much of the northern portion of the Coastal Prairie is commonly known. Conspicuous flowering herbs are arrow-head, spider-lily, blue-eyed grass, pink Texas star, Texas blue-bell, blue and yellow asters, firewheels, spurges, scrophs, daisies, wild beans, Coreopsis, morning-glory, wild onion, giant coneflower, and many others. Common weeds are various members of the rag-weed group, sunflowers, Crotons and others. Saline marshes and back-beaches have each their own flora, characterized, in general, by the fleshy succulence usual to such situations.

There is much evidence on record to indicate that the chaparral extends much farther up the coast now than it did a hundred years ago. This spread is due, apparently:

• (1) to intensive grazing, which, together with increased population, has eliminated prairie fires except under control on stretches of salt-grass; and
• (2) to the actual dissemination of the seed of mesquite, Acacia, and horsebean by livestock which find the pods of these plants quite palatable.

The seeds, however, are in many cases hard and resistant both to chewing and digestion, hence they are passed through the alimentary canal without injury and are scattered over the range. This means has also supposedly been a potent factor in the material spread of mesquite northward during the past century.