William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[328] the north and Kickapoos on the south, the Texans have not yet acquired that solid hold of the soil which lends a platform to domestic arts. A chain of military posts runs through the land, from Fort Richardson, Fort Griffin, and Fort Worth, in the upper counties, to Fort Concho, Fort Ewell, and Fort Clarke, in the lower counties. Every season, some portions of the State are overrun by savages from Mexico; not such gentle savages as those who stream into Shefelah and Sharon, eating the grapes, drinking the water, and fighting the peasantry, but monsters in human shape, who steal into the settled parts in search of cows and ponies, scalps and girls. There are no milking-maids and dairy-maids in Texas. If the farmers had such girls they would not dare to send them out into the cattle-runs. The Kickapoos would whisk them off into Mexico. Men with rifles and revolvers have enough to do if they would mind their cows and keep their scalps.

A settler here and there has introduced domestic arts, but only for his family's use. The mass of settlers keep their pails and churns down East. They find dried meat from Illinois, canned milk from Vermont, and salt butter from Ontario cheaper than they can