The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-27 00:00:00

COUNTRY AROUND KANSAS CITY.
(From the Anglo-American Times.)
Hal we been discussing this subject 25 years
ago our emigration centres would have been Chi-
cago and St. Louis, the first a point to the east of
Illinois, the other a point to the east of Miszouri.
Since then the flow of immiz,ration has passed these
nearlycitits
500 miles beyond Chicago to Omaha,
and nearly 300 beyond St. Louis to Kansas City,
creating among others as it flowed these two grand
towns. St. Louis is the great city of the Prairies
and of the Mississippi, as is Chicago of the Prairies
and of the Lakes. The English emigrant who im-
agines that these towns hundreds upon hundreds of
miles in the interior of the continent are without
ships and steamers would be surprised to see the
vessels loading at Chicago, and the large ste3mera
arriving at and leaving the wharves of St. Louis.
The former looks over a lake to which the Irish
Channel in comparison is but a pond, and the
river communication of St. Louis is counted by its
thousands of miles, not up and down one river
only, but up and down a dozen. St. Louis be-
came great because it is just below the junction of
the Mississippi and Missouri ; 174 miles down, the
Ohio joins, and the Arkansas some 300 miles fur-
ther, each with its own navigable branches. The
river narrows at St. Louis from the wide expanse
above, and the city occupies two plateaux, the one
abruptly rising from the river, the other gently
ascending and expanding into a beautiful plain,
seven miles long and three broad. On this grand
site St. Louis stands, a city some confidently pre-
dict will one day become the national capital of the
United States. The vast block of land whereof
Kansas City may be considered the emigration
centre, consists of the States of Missouri, con-
taining 65,350 square miles or 41,824,000 acres,
of which 1,835,892 remained unappropriated in June,
4.367, and Kansas containing 81,318 square miles,
or 52,043,520 acres, of which 43,148,874 rmnained
unappropriated at the same period. Missouri is 318
miles long and 280 wide ; Kansas extends from east
to west 344 to 403 miles, with a uniform breadth of
2QB, therefore the block may be put down as 700
miles long from the Mississippi to the boundary of
Colorado, and 250 broad from the frontier line of
Nebraska and lowa on the north to the frontier lino
of the Indian Territory and Arkansas to the south.
A. considerable portion of Missouri is embraced
between the rivers Mississippi and Missouri, carry-
ing the same country as lower lowa down to the
fork. It will readily be imagined that this tract
between the two great rivers is about as rich as
land can be, all rolling prairie or quite flat. The
calcareous soils predominate, the substratum being
chiefly carboniferous limestone, the district being
remarkable for vast measures of bituminous coal. -
lt is a singular fact that this beautiful and wealthy
lloab, as it would be called in India, lying be-
tween the 38th' and 40th parallels of latitude
(the bend of the Missouri through the State
being almost due east), should have extremes of
temperature. The rivers for a period of winter are
so frozen as to enable heavily-loaded vehicles to
cross ; indeed, when the ice breaks up it is sure lo be
accompanied with damage to the miles of steam-
boats laid by at St. Louis. But English readers
must not associate the cold of England with that
of the central portions of the United States, for one
is a damp, boisterous, searching cold; the other is
a dry, pure, and generally still cold—far more in-
tense, yet far less felt. The summer, on the con-
trary, is extremely warm, but the dry, pure atmos-
phere and the prairie breezes render the heat more
endurable than elsewhere in a similar temperature.
South of the Missouri, as far west as Osage, the
surface is rolling, becoming hilly and mountainous
towards the Ozark ranges. West of the Osage a
vast expanse of prairie stretches towards the Pa-
cific. 'The greater portion of South Missouri is
hilly and broken, but there are rich valleys among
the mountains, invariably covered with white pine
forests. The marshes of the south-east, when
drained, will constitute the best farming lands of
the State; the river bottoms are covered with luxu-
riant growths of oak, elm, ash, hickory, cotton
woo 1, linden, white and black walnut, while heavy
lorests of yellow pine, crab apple, pawpaws, hazel,
and wild gripes, with white and pin oak, mostly cover
the thinner soils. In the Osage district Kansas and
the Indian Territory is entered, and the land there
is of unequalled fertility, the great drift of settle-
ment being in that direction, an-I on Indian reser-
vations, which causes the Government some degree
of embarrassment and trouble. Any one who took
a compass, and drew a radius of 100 miles around
Kansas City, would include as fine a district as the
heart of man could desire. The town stands where
the Kansas River enters the Missouri River, and -
the Kansas Pacific Railway runs up the valley
of the Kansas River, as does the Union Pa-
cific up the-Valley of the Platte, with this differ-
ence, that the former is described as one of the
finest and most fertile valleys of the world. Gene-
rally it is about four miles broad, sometimes widen-
ing to double that, but behind rise what are there
called bluffs, mere gentle swells, which carry the
traveller to the plateau of the prairie. Manhattan
is at the junction of the Big Blue river, of which we
spoke in our former article as running through a
valley from Nebraska almost parallel with the
Missouri, the entire stretch between, being rich
land. The valleys of the two rivers there combine
about 118 miles above Kansas (qty, and extend
over miles, with the great prairie around, the swells
and ridges affording enlarged and magnificent
views. Of these the most striking is Blue Mound,
half a mile above the entrance of the river, rising to
au apex about 100 feet high. This mound, as well as
all the ridges, display limestone quarries, either on
the surface or two feet below, suitable for building
or fencing, and some of it makes excellent lime.
Let us take this town and that of Junction City
some miles further up, where the Republican River
flows into the Kansas and Selina, as fair samples of
what the emigrant has to expect along the best line
of settlement now open in the United States. But
little of the country is enclosed, so it is all commons
for stock grazing, therefore men in the towns
can keep cattle if they choose. The dairyman,
supplies Manhattan with milk at 4d. a quart, who
pastures his cows around the town, some
thirty head of fat cattle, which are kept in a yard
during thenight, and he buys hay, delivered there at
15s. a ton. A fine cow is worth about £7, such as
in New York would sell for £l7. The animals are
fat, and, as a general rule, fit to kill ; and this year
it is said they will be corn fed, as the yield has
been 40 bushels to the acre, and the demand, which
formerly was great, has lately ceased. A. recent tra-
veller,walking in the neighbourhood,tells how he came
on a poor cottage with its ost ner sitting at the door,
who for ten years had been located in Kansas, hav-
ing come from New York. He thought the couns
try the best he ever saw to get a start ; but he had
a large family, and had never been able to get the
start. "Ihave worked," said he, " during the war for
two bushels of corn a day ; now I get four." " Why
don't you take homestead land ?" asked the travel-
ler. " Well, the Indians have been troublesome,
and there is no land good for much within 20 miles."
Pointing to the rising land around, the rich valleys
of the Blue and the Kansas,he added, "that of course
I would not have." " What," asked the traveller in
astonishment, " are these lands across the river
homesteads?" " Yes ; and there are thousands on
thousands of acres ;" and in reply to the question
whether a part was not good soil, it was
acknow-
ledged
irne
es
r2kos oefr
t3hoe
finet
h
crops.wouldtay e 1 l er ais
raise
s
Herethat arein theBo acres
the
Eastern for the information of Americans of
interview, and it must be remembered that he was
Eastern States, not for books on emigration. or to
puff up land and railroad schemes to mislead in
foreign countries :
~1 was never more astonished. There was the rolling
prairie bluff land, which would produce corn, go-d oats,
first rate wheat, and excellent fruit, in sight of a nice
town, or at least not dist:tut, that could be had in 80-acre
and nobody to take it. I could take such a
ltoratsetf,or StilptitB,
with forest and orchard trees. awl in rive
years make a farm, on which I should be willing to die at
some remote period. The ground is not as rough as
many good farms on the Erie Railroad, and all through
Eastern New York, while, having a limestone basis, the
fertility must be far superior, and be retained for many
years. I was told, beside, that within seven and eight
miles there is fair homestead laud, and 20 miles distant
first class. All this shows that the cheapest thing in this
country is land. And it shows, too, that young men, and
men of families in the city, who live on salaries and
barely rub through from year to year, are, if they have a
spark of genuine ambition, dreadfully fooling away their
time."