Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-07-02
oREELEY's LETTERS.
AN OVERLAND JOURNEY.
SUMMING UP ON KANSAS.
NUMBERS FIVE AND 81,

like Kansas--that is natural Kansas-bet-
ter than had expected to. The soil Is richer
and deeper; the timber is more generally diffus-
ed; the country more rolling-than had sup
posed them. There are of course heavy draw
backs 10 remoteness from the seaboard; heavy
charges for bulky goods, low prices Of produce,
Indian reserves, and the high price Of good
lumber. For instance, pine boards used in build
ing at this place come from Allegheny County
N. Y E, and were RATED down some mill-stream
to the Allegheny, thence down the Allegheny
to Pittsburg, and the Ohio to Cairo, taken up
the Mississippi to st. Louis the Missouri to
Kansas City, and the Kansas to this place, which
has but twice or thrice been reached by a steam
boat. When here, they we're dog cheap at 500
per thousand superficial feet, or ten ceuts for
every square foot. In the absence Of steam
boat navigation on the Kansas, they must here
be richly worth 1925 per thousand feet And,
while there is pretty good timber here for other
purposes, there is little-and that mainly black
walnut-that will make good boards. The ready
Cottonwood along the banks of the streams
cut easily, but warps so when seasoned that it
will draw the nails ont of the side of a house;
Elm is of course equally perverse; and l have
seen few Indigenous boards that we're not either
Black Walnut or Oak. But much of the Oak
is small, short and gnarly; while the Black Wal
nut is likely to be exhausted. / see young ones
coming up thickly in some of the river bottoms;
but these have much to contend WITH and will
not at best be large enough to saw for many
years. No doubt, the timber of Kansas in.
creases each year, and will increase still faster
as roads and improvements are multiplied limit
ing the sweep Of the prairiefres; but it will al
ways cost more to build q decent house of wood
in the interior of Kansas than in New York or
New-Engand-I think twice as much. This is
a heavy tax on new county, where not only
houses but barns are q general primary anc
pressing need. l rejoice to see the new timber
creeping up the bluffs of the streams; notC
with pleasure that much Of this is Hickory ant
some of it White Ash; l doubt not that there
will always be wood enough here for fencing
and fuel; but if the Pixies Peak region can
send good lot of Pine lumber down the Platte
and the Arkansas, it will be worth more to Kan
sas than all her gold.
l consider Kansas we'll watered-no Prairie
State better. 1 do not confne this remark to
the present, when everything is flooded, likely
to be more so. l mean that springs, streams
creeks, rivers are quite universal For my own
private drinking, 1 should like a supply not so
much impregnated with lime but, for limestone
water this is generally quite good.
And the Limestone itself is among the chieI
blessings of Kansas. presume it underles
every foot of her soil have yet tTaversed, with
nearly every square mile within the State o.
Kansas. You see it cropping out from almost
every bluff; it lies thickly strewn in boulder;
over the surface of every headland or promon.
tory; so that if you want to use it, it is always
to be drawn Tor rolled) down hill. Though not
here needed as fertilizer it can everywhere be
quarried with little labor into building stone, OIL
burned for use in putting up chimneys and plas
tering walls. Though somewhat decomposeC
and readily cleaving into blocks Of suitable
size for house-walls it is said to harden by eX
posure to the atmosphere, and make very
durable wall. 1t is the constant though unob
served decomposition of this stone that ha:
contributed so largely to the fertility of thi;
soil, and now countervails the enormous waste
through the rivers. Ipresume all the guauc
imported into our country does not equal il
fertilizing value the annual outflow from thC
Kansas River alone.
/ judge that Indian Corn can be grown her
as cheaply as anywhere on earth. Thousand
of acres last year produced their hundred bush
els of shelled grain per acre. at a very moder
ate cost for labor and none at all for manure
An extensive farmer, who grew many thousand
of bushels near LeavenWorth, assured me tina
the cost of his Corn, cribbed in the ear wa
Just six cents per bushel of ears, equal to mint
cents per bushel Of grain-three half bushels o
ears of the great Ohio kind hero cultivated
making bushel of grain. OF course, this es
innate excludes the cost of land, breaking anC
fencing, but, making fair allowance for these
the net cost of that Corn cannot have exceedet
, twenty cents per busheL l presume it woulc
now sell in his crib for forty cents, while her
in the interior it is worth from 25 to 35 cent
per bushel.
| 4 % n al nd
Republican friend who left New York Cit
(where be had been an industrious mechanic
: and settled between Lawrence and Topeka tw
years ago. He had last year eighty acres j
corn, which yielded 1000 bushels, worth to hin
35 or 40 cents per bushel His clear profit o
! this corn, above the immediate cost of CROWN
IT, can hardly have been less than 81 900. III
will grow more this year, with Wheat, Pota
toes, &c yet he is one of a class who are popu
!, larly supposed incapable of making money b.
farming.
r Wheat and Oats did badly last year, OWN
/ TO the heavy Summer rains which rusted an
0 blighted them. Too little Of either have bee
= sown for this years harvest, yet l find bot
! Winter and Spring Wheat looking remaTkabl
e we'll almost everywhere. Oats are scarcel
, more than out of the ground; yet they, to-
= promise well, so far as can now be foreseen.
But an unpleasant tFuIn must DC slhJeus-
4 There are too many idle, shiftless people in Ka
y sas speak not here of lawyers, gentlemt
| speculators aud other nOn-producers, who a
[ in excess here as esewhereri allude direct
:. TO those who call themselves settlers and VIII
h would be farmers If they were anything. I
. see man squatted on quarter-scction IN
!. cabin which would make a fair hog-pen, but
I. unfit for a human habitation, and there llVln
from hand to mouth, with hardly an acre
o prairie broken (sOmetimes without fence up
with no garden, no fruit trees, "no nothing :
G waiting for some one to come along and ou
! out his "claim" and let him move on to repe'
!, the operation somewhere else-this is enoug
y to give cheerful man the horrors. Ask til
u squatter what he means, and he eau give you
n hundred good excuses for his miserable cond
!. ton: he has little or no good rai-timber;
l. has had "ihe shakes;" his family have been sic
IT he lost two years and some stock by the Bo
II der Rufiansi SC, &c. But all this don't owe