The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1859-07-21


aDds of bushels near Leayenworth, as
sured me that the cost of bis Corn, crib
bed in the ear was just six cents per bush
( el of cara, equal to nine cents per bushel
of grain-three half bushels of ears of the
great Ohio kind her1 cultivated making
bushel of grain. Of course. this esti-
mate excludes the cost of land, breaking
and fencing; but, making a fair allow
ance fer these, the net cost Of that Corn
cannot have exceeded twenty cents per
bushel. | presume it would now sell in
his crib for forty cents, while here in the
interior it IS worth from 25 to 35 cents
per busbel,
! | met at Osawatamie an old Wing and
now Republican friend who left New York
City (where he had been an industrious
mechanc) and settled between Lawrence
and Topeka two years ago. He had last
year eighty acres in corn, which yielded
1000 bushels, worth to him 35 or 40
cents per bushel His clear profit on this
corn, above the immediate cost of growing
it, can hardly have been less than 81 ,000.
He will grow more this year, with Wheat,
Potatoes, &c; yet be is one of a class who
are popularity supposed incapable of ma
king money by farming. Isu-pect few
life long farmers of similar means will
have good buildings over their heads and
fruit trees and other elements of material
comfort around them sooner than my
friend
Wheat and Oats did badly last year,
owing to the heavy Summer rains which
blghted and rusted tbem Too little of
either have been sown for this years bar
vest, yet l find both Winter and Spring
Wheat looking remarkably we'll almost
everywbere. Oats are scarcely more than
out of the ground; yet they. too promise
well. SO far as can now be foreseen.
But an unpleasant truth mu.t be sta
ted: There are too many idle, shiftless
people in Kansas | -peak not here of
lawyers, gentlemen speculators and other
non producers, who arc in excess here as
elsewhere; | allude directly TO those who
call themselves settlers, and who would
be farmers if they were anything. To
see man squat,ed on a quarter section
in cabin which would make a fair hog
pep, bu: is unfit for a human hatitation.
and there living from hand to mouth by
little of this aud little of that, with
hardly an acre of prairie broken (some-
times without fence up, with no garden,
10 fruit trees, 'no nothing g"-waiting for
some one to come along and buy out bis
"claim" and let bin move on to repeat
the operation somewhere else-ihis is e.
noush to give a cheerful man the horrors.
AK the squatter what he means and be
can give you a hundred good excuses for
bis miserable condition; he has DO break
ing team; be has little or DO good rail
tim Der; be has bad "the shakes bis fam
lily have been sick; be lost two years and
some stock ty the Border RuffiaDs; &c.
&c. But all this don't overbesr the facts
that. if he has no good timber, some Of
his Deig bbors have it in abundance, and
would be very glad to have him work
part Of into rails OF shares at fair rate;
and if he has no breaking team, be can
hire out in laying nnd harvest; and get
near J or quite = acres broken next month
for every faithful weeks work Le choos-
es to give at that busy season. The poorest
msn ought thus TO be able to get ten acres
broken and fenced and into crop, each
year. For poor mcn gradually hew farms
out of heavy timber, where every fenced
acre cost tgice to thrice the work it does
here
And it is sad to note that hardly half
the eetlers make any sort of provision
for wintcriDg their cattle, even by cut
ting stack Of prairie hay. when every
good days work will put up tun of it.
II be has a corDfcld, the squatter's cattle
are welcome to pick at that all Winter;
if be has none, they must 60 into the bot
toms and browse through as best they
can. Of course, his calves are miserable
affairs; his cows unfit to make butter from
till the best OF the season is over; bis OK
cn, should be have a pair, must be re-
cruitiDg from their Winters famine just
when be most urgently needs their work.
And this exposing cattle all Winter to
these fierce prairie winds is alike inbu-
mau and wastefu. asked settler the
other day how be could do it. "i had no
time to make shelter for them" "But
had you no Sunday did you not haze
them ct your disposa!" 20, yes! |
don't work Sundays" "Well, you should
bave worked every one of them, rather
than let your cattle SILVER in the cold
blasts all Winter-it would have been a
work of humanity and mercy to cut and
haul logs, get up cattle-staIl, and cover
it with prairiehay. which | will warrant
to be more religious than anything you
did on those Sundays. But the squatter
was Of different opinion.
How man located in a little squalia
cabin on one of these rich "claims" can
sleep moonit nights under the average
circumstances Of his class, passes my com-
prehension. | should want to work mod
erately but resolutely at least fourteen
hours of each secular day until | had
made myself comfortable with fence a.
round at least eighty acres, quarter of