White Cloud Kansas chief. [volume] (White Cloud, Kan.) 1857-1872, 1859-07-07
WHOLE NUMBER, 1O0.
Horace GreelsY on Kansas.

Greeley thus sums up ms opinion Of the
natural resources Of Kansas:
l like Kansas-that is natural Kansas
better than 1 had expected to. The
soil is richer and deeper the timber is
more generally diffused; the country more
rolling-than had supposed them
There are Of course heavy drawbacks in
remoteness from the seaboard, heavy
charges for bulky goods, low prices Of
produce, Indian reserves, and the high
price Of good lumber.
consider Kansas well watered-no
Prairie State better. ] do not con6ns
this remark to the present, when every
thing is flooded, and likely to be more so.
l mean that springs. streams. creeks, riv-
ers, are quite universal. For my own
private drinking. should like supply
not so much impregnated with lime but,
for limestone water, this is generally quite
good.
And the limestone itself, is among the
chief blessings of Kansas. I presume il
underlies every foot of her soil have YET
traversed, with nearly every square mile
that will be comprised within the State
of Kansas. You see it cropping out from
almost every bluff; it lies thiclrly strewn
in powders over the surface Of every
headland or promontory that makes out
into the bottoms, low prairies or ravines;
so that if you want to use it, it is always
to be drawn Tor rolled, down HILL
Though not here needed as q fertilizer, ie
can everywhere be quarried with little la
Dor into building-stone, or burned for use
in putting up chimneys and plastering
walls.
But an unpleasant truth must be stated:
There are too many idle, shiftless people
in Kansas. / speak not here Of lawyers.
gentlemen, spectators, and other non
producers, who are in excess here as else
where; l allude directly to those who
call themselves settlers, and who would
be farmers if they were anything. To see
man squatted on a quarter-section, in Q
cabin which would make fair hog pen,
but is unfit for q human habitation, and
there living from hand to mouth, by .
little of this and q little Of that, With
hardly an acre of prairie broken, (some-
times without a fence up. with no gar
den, no fruit trees, mo nOthing''-wait-
ing for some one to come along and buy
out his "claim," and let him move on to-
repeat the operation somewhere else
this is enough to give q cheerful man the
horrors. Ask the squatter what he means,
and he can give you hundred good ex-
cuses for his miserable condition. He
has no breaking team he has little or no
good rail timber; he has had ''the shakes"
his family have been sick; he lost two
years snd some stock by the Border Ruff
fans, &c, DC. But all this don't over
bear the facts that, if he has no good
timber. some of his neighbors have is in
and would be very glad 10
have him work part Of it into rails, on
shares, at fair rate; and if he has no
breaking team, he can hire out in haying
and harvest, and get nearly or quite two
acres broken next month for every faith
full weeks work he chooses to give at that
busy season. The poorest man ought
thus to be able to get ten acres broken,
fenced, and into crop each year. For
poor men gradually hew farms out Of
heavy timber, where every fenced and
cultivated acre has cost twice or thrice
the work it does here.
AS to the Internal spirit Of Land Specu-
alton and Monopoly, think no Stats
aver suffered from it more severely than
his. The spectators in broadcloth are
not one whit more rapacious or pernicious
han the spectators in rags, while the
after are forty times more numerous
Land speculation here is about the only
business in which q man can embark with
10 other capital than an easy conscience.
For example rode up the bluffs back
If Atchison, and out three or four miles
IN the high. rolling prairie, so as to hsvs
iome fifteen to twenty square miles in
rev ct one glance. On all this inviting
.rea, there were perhaps half dozen poor
,r middling habitations, while not one
lcre in each hundred were fenced or bro
Ken. Ny friend informed me that every
God / saw was "pre-empted." and held
It thirty up to hundred dollars or more
,er acre. "Pre empted 20 I exclaimed
how pre-emptsd ? BY living or lying p
We'll" be responded, "they live little
md lie a little" 1 could see abundant
violence of the lying, not at all Of the
living. To obtain a presumption, the
quatter must swear that he actually rs-
ides on the quarter section he applies for.
les built q habitatioA and made other
there. and wants the land
or his own use and that Of his family.
The squsttsrS who took possession Of
hese lands must every one have commit
ed gross perjury in obtaining pre-smp-
50 it is all over the Territory,
Vhsrsvsr . lot is supposed likely to SILL
or moro than the minimum price.
o., IN,sa - he -.-,~,k losk.- O., IL.