Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-06-10

LIFE IN KANsAs.-In a recent letter to the
Tribune, Horace Greeley gives summary of
his observations in Kansas. He finds the natu-
raj advantages Of the territory superior to what
he had supposed, believes it natural corn
country, and, with no little fierceness of phrase
denounces "the internal spirit of land specula-
ton" We extract the following notes on life
in Kansas, because he tells us something which
is not usually stated with so much clearness in
communications from that quarter
"But an unpleasant truth must be stated
There are too many idle, shiftless people in
Kansas l speak not here of lawyers, gentle
men SPECTATORS, and other non-producers, who
are i'll excess here as elsewhere | allude di-
rectly to those who call themselves settlers,
and who would be farmers if they were any
thing. 10 see a man Squatted on a quarter
section i'll cabin which would make a fair
hog-pen but is unfit for human habitation, and
there living from hand to mouth by little of
this and a little of that, with hardly an acre of
prairie broken sometimes without a fence up,)
with no garden, no fruit trees, mo nothing
waiting for some one to come along and buy
out his claim and let him move on to
repeat the operation somewhere else - this
rors. Ask the squatter what he means
and he can give you a hundred good excuses
for his miserable condition; he has no break
ing team; he has little or no good rail-timber
he has had "the shakes !" his family have been
sick; he lost two years and some stock by the
Border Rutfians &c, &c. But all this don't
overbear the facts that, if he has no good tim
Der some of his neighbors have it in album
dance, and would be very glad to have him
work part of it into rails on shares at a fair
rate and ii 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 faithful weeks work he chooses to give
at the busy season. The poorest man ought
thus to be able to get ten acres broke, fenced
and into crop, each year. For poor men grad
ually hew farms out of heavy timber, where
every fenced aud cultivated acre has cost
twice to thrice the work it does here
And it is sad to note that hardly half the
settlers make any sort of provision for winter
ing their cattle, even by cutting a stack of
prairie hay, when every good days work will
put up ton of it. If he has a corn field the
squatters cattle are welcome to pick at that
all winter; if he has none, they must go into
the bottoms and browse through as best thew
can. Of course, his calves are miserable af-
fairs; his cows unfit to make butter from till
he have pair, must be recruiting from their
winters famine just when he most urgently
needs their work. And this exposing cattle
all winter to these fierce prairie winds is alike
lnhuman and wasteful. | asked settler the
other day how he could do it. 4 had no time
to make shelter for them But had you no
Sundays did you not have these at your
disposalP 90, yes l don't work Sundays
We'll, you should have worked every one of
them rather than let your cattle shiyer in the
cold blasts all winter-it would have been a
work of humanity and mercy to cut and haul
logs, get up catte-stall, and cover it with
prairie hay, which | will warrant to be more
religious than anything you did on those Sun.
days. But the squatter was of a different
opinion.
How man located in little squalid cabin
on one of these rich claims can sleep moon
lit nights under the average circumstances of
his class passes my comprehension. / should
want to work moderately but resolutey at
least fourteen hours of each secular day until
had made myself comfortable with a fence
around at least eighty acres, quarter of this
partitioned offfor my working cattle, decent,
warm shelter to cover them in cold or stormy
weather, a tolerabe habitation for my family,
at least forty acres in crop, and a young orch
ard growing. For one commencing with next
to nothing, | estimate this as the work of five
years after which, he might take things more
easily, awaiting the fruit from his orchard and
the coming up of his boys to help him. But
for the first four or five years. the poor pioneer
should work every hour that he does not alb
solutely need for rest Every hours work
then Will save him many hours in after life."