New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-06-09
AN OVERLAND JOURNEY.
GINNING UP on KANSAS.

-. more rolling than bad sapposed them. !
TO-. are Of course heavy drswoAshs in remote |
No. from the seabosrd, heavy charges for bsiky |
Goods. low prices Of produce, Indian reserves, |
and the high price of good lumber; For Instance |
nine boad s used I'D building At tbs place ne from
tlrsapy County. n. v. and were rated down some
mll.,tresm to tbe Allegheny thence deHp the Ale
rhspy to Pittsburgh, and tie Ohio to Cairo, taken
nm the Apsouri " So. Louis, The Mr. sour 70 Kan
"a, Civ, and the Karsss to this pace, which has
hat twice or thrice been reached by steamboat.
When here, they were dog chesp at 500 per thou
and superficial feet or ten cents for every square
foot In the Essence Of steamboat navigation on
the Ksn,as, they must here DE richly worth sl25
Der Thousand feet. And while there 10 pretty
GOOD tiys,er here for other purposes,
there ia Iittle-snd nat mainly black wal
wut-tha. will mske good boards. The
ready Cottonwood along the banks OF the streams
cuts easily, but ws-ps 30 when seasoned thast
will draw the nails cut of the side of house; Elm
il Of course equally perverse; and have seen few
INDIGENOUS boards that were not either Black Wal
nm. or Oak But much Of the Oak is small, short
and rpsrly; while the Black Walnut is likely to be
j
anne Of the river bottoms; but these have much
70 contend with, and will not at best be large
enough to saw for many years. No doubt, the
timber of Kansas increases each year. and Will IN
crease .till faster as roads and improvements are
multiplied, limiting the sweep of the prairiehres;
lint il vii, always cost to build decent house OF
wood in the interior Of Kansas than in part OF New
York or New-Englaud-I think twice as much.
This is q heavy tax on new country, where not
only houses but barns are general, primary and
pressing need. rejoice to see the new timber
creeping up the bluffs Of the streams; note with
pleasure that much of this is Hickory and some of
il White Ash; doubt not that there Will always
be wood enough here for fencing and fuel; but If
the Pixies Peak region can send a good lot Of Pine
humber (even Yellow Pine) down the Platte and
the Arkansas It will be worth more TO Kansas
than all her gold.
l consider Kansas well watered-no Prairie
State better. do not confDe this remark to the
present, when everything is flooded, and likely to
be more so. mean that springs, streams, creeks,
rivers, are quite universal. For my own private
drinking, / should like supply not so much i'm
preenated with lime; but, for limestone water this
il generally quite good
And the Limestone itself is among the chief
blessings of Kansas presume it underlles 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 thicky strewn in boud
ers over the surface of every headland or promon-
tory that makes out into the bottoms, low Praries,
or rayines 30 that you want to use it, it is always
to be drawn (or rolled) down hill. Though not
here needed as fertilizer, it can everywhere be
quarried with little labor into building stone, or
burned for in putting mp ehimneys and plaster
ing walls Though somewhat decomposed q pre-
sumo, by the action Of water upon it through
thousands OF years and readily cleaviog into blocks
of suitable size for hOusewas, it is sad to harden
BY g, posure to the atmosphere, and make very
durable wall II is the constant though unobserved
accommodation of this stone that has contributed
20 Ia, pely TO the fertility of this soil, and now
countervsls the enormous waste through the
rivers. presume all the guano imported into our
country does not equal in iertilizng value the
annual outflow from the Kansas River alone.
Judge that Indian Corn can be grown here as
cheaply as anywhere on earth Thousands OF acres
last year produced their hundred bushels of sheed
grain per acre, at a very moderate cost for labor
and none at all for manure An extensive farmer,
who grew many thousands of bushels near Leaven-
worth assured me that the cost of his Corn, cribbed
in the ear, WAS just six cents per bushel OF ears,
equal to nine cents per bushel Of grain-thrce half
bushels of ears of the great Ohio hind here cult
waited making a bushel of grain Of course, this
estimate excludes the cost Of land, breaking and
fencing; but, mskinga fair allowance for these,
the net cost of that Corn cannot have exceeded
twenty cents per bushel. presume it would now
sell in HE crib for forty cents, while here in the
interior it is worth from % TO - cents per bushel.
met at Osawstamie an old Wing and now Re-
publican friend who left New-lork City (where be
had been an industrious mechanic) ami settled be-
tween Lawrence and Topeka two years ago. He
bad .ast year eighty acres in corn, which yielded
4000 bushels, worth 10 him 81 or 40 cents per
bushsl. His clear profit on this corn, above the
immediate cost of growing it, can hardly have been
less ilan $1,000 He will grow more this year.
With Wheat, Potatoes, &c; yet be is one of class
who are popularity supposed incapable of making
money BY farming. ! suspect fow lifelong farmers
Of simils- means will have good buildings over
their heads and fruit-trees and other elements of
material comfort around them sooner than my
friend.
Wheat All Oats did badly last year, owing to
the heavy Sun mer rains which rusted and bhghted
them Too little Of either have been sown for this
years harvest yet fud both Winter and Spring
Wheat lo,h ing semarkably well almost everywhere.
Oats IRA s.a -seir more than ont of the ground.