The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-17
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

bAndry-WOOllen Factories - wheat
The Limestone FOrmRtiOns-COrn the
Great Crop Of the WeSt-HIisoeIlanoOus
Farm Products - Farming Interests
versus Speculation.
LAWRENCE, Kansas, Dec IL, ls67.-I have
spoken somewhat at length IN my former LETT
ters OF the adaptedness Of Kansas to stock
raising and dairy purposes. / ind that sheep
husbandry is attracting pretty general atten-
tion from the people, and that the number of
sheep in the State is being rapidly increased
Large fiocks are being almost daily driven into
the southern part of the State from illinois,
Indiana, and ohio, where sheep at present are
very cheap. Several woollen factories have
been established-two in this city, one in Fort
Scott, one at Leroy, in the Neosho Valley, and
others, believe, in the northern portion of the
State 1 visited one of those in this city the
other day, and saw some specimens OF various
kinds ofcloth, blankets, etc, which would have
done no discredit to our Eastern factories. The
machinery was, in part, of Phila-
delphia manufacture. was pleased
10 learn that both the establishment
/ visited, and its neighbor were doing we'll
finding a ready market for their cloth, and at
remunerative prices. The attention of the
Western people is being quite generally at
tracted to the subject OF manufactures, and
many branches are already well established
The great distance from the manufacturing
centres OF the East gives the Western manu-
facturer the advantage of tariff over his East
ern competitor, besides The additional compen-
sation, in many cases, of being nearer the
sources of the raw material For instance, at
the woollen mills here in Lawrence they can
buy all the wool they need at from Sfteen to
twenty cents pound according to qvs lity
The cost of keeping sheep In Southern KaNsas
ic bor d1xyr tI,ot of tuoia nd
ing them. The pasture ranges are boundless,
and the winters are so mild that the sheep rarely
need foddering Kansas farmers could mako
money as fast as men ought to by raising sheep
and selling wool, even at twenty-five cents a
pound, in Eastern markets.. The greatest draw
backs to sheep raising here are the depredatlons
of dogs and wolves. The true method of manage
ment is to have shepherds TO attend the flocks
by night and day, after the oriental method.
When Kansas was first settled IL was the gene
raj impression among the early immigrants
that winter wheat could not be successfully
cultivated here, but that notion has long since
been exploded, and the men who getting
ricn the faslest here are the farmers who for a
series OF years Rave turned their attention TO
the growing of winter wheat. The crop, when
well and seasopably put in, is a very sure one,
and the yield is large. Thirty bushels TO the
acre are frequently obtained, and forty, and
even fifty, are not uncommon. There is more
or less OF lime in the soil even of the bottoms,
for the bluffs are composed of limestone rock,
which disinlegrates by The action of the ele-
menIs ana enriches the alluyial deposits below
Thus the best wheat crops in this neighoorhood
are raised in the bottom lands situated near The
conference of the Wakanusa and the Kansas
rivers. Lime may be burned along the bluffs
almost anywhere, and in this fact Kansas has
an element for the restoration of her soil, when
oft ma ha Of ore
The West does notye know what an exhausted
soil is but the time is coming when that condi
ton will have TO be provided for, and then the
ease with which such fertilizer as lime Can be
obtained viii be matter Of great Importance
TO Kansas
Corn is the natural product of the West. 1t
is the great staple. With w)od crop of corn
the Western farmer feels safe and contented.
It furnishes an excellent article of food for him
self and family. 1t makes pork and beef He
feeds it TO his oxen and horses II supplies the
place of food for his cattle and sheep in winter.
other crops may fail, but If the corn yields its
increase, the great operations of the farm go on.
Corn at the West is a different article from that
at the East. The stalk is stouter and larger,
the kernels deeper. the ears larger, and the
whole plant is gotten up on scale of richness
and amplitude corresponding to the fertility Of
the soil from which it springs.
l have rode through a Kansas coinfield in
September, on a tall horse, and found the stalk )
still towering above me, while the ears were
lust in fair plucking distance When 1 was
boy we used to hoe corn twice or three times in
Western New York, and very tiresome, back
aching work IL was, too. There is no such
"nonsense" practised ''out West." The horse
and the plough or cultivator do the entire
work. The weeds have no show; the corn
grows too fast, and soon overshRdows and
cholxes them out. "Sod" corn receives no Guilt.
walton whatever. This is corn grown the same
wear of breaking up the sod The methods OF
planting 1t are either to dlop the kernels just at
the edge of and in the furrow during ploughing
so that they Will come up between the furrows'
or else to cut deep gashes in the inverted sod
and drop the corn therein. In favorable year
such corn will yield as high as thirty or forty
bushels 10 the acre. Should the season be dry
one, however, the crop thus planted is likely TO
! ,ail Corn grows equally wei, apparently, upon
! the high pralIies and upon the bottom lands
the difference being in :avor of the high prairie
in a wet season, and in favor of the bottoms in
! dry one. The cob is SIN aller in Western corn
! according to the size of the ear than it is in
Eastern. Fifty-six pounds of shelled corn, OF
seventy pounds of corn in the ear, constitute a
bushel. Western corn is said to be less oily
than Eastern. II is fed here with impunity to
horses engaged in all kinds of work. Often
times corn in the West is left TO stand in the
field ungathered during the entire winter. The
ears hang down, aud the thick, enveloping
husk proves an ample protection against the
elements. The iav rite corn, crib out here is a
huge four square pen, built up of rails or long
poles Some farmers indulge in the extrava'
! nFa .kya . Ia