Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1869-09-15
Letter from Kansas.
GENEVA, Allen Co, Kansas, I

and with result tolerably satisfactory
to the most of u.s. We have had an unu-
sually wet season here, and believe this
TO- be the almost universal complaint
throughout the country. One might al
most wonder how the heavens could contain
so much water as has been let loose upon us
since the latter part of last May. 1t has
seemed though another deluge was i'm
pending Not within the memory of the
"oldest inhabitant - have we had sue h rains az
during this season. The damage and loss oi
life in some places has been frightful. Riv-
ers oyerfowed their banks and roamed across
prairies or through cornfelds with the most
'~Ss>saft lawlessness. Creeks were several feet
higher than they were ever known to be be-
fore. At Paola, the county seat of Miami
county, July IL, freshet came very near
making a clean sweep of everything. A
shower, commencing about ten O'Clock the
night before and continuing for several hours,
SO raised Bull Creek, on which the town is
situated, that at daybreak the inhabitants
had to flee for their lives. Had the rise in
the creek been an hour or so earlier, when
the people were quietly sleeping, unconscious
of the imminent peril they were in, the loss of
life would have been fearful. A vast amount
of property, some buildings, nearly all the
bridges on the creek, were swept away.
Boats and hastily constructed RATS were busy
all day rescuing men, women and children.
The creek was more than a mile wide. The
town looked like a collection of buildings in
q vast lake. / have heard of but two lives
being lost here. woman who had three
children, had managed to get one to place
of safety, and was going back for the other
two when the house was crushed in by the
force of the water, and her little ones per-
ished
At Chapman Creek the catastrophe was
more heart-rending. The rise in the water
took place in the night when the darkness
was intense. Some accounts place the num-
Der of drowned at twenty, and some still
higher. Along the banks of some of the creeFs
the ground is often higher than further back
from the stream, so in case freshet causes
the water to overflow these points, a person
there would be cut off from retreat in every
direction. 1t was so here. When they were
awakened by the rushing water there no
chance of escape. Some swan out, some
could not swim, and some that could swim
perished trying to save their families. The
dark gurgling water that came rolling down
through the timber that lined the creek, had
no mercy. Among the many incidents of
that dreadful night give one which had
from the lips of traveller who had visited |
the spot cabin, containing a woman and |
child about year old, and hired man, was
raised from its moorings and ioated down the |
current This hired man was brave and |
resolute He could save one on a piece of
food wood but could not save both. The |
mother refused to be parted from her child. |
Finally he took the child. tied a handkerchief
under its arms and hung it on the branch of
q tree. The mother was safely 1oated out to
dry land. The man swan back for the child,
butcould not rescue it until had it hung in that
perilous position five hours. The anxiety of
the mother may be imagined. Another fam
ilv. consisting of husband, wife, child and a
hired man, attempted to escape, but were less
fortunate The hired man swan ashore.
The husband could swim but would not de-
sert his family, and 50 perisned with them.
A great majority of our crops have come
of out the storm in tolerably good condition
" inter wheat is plump and fine, and gives
the most satisfactory results. Spring wheat
is in the main badly damaged, though some
of nv neighbors have made twenty bushels
to the acre. Raising spring wheat is almost
an experiment with us, fall wheat being the
main dependence. The experiment might
have been considered successful had it not
been water killed. The effect Of the water
in some places was somewhat singular AT
ter drenching shower the sun came out in |
tenseIy hot and on level land where water
was standing it killed every kind of plant, as
If boiling water had been thrown on them. |
Land sufficiently sloping to allow the water
to run off escaped this evil Oats are not SO
heavy this year as last. There was so much 1
of the time during the rainy weather in |
which we could not work corn, that much of /
it has had to be surrendered to the weeds. /
Still, on the whole, there will be fair crop. /
Prairie grass is, of course, luxu-iant, and |
as cattle are on the increase, this is beginning
to be quite an item.
nosice your correspondent from Williams |
town thinks my claim for Kansas as having
superior facilities for butter and cheese max
ing is rather feebly supported by the instance
gave of what a man had done at the dairy
business, especially when it is so easy for him
to give instances Of Vermont farming in this
line that so far outstrips the one | gave as to
make it look contemplate in comparison. A
little farther explanation of the example |
gave would, l think, rescue it from ridicule
and make my meaning better understood In
the first place ". not trying to tell a big
story, but only trying to Illustrate what any
man could do with a given number of cows
anywhere in the state, for the circumstances
in this case were most unfavorable, as will
presently show.
stated that a neighbor made $500 worth
of butter from twenty cows, and raised
calves at the same time from these COWS that
would have brought 5000 more. find on a
second inquiry that the facts in advance
of the figures in point of profit, but the fig
ures are good enough as they stand.
Mr.. Seaver of Williamstown, mentions
neighbor of his, young man who in his
first attempt at butter making, made S777 so
from nine cows, including the butter, pork,
calves and calfskins, and this on one Of the
highest and rockiest farms in Vermont This
would look like an exception al case to
a stranger, but being originally Vermonter
myself, and accustomed in the summer sea-
SON to driving up the COWS at night, from
those rocky, hilly pastures, as far back in the
mast as NV memory extends I know verv