The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-06-24

A letter has been handed to us by Mr..
James B. Hinllle, our worthy Street
Commissioner, written by his son-in-
law, livingat Clayton, near Indianapo-
lis, Indiana, from which we make the
following extract:
eve have had anunusually dry spring here,
no ram to wet the ground to any depth since
March, until last week, when we had q fine
shower. The farmers are not done planting
corn. (The letter is dated June 12th.) Some
of the ground has been so hard they could not
break it until it rained. The crops of grass
and small grain will be very light. When you
write, please let me know all about the pros
poets for crops in Kansas We are having
frightful reports from there about the drouth.
1 hear that you have had no rain for ten
months, and in Southern Kansas stock are
starving for the want of grass"
The drouth seems to be quite univer-
sal throughout the States this season. In
New York and farther East, the lack of
rain insures an almost total failure of
wheat, oats, grass and barley. From
Ohio the report comes that there will
be no small grain, and unless it rains
the corn crop will also be lost. In Iowa
and further north, there was great lack
of rain in the early part of the season,
but lately they have had an abundance
of it. A gentleman from Illinois step
ped into our Office the other morning,
saying he had just reached this place the
evening previous, and was never more
surprised in his life than when he came
upon Kansas soil and marked the change
in the appearance of corn, wheat, oats,
and vegetation generally. In Illinois
the small grain would not be worth har-
vesting, while the corn had sickly hue,
and had just barely poked its yellow
nose through the parched ground. In
Missouri until within fifty miles of Kan
sas City, it was the same as in Illinois.
From Cameron on west to Junction
City, there was a more cheering pros
pect continually growing better; and in
passing along down the Neosho Valley
it seemed as though he had left desert
behind and was traversing land that
flowed with milk and honey.
We had dry winter and dry spring.
There was far less rain than it is usual
for us to have, especially during March,
April and May. In consequence of this
fact, much of the wheat and oats is
short in the straw, but the p1enitude of
rain that fell during the latter part of
May and the whole of the present month
has developed the heads in wonderful
manner. and the yield, both of spring
and winter wheat, as also OF oats viii
be an average one, TO say the leas.. =. e,
there are some very poor fields of wheat
that will hardly be worth harvesting,
but in every such case the failure finds
its source in poor cultivation, rather
than in want of moisture. The pros
If properly tended, and the season con-
tinues favorable, the yield will be very
large. This we believe is the condition
of things all over the State. In South
ern Kansas reports are especially en-
couraging. Southwest of ne they had
more rain than we have had in this Sec
| ton, and stock, instead of starving,
never looked more fat and sleek.
! We believe people are fast recogniZ-
ing the fact, which they will soon be
compelled to admit, that Kansas, take
it year in and year out, suffers no more
from dry weather than the balance of
the country, while she escapes many
other drawbacks incident to most of the
other States. 1t, of course, is recog-
nized fact in NEUROLOGY that more rain
falls in timbered country than in one
where timber is lacking; and while
Kansas freely admits the absence of tim
Der, she is consoled by the cheering fact
that while other States arc destroying
their forests, hewing them down, Dig
ging them up and burning them, she is
actively engaged in producing them, In
J q few years we shall have as much wood
land as Ohio or Michigan. Conse-
quently we shall every year have more
and more rain. while the Eastern States
will have less and less.