The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1877-12-08
For The Cecil VI
LETTER FROM KANSAS.
TOPEKA, Kansas. Nov. %. 1S1

lOfEhA, hduStS, NOV. 20, lSII.
| Emigration is filling Kansas more rapidly
than any other new State was ever settled.
And immigrants, composed of the very
best classes of people, are swarming into
her young towns, and converting her broad,
| fertile praires into farms and feeding
ranches for countless numbers of cattle and
sheep. This tide of emigration is con
stantly increasing, flowing in many smaller
streams, from the States, east, north and
south, which join on the eastern border
and sweep over the State, converting the
wild prairies which were, but few years
ago, the grazing ground for buffalo and
antelope, into homes for millions of people
in the near future. One railroad company.
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fee, esti-
mate that they have settled, during the
last year, $4,000 people on their lands, and
at the rate Immigrants are coming they ex-
pect to settle $4,000 the present year.
| This, be it understood, is the work of but
one railroad company. There are several
other railroads within the State owning
liberal land grants all laboring earnestly
to induce settlers to purchase and settle
upon their lands. Those who purchase
and settle on railroad lands comprise prob
ably but an insignificant part of the great
stream of immigrants which come in and
make homes in this prosperous State
| Thousands, aye, tens of thousands, pitch
their cabins on the government lands, and
other thousands take up their abode in the
towns and villages. And thus her borders
are constantly filling up with the very best
material to make powerful common
wealth.
| Geographically, the State of Kansas is
happily situated to induce immigration.
Neither so far north as to be subject to
long Winters, which are a great impedi-
ment to the most prosperous farming, nor
SO far south as to be oppressed with hot
Summer sun, but cut out of the high roll
ing prairies, which lie between the bottom
lands traversed by the large rivers that
| find their way to the gulf, and the dry,
sterile plains which skirt the foot of the
which is famed by a constant breeze
Hence, her people enjoy a dry, bracing at
mosphere, rarely affected by fogs Or ma
laria, insuring life, health and vigor to
body and mind.
| Notwithstanding the constant stream of
immigration, which flow is steadily ncreas-
ing, SO vast is the extent of cultivative
land for almost the entire State could be
turned with the plow) that thousands of
acres of the finest situated and richest land
lies idle about Topeka, producing only rich
grass which rots where it grows. Farms
containing any number of acres can be
purchased for little money, and the land is
ready for the pillow.
When the State was an unbroken prairie
and the surface Of the ground packed by
the feet of millions, | may venture to say,
of buffalo, the tough sod shed the rain like
a roof, and in few hours after rain fall
the most of it found its way into the streams,
and the atmosphere was in consequence
almost void of moisture; but since the set
tier has broken the sod, and brought under
cultivation a considerable portion of the
prairies, and those cultivated areas being
pretty evenly distributed over the eastern
half of the State, a reservoir. as it were,
has been formed, which retains sufficient
water to supply moisture to the atmosphere
by evaporation, which has the effect of
equalizing the rain fall, and hence rains
have become more frequent and less violent
than in the early history of the State