The Saline County journal. [volume] (Salina, Kan.) 1871-1893, 1878-04-25
Kansas as q Manufacturing State.

WASHINGTON, Aprli 10, 1910.
Col. John A. Martin, editor of the
Champion
In response to your invitation to
write about the manufacturing facilities
of our State, avail myself of my first
leisure. The great wave Of population
now flowing in upon Kansas makes your
suggestion a most timely one. Kansas
has a soil unsurpassed in the world; q
climate salubrious and invlgorat,ng; q
surface SO gently undulating as to afford
the cheapest and most efficient mode of
opening farms and her possession of
water, rock and coal, SO equally and uni
versally distributed, furnishes all that
could be desired of natural resources.
Our State is prospecting with unprece.
denied rapidly. What will keep it
growing? In very few years all it's
land will be taken or occupied. An i'm.
mense volume of products will seek q
market. Will Kansas be content to be
producer of mere raw material? Must
her rich soil be exported in wheat, corn,
pork, the profits of which will be large
ly eaten up by transportation, and by
thus scourgiDg her productive powers,
gradually weaken them.
Whatlare our facilities for manufacture!
l can remember the time when we
thought that only one cor two rivers
could afford paying water powers, and
that all our machinery must be run by
steam, which means expensive machinery
aud fuel. When first settled on the
Smoky Hill river l almost abandoned
the hope of water-power on that stream.
The volume of water steadily flowing
was abundant, tho fall down the val.
Icy, from four to seven feet Dor mile,
gave ample power,-but the bottom. The
river, indeed, seems to porcolate and
flow, from bluff to bluff, IN bed of sand
and gravel.at the river level. Neverthe-
less water mills cd that, and Its sister,
the Solomon, have proven . great sue
cess. There are two successful water.
power Touring merchant mills at my own
town, besides large steam mill. Many
other water mills are built, and arc sue
cessfully running on both rivers, ana
there can be water mills for every pur-
pose of manufacturing on tho Kansas
river and all its main tributaries, occur.
ring every few miles ample, cheap mo-
tive power tor all manufacturing pur.
poses. Many other portions of the State
are similarly supplied.
What shall tho manufactured articles
bey Our grain should be manufactured
at home into the many different articles
of merchandise made Of it, including the
finer starches ::and other preparations.
Fruits, great and small, should be scion.
tifically canned or dried. Kansas pro.
duces the best broom corn shipped to
outside manufactures. 1t should be
manufactured into brooms and brushes
in the State. Castor beans can be pro.
duced, and should be convertedinto oil ut
homo; SO with fax; SO, in the bottom
lands, with hemp. Willow can be rap
idly produced and woven into baskets.
Kansas will be great wool.producing
State. The excellence of her grasses and
the dryness of her climate haye only to
be supplemented with knowledge and
care. All her coarser grains and the re-
fuse of her wheat should 60 into stock,
and the best blooded stock. With wool,
ana yarn factories would line our rivers,
and their waters, under the care of ski
ed artizans, would weave and spin.
Kansas has, and should manufacture
salt enough for several Of the Western
States. There is peculiar belt running
across the State, from the southwest TO
the northeast. Salina is about tho cen.
tire, but on q line north to Concordia its
western boundary is some ten or twelve
miles farther east. 1t is about forty
miles wide. In it there arc inexhausti.
bic supplies of salt, deep and abundant
beds of gypsum, and . yellowish ochre
colored stone, which is the base Of by
draulic cement or water-lime. All OF
these are of very fine quality. Lime
stone is not found near the surface in
that belt. In these articles there 10 an
inexhaustable field for manufacturing.
The gypsum and hydraulic cement are
within few yards of each other, and in
many places near the river which could
pulvcrized them. All Of the hydraulic
cement for the west comes from Louis
vile, Michigan and New York. 1t 10
impossible to estimate the value Of this
field for manufacture. The gypsum, 10.
sides its....use in that manufacture, can
furnish the plaster Of Pasis>sent to us