Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1878-12-05
KANSAS LETTER.
To the Grant County HERALD and al. whom /
Iaft kahn No


To the Grant County. HERALD and al. whom /
left behind me.
/ left Grant County. Wis, Sept. 90,
1873, for Kansas. We drove through
with two span and two. wagons in
twenty-tour days; did not hurry any
We travelled through Iowa, Missouri,
Nebraska and the northern part Of
Kansas to my home in Ellis County,
Kansas. We were surprised to see so
many hills and such rough country in
Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. About
one half of these states is as billy and
rough as what we left behind in
Grant, Iowa and Lafayette counties.
We found somo 6ne improved farms
in all these states but, as general
rule, you find poor people /; and they
always will be poor as long as they
live in country where it costs more
labor to open and cultivate farm
than you can sell the products for. 1t
will keep any man poor. 1t is like
the case of man borrowing money
who can't make enough money off Of
his farm to pay the interest on his
borrowed capital. Ifhe locates, ever
so poor, in a rich, smooth country, he
can make enough to pay interest and
principal in few years. have seen
many people who came to this country
few years ago as psor as Jobs tur-
KEY, who are now worth their thou
sands of dollars, and have not worked
half as bard as those who settled in a
poor, broken, grubby and rocky farm.
The more man tries to get rich in
poor country, the poorer he gets. /
advise every person who lives on a
farm where he cannot use labor saving
machinery, and who has to grub or
pile up rock, and has to farm in
patches, and leave patches unframed,
and pay as much taxes on improving
land as he pays on what few acres Of
good land he has-and it costs as
much to fence those poor hills aud
uncultivated lands as it does on his
patches of good land-and there are
thousands of such farms and thou
sands of poor people upon those poor
farms. that there are thousands of
acres in those new counties, lying idle,
waiting for people to settle them.
like Kansas the best of any new
country for the following rea sons: It
has choice, rich lands, good building
rock, coal, mild and healthy climate,
railroads all ready built and running
with the fare no higher than in any
other new country, no hills to draw
your products up and down, no fenc.
ing to do unless you want to fence.
Usage orange or buck-thorn, honey
locust, peach trees, all make a good
and quick hedge. Also the barbed
wire is cheap and everlasting and
makes splendid fence. We all use
the rope and picket fence at present.
1t is cheaper than poplar poles, and it
don't take much more time to picket
your horses than it does to nail on
your poles and pine boards.
There is plenty of government land
yet to be had, and it is settling up
fast. Railroad lands can be bought
on easy terms, and the best way to
get here is te sell or give away your
poor, billy farms at once, for the lon
ger you stay upon them the poorer
you will get. I know it well, for /
have tried it. Kansas produces wheat,
corn, rye, oats and barley as we'll as
any part of any Northern state. 1t
brings the best of fruits of all kinds,
apples, peaches, plums, grapes, small
fruits of all kinds, sweet and Irish po-
tatoes, excellent garden vegetables of
all kinds, and the best and largest
melons of all kinds can be raised in
abundance on the sod. My two boys
broke 240 acres of prairie, sowed 200
acres in fall wheat which looks well,
and planted 40 acres of sod corn
which will nearly winter our horees.
/ can see from six to eight trains a
day pass within half a mile of my
house; and to see the number of beef
cattle pass on the trains all this fall,
you wonld think il would feed the
world. All, or nearly all, are Texas
cattle. Our Texas cattle are of the
same breed and kind as the native
cattle which Wisconsin, Illinois and
all other states had before the Durham
cattle were imported from England to
this and other cattle growing coun-
tries All who come here are pleased
with Kansas. We find as good schools
and churches, and as plenty, as they
are through Wisconsin and the best
of people are here-the scalawags and
homesick people stay away from here.
| will write again after awhile.
DOUGLAS OLIVER.