The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-11-07

they will talk to you-the farmer
and his wife-about Emerson
and Huxley, s.Deronda" and THAT
Lass O. Lowrie's;" about the Centen-
NAL Exhibition, especially the part
which Kansas played in it; about the
new schOOl-hOuse, the coming election,
the last evenings sunset. Then if you
stay to tea Gas you will be pressed to
dO), you will discover that the latest
tricks of cookery are here also, and some
more pictures, and pots of house-plants,
and possibly coy glitter of silverware.
But for the big vase of wild flowers in
the center of the table-daisies, larkspurs
and verbenas-and the wide, ambiguous
vista of untenanted prairie from the west
window, you might easily convince your
self you were in New England. In fact,
this very family may be from New Eng
land, since New England invented Kan
sas, and has sent her thousands of citi-
zens; but, more likely, they are from
some State no farther East than Ohio !;
the chance that they are to the manner
born is only one to five. It matters lit
tie. Wherever they came from, they
are Kansans now; and to be Kansan
is to have an identity at once distinct
and conspicuous.
But to return to the sod. The, seeding
follows hard upon the blowing goes
along with it, l may say-and frequently
you will see plOws, harrows, wheat
drills and corn-planters all at work to-
gether on single farm, where "a hours
before there was only green, untrod-
den waste. The sod-crOp being often
the settlers main and only reliance for
the first year, and requiring but little
care, the ruling idea is to get as much
planted as possible. OF course, large
results are not reasonably to be expect
ed from this initial process; but Ordi-
narily the yield is good, better than you
would guess, and in some instances
quite astonishing. With timely seeding
and a favorable season, it is not uncom-
mon for sod-wheat in Kansas to make Is
bushels to the acre (abOve the average
annual yield of the older States), and
sOd-cOrn often reaches 40 bushels per
acre; Ipassed field after field of sod-cOrn
in the Arkansas Valley the last autumn,
which l am sure would exceed that
and a considerable proportion of it, they
told me, had been planted as late as the
| fourth week in May. There are cases,
not numerous, to be sure, but none the
less authentic, where these new-fashiOned
farmers have actually paid for their
farms with the proceeds of their first
crop of wheat or corn, not to speak of
the three dollars per acre which the
mere first blowing adds to the perma-
nent value of the land. Then, after this
sOd-crop is harvested, winter wheat may
between the cOrn-rows, if you wish; or
it may be left until spring again, and
planted in corn, and then will come the
richest crop that the soil is capable of
producing. 9.
Corn is king in Kansas, so far as space
is concerned. They plant it by square
miles, one might fairly infer, the fields
are so incredibly far-reaching; and, if
it did not grow very much of its own ac-
cord it could not grow at all, as the
sheer abundance of it forbids any thing
like thorough cultivation. They aim to
pillow it twice, though sometimes once
has to suffice, and where it has been
sod-planted it is left untouched till it
ripens; and yet it thrives in a way that
makes folly Of all rule and precedent;
the stalks attain size and height which
give them a resemblance to young for
ests of hickory, and the men with plows
look lost among them; and, as for the
ultimate yield in ears and bushels, is it
not proclaimed everywhere in those
graphic and seductive land advertise
ments which tell how Kansas was 10
years ago the twenty fourth State in the
production Of corn, and is now surpassed
by only three of all the SO? The small
cost and labor of tilling is doubtless the
chief melting cause of this extensive re-
course to crop which, however boun-
teous it may be, offers but slender profit
unless fed to live stock; but suspect it
is a crop that also has special favor with
frontier peOple-perhaps without their
exactly realizing the preference-be-I
cause of the res0lute, imperious, army
with-banners method it has of possess
ing and holding the country. For corn
is by nature aggressive and determined.
The smaller grains feel their way timid-
~ in primitive soil, and the aboriginal |
verdure disputes every inch of progress |
with them. But where this autocrat of |
tlC c0ICdA0 Ls1k0S TUOG IL SCOTuS T1VHIrV,
and its swayi Is complete and enduring.
And so these leagues upon leagues of |
Kansas corn, seen in the summer and in
their glory of silked and tasseled and
sunlit strength, convey q signally strik-
ing impression. They do not merely
cling to the earth, but they seize IL and
make it their own; you know that those
dense and advancing ranks can never be
stayed, never turned back; and some
how the vast expanse of unconquered
prairie yet spread out before them and
all about them-10 acres to each one
acre of theirs seems overawed and
by their masterful influence.
1t is Brnam wood come to Dunsinane.
bal, An Eagle for an Enemy.
: The Milford Del.) Chronicle says
Near Cedar Beach, in Sussex County,
DEL, resides Mrs. Wiley, widow of Abb
ner Wiley, deceased. She keeps q large
stock of poultry, and among them many
ducks. Hearing a coMmOtion in q pond