The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-11-07
Picturesque Features Of Kansas Farm.
ing.

i 49,
Captain Henry King of Tokeka has in
Scr11ner's Monthly for November a
graphic sketch of some length under the
above caption. The Introductory is as
follows:
There is no more enticing scene than
the Kansas prairies in spring. The eye
wanders out over gracefully swerving
and unmOnotOnous lines to what seems
the very limit of things; You dare not
conjecture where the earth ends and the
sky begins. If the grass were bit more
forward, and the atmosphere had only a
hint of fog in it, you might liken the Wis
ion to sea; and then those blush
curves would be waves, and that square
of newly plowed burrows shoal of fish,
and yOnder tall, oblique sycamore a
snapped and floating spar, and the one
little white house away off there by it.
self the vague sail of some approaching
ship. But the grass is too short, and
the air too crisp and dry, for such a
simile. Besides, we know this slope of
deeper green on our right is early wheat,
just high enough for the slight breeze to
stir it prettily, as it might stir baby's
hair; and here on our left is quivering
flame of peach-blossoms. There are
laughing boys and girls ahead of us, too,
on their way to school; and directly we
shall be overtaking frequent wagons
loaded with lumber, shingles and win
dow-sash; and then will come the ele-
mentary in farm-making, and the latest
of the arriving settlers. And SO the
picture goes on, repeating itself for 200
miles or mOre-and beyond that yet is
the surveyor, with his spying and beck
Oning compass. ...I--
The farms are large, you will observe,
and growing larger, as if they had
caught something of the nature of those
infinite skies; and ut every turn rises
that pervasive and undefinable odor of
fresh-cut sod. What miles and miles of
black overlapping lines, across the
emerald prairie where the plows are
going! But there are liberal intervals
mot yet :" fled upon" or "opened up"
as they name it out here, and the farm
ers have keen eye for convenient
oranges" upon which their stock may
Craze, and where plenty of hay may be
secured in its season at the mere cost of
reaping and stacking; it has been as
serted that the kansan would not care
| to 60 to heaven unless he could be guar
anteed an ample range to the west of it.
Indeed, it is only by resorting to figures
that one can reach a comprehension of
the aggregate extent4Of these long, mar
row, black strips of ''prairie-breaking
Not until you take your pencil and run
over the fOotings of the Assessors re-
turns, and find that in the last year al
most million acres were added to the
cultivated area of the State, do you be-
gin to realize what the busy plows are
accomplishing; and when you come to
supplement this with the fact that dur
ing the same period, fully hundred
thousand people came to, Kansas to
make new farms and homes, you will
understand how numerous, after all,
must be the buildings which look so
sparse to you, and SO yenturesome. .
These buildings, by the way, are
sharply characteristic, not to say anOnl-
alous- for, really, they seem to belong
to condition of things which it is diff
ficult to reconcile with SO much of grass,
and wild larks' songs, and clear blue
sky. The typical log-cabin of early
days on the Wabash and Sangamon is
seldom to be seen here, and it is used,
when you do see it, as stable or cow
shed; the man who made the of the
butternut garb and the famished aspect
left Kansas when the 1skeers =" came,
and went "back to his wife's folks -
east of the Mississippi. The dug-out is
here, it is true; but the dug-out is an in
digenous affair, and an improvement up
tho os,nAay,f loo ,t,.svy
that it is only make-shift, and rapidly
gives way to something better. And
then it is modest, also Gas the swagger-
ing old log-cabin with its clay "chink-
ing'' and its obese and ride
ulous outside chimbly'' never was),
and has a pleasant effect Of
shying at your approach; for it is
simply an opening made into hillside
or convenient slope, you must know,
rooted over with turf several layers
thick on framework of poles, and hav-
ing a front improvised from a few
chance boards and scantlings and half a !
dozen panes of glass. Usually, canvas
or brown sheeting Ga wagon cover, per- |
haps) Is nailed to the poles inside for a
ceiling, and the walls are rendered dry |
and smooth with whitewash; the floor IS |
the mere hard earth, in most cases car
peted with gunny-bags or an odd mat
ting of braided corn-husks. They are
said to be very comfortable hapitations,
cool in summer and warm in winter;
and often these rude interiors are ar
ranged with ingenious and admirable
taste. Sometimes, too, the fronts are
set off with canny little porches, to
which towering vines are trained. III
once saw one that was mass of morn
ing glories, through which the sunlight
leisurely sought the open door and
changed the gunny carpet to, cloth of
gold-while out upon the sod roof, a
child in scant calico frook, and bare
footed, stood gazing with wide eyes at a
great Tapping hawk overhead. /
However, most of the farm dwellings
for hundred miles or farther outward
are patterned after the country houses
of the better styles in the older States,
the predominant type being the snug
white frame with green window-shutters
and gracious touch of porico.- The
Kansans have a phenomenal genius for
hnv,,oc Thew ,ox-or,n Ak ~