Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1881-03-07
LETTER FROM KANSAS.
EDITOR MONITOR

Thinking that some of your readers
might like to hear from Kansas, will |
write you about this place and the con-
dition of things here, as | see it and as
can learn from those who have lived |
here longer and have had more expert
ence in this country than | have First,
| will compare Kansas now, with Kan
sas when was here in 1869. There
then were but three families and one
single man in the whole of Ottawa coun-
ty. Our nearest store, post-ofice, black
smith shop and doctor, was at Junction
city. sixty-6ve miles away. If a man
knew what kind of farm he wanted
he could find it. | still hold the same
claim | took then, which was obliged
to preempt, in order to leave it and not
loose it. Paid $llO for land warrant.
$3.50 Office fees, making $ll4.50 be-
side the taxes | leased the farm for
five years. for certain amount of i'm
provements and the taxes SO that the
cost of the place with the taxes and the
interest on the same at six per cent,
would not amount to $500. The place
was appraised last spring by witnesses
in railroad land damage lawsuit, on
both sides at from $1,000 to over
S4,100. III
l entered my claim in the fall of
1861, and went back to Vermont and
remained there till the fall of 1878.
Imagine the change; Over thirty acres
of my claim was within the limits of an
incorporated city, with over a thousand
inhabitants. At that time there was
not mile of railroad in the state. Now
you can take the cars at Barton, VT,
and with very few changes of cars set
off at our little town, within three
fourths of mile of my own door. At
that time antelopes, elks, turkeys, prai-
RE wolves, and buffalos all run wild at
pleasure over these vast bottoms and
swells of gently rolling prairie. Quite
a herd of bufalos ran through my cow
| yard and corn6eld one day. Now you
may get on the highest land you can
find, and you can hardly see an. acre of
government land, and almost every
quarter seceion had dwelling on it,
except, now and then, where man has
a larger tract. Land at that time was
to be had as homesteads, now one can
not get a homestead without paying
some one to relinquish his title. Good
bottom land is only occasionally to be
got at ten dollars per acre. Now and
then partly improved farm is sold very
cheap, by some homesick chap, who did
not get rich as fast as he expected, and
wants to 60 back East. The cause of
more dissatisfaction and complaint than
any other one thing is, that people come
here poor, with barely enough to get
here. and expect to get rich in year or
two, and if it should happen to be a
poor season,and they have hard times,
they want to get back and when they
do, they are no better off than they
would have been if they had stayed here.
No man should come here and expect to
getrich in single year; but if he will
locate somewhere and 90 to work, as if
he intended to stay, and has little to
get started with, then keeps at work
improving his farm, and is not too in
dependent to counsel with, and profit
by the experience of the older settlers,
raises a mixed crop and keeps mixed
stock, he is bound to get along and will
soon have better home than he ever
could have had. if he had have stayed
in Vermont. In this way the failure.
or decline in the price of any one thing,
will not fall quite so heavily on him,
and things viii not look quite so blue.
Kansas has its disadvantages, which a
man must put up with, if he expects to
get the benefits of new settled coun-
try, but | never lived in any part of the
country, and never expect to which does
not have its drawbacks, There is a
class of people who get covered wagon
and 90 claim hunting, never locate any
where. but are continually looking fol
something better, like the Irishman who
would not pick up the half dollar. but
ego till he found hapes of them. :
Those people travel around until theiI
little store is gone, and then they are
surely in bad fix. But | could name
good many men who came here poo
and took claims, who now have got gooC
homes and are quite comfortable off. il
fact, better than they ever could hav'
been there. But, men coming here viii
do we'll to bear in mind the old, bu
true saying. "that a rolling stone gath
ers no moss" d. @. JOCELYN.