Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-06-08
GREAT CLIMATIC CHANGES.
The Philosophical Eli Perkins Move
the Rain RaIt Eur4I,nr TVnatuarh


the Rain Belt Further Westward.
L have Just travelled all over Western
Kansas, says Eli Perkins, in letter from
Kirwin, Kansas, to the New York World.
After going out on the Sante Fe, Union
Pacific and Missouri Pacific roads, am
able to announce the news Of most won
derful climatic changes. The rain belt is
certainly spreading over the Western
country at the rate Of twenty miles a
year.
Yesterday 1 met an old gray-haired
man who came to Missouri when the Mis-
souri, Pacific stopped at jefferson City.
''It was the general belief then" said
the old man, "that on account Of uncer-
tain rains there was no chance for farm
ing west Of jefferson City. Irode on
horseback from there to Independence.
Kansas City was then the landing on the
Missouri for Independence. When l pass
ed over the prairies where is now the city
Of Sedalia, | found the grass as thin as it
now is at Wallace and Coolidge in ex-
treme Western Kansas. The herders in
yariably said about Sedaiia: we cannot
raise anything here And they couldn't.
Wheat was tried year after year around
arrensburg, Mo-, county where they
v.
it always failed. Well, IYe seen the rain
belt creep on up to Kansas City. Then
they thought Topeka was the western
limit. No one dared 20 beyond Topeka
during the John Brown times Of 1850.
Crop after crop was lost west of Topeka.
But farmers kept going on out. Some
times they would get few trees planted
and get hedge to- growing, and then the
drought would come and they would 20
back t0IllinOis utterly ruined.''
"Where is the rain belt nOw?' l asked
the old man.
"GOd knows" he said. 81 can't keen
up with it. In 1869 they moved it out to
Salina, on the Kansas Pacific, and out to
Wichita. IN Southern Kansas. The To-
peka and EmpOria region is now all
changed into splendid farms worth from
$40 to $40 an acre, and / have boy with
farm at Salina who says it is a better
place to farm than around Topeka"
This week I've been out on the Central
Branch Of the Missouri Pacific $50 miles,
only three counties from Colorado. Every
where the rain is excessive. The ground
is loaded with wheat. 1t was the same
last year. On the Kansas Pacific the rain
belt has moved up to HAYES City, and on
the Santa Ee the wheat fields reach clear
TO Larned. This spring the farmers have
marched thirty miles further westward.
and the further they go the better their
crops seem to be.
The other day at Greeley, Col, they had
a thirty-siX-hOur rain, and when l went
to the depot | had TO take a carriage. as
the water was over the sidewalks. The
irrigating bitches were being turned into
draining bitches and were carving the
water off instead of on. At Pueblo draws
were stalled in the street, and the streets
Of Denver were as muddy as the streets
of Springfield, Ill. Now, what is causing
this climatic change? Farmers have va
riOus theories. The scientists, as usual.
are at loggerheads and also wrong. One
farmer says:
at is ploughing up the buffalo grass
and letting the rain in. What goes in
must evaporate. This produces local
Showers"
Another man says: ut is trees and
vegetation. Trees produce friction, fric-
ton produces electricity, and with cleo
tricity comes the rain.'
Another says: at is the angleworms,
natures plOughmen. They come with
civilization. When it rains they crawl
to the surface, leaving millions of holes,
down which the rain passes. There are
no auglewOrms under the buffalo grass"
1t is certain that there are thousands of
local streams now in Western Kansas
that flow all summer, when twenty years
ago the same streams went dry. The
BfOunu IS certainly 0Olulng the water ana
giving it back in evaporation. Wells used
to go through a dry powder before they
came to water; now the soil is damp all
the way down. Many wells that used to
90 dry now keep full the year round.
When it rains the water sOaks in. 1t does
not run of as it used to. To-day at Kir-
win, Kan, seventy-fiye miles east of the
Colorado boundary, we are having So
hour rain. The cry is, ''ToO much water"
where the ground used to parch up and
CINE forth no crop.
Perhaps the irrigation from Cheyenne
to Pueblo on a stretch OF country $50
miles long and 20 miles wide is affecting
Kansas. They have been running about
all the water of the Platte and Arkansas
out into the farms These great rivers, if
evapOrated, would produce rain.
1t is certain that the raiu-Delt has got
away westward from tne Tooth parallel,
where it was located "Oficially'' five
Years ago.