Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1885-07-03

acres JldJ cannot De STdleu FIOnLdDy
eight months in the year.
Barber county is not now on the out
skirts of civilization, but is connected
with all the world 10y daily fast mails,
and Within q few weeks our valleys VIII
be resOunding with the shrill notes of
locomotives and gathering with the
noise of trains that will carry our prod
ucts to eastern marts. The buffalo
trails have disappeared and the road
bed of an immense railway system has
taken their places. Freighting goods
one hundred miles was long since dis
pensed with and only one-iifth this dis
tance is now travelled; and before win
ter Is on us again freight by wagon
will have been discontinued as 4 busi-
ness, and our supplies from the east
Will be laid at our very doors by aid of
railway locomotiOn.
These are few of the changes that
have occurred within the memory of
the present generation, and there will
likely occur changes toward progress
within the next decade.
The soil is here, for to-day the best
crops in Kansas are growing in Barber
county. The best fields of corn, the
most prolific acres of wheat, the rich
est oats, the most abundant miller, the
greatest variety of both tame and
native grasses, the most perfect gar
dens, are TO be found in Barber county
in this year of 1884. No floods have
rotted our planted seeds, no destructive
worms or insects have devasted our
gaIdsns and fields and no drouth. has
parched our corner of the earth. While
other places have cried for rain, we
have been comfortable, and when
dry weather has been needed we have
had it. A smiling Providence has bless
ed the husbandmen, our herds on
thousand Of hills haye grown fat, and
now in the middle of summer, when
doubts and fears exist as to the out
come of other portions of Kansas, Bar
Der county is satisfied and serene.
The opportunities for securing good
homes here have not all disappeared,
for there are yet hundreds of desirable
locations that may he had. There are
good tracts of land yet vacant, and
claims that have already been proven
up may be purchased on easy terms
and at reasonable prices. There are
openings for every branch of business;
there are points where trading places
could be prohtably opened, and bar
gains in the live stock industry.
The altitude of Barber county is not
so great that dry weather will ever affect
it, and the land here is as good as it is
further west. Here live stock may run
at large, and Craze down the rich grass
es that otherwise would 20 to waste,
while in Comanche and Clark counties
the people have foolishly adopted a
stock law that will deprive them of the
use of thousands Of acres of valuable
grazing lands. Our people recognize
the fact that their county is not adapt
ed exclusively to agriculture or live
stock, but when the two Industries are
combined Barber county is surpassed
by no other section of country now
known to civilization.
Cattle that are grazing on the native
grasses of Barber county take on fat
very quick, and at the same time the
bone and muscle making properties oi
these rich grasses must not be over
looked. With reasonable care during
three months of winter cattle here arr
never in poor condition, and beeves art
frequently marketed when only two
years old, commanding prices alons
with. the tender corn-fed bovines OF the
east. The cost OF raising = beef here j,
not one-fourth as much as il is in thu