Wichita daily eagle., 1885-09-20
THE GREAT FUTURE BEFORE
KANSAS.

Hon. A. w. Campbell, of the Wheeling
West Va Daily Intelligencer, the oldest
and greatest daily in that state, has been
spending the summer at Conway Springs,
in Sumner county, thirty miles southwest of
Wichita As he is gentleman of national
reputation as writer and speaker, we read
with no little interest letter yesterday, oc-
cupying three columns of the Intelligencer.
The letter shows that he is close observer
and that he sizes up state, climate. crops and
people with the accuracy of master hand.
We shall take occasion to copy from the
letter from time to time, as it is written in
topics and is in fact a series of articles
touching Climatic Changes, King Corn,
The Farmers Lot, Mortgages, Prohibition,
etc. We here give the closing sentences of
his very graphic letter, first acknowledging
the receipt OF a marked copy direct from
the Office:
| | have endeavored in this letter, as / said
in the outset, to write you comprehensively
in regard TO Kansas. have given you in a
general way its lights and shadows. / will
4 ONiN duu III WiHuup tudt IL II Eaiiu
try-out of which those who are to succeed
the present occupants, and who will farm SO
much more thoroughly and economically,
will make still grander country. lis lands
and its people are on the advance. Schools
abound on every hand-good schools, too.
Kansas pays two and half millions
per annum for schools. Conse-
quently she shows up well in the intelligence
of her population. By the census of 80
there were only ASS whites, out of a pop
ulation Of less than million at that date,
(ten years old and upward) who could not
write, while in West Virginia, with popu-
lation of only 6ls,457 at the same date, there
were 5,237 whites (ten years old and up
ward who were thus illiterate.
like the country and the people. There
is fascination in the freedom and inde-
pendence of the great west There is fas-
cination and exhilaration in the sight OF
. boundless and billowy prairies / like to
ride over them aud stop now and then on a
little rise and take in with the eye fifteen to
twenty miles of this rich and rolling coun-
try in every direction. 1 like to see the
| white houses, the wind-mills and the herds
of cattle that speck the horizon in the dis
tance, and the golden harvest fields that
greet you in other distances. l like the
, stretches of distance in every direction, and
you get over them so easily behind good
pair of horses. The natural gait of horse
here all day long is trot, and you pass the
section roads so quickly and go north, south
east and west with such facility that you lose
all idea of time and distance. The first thing
you know you have travelled fifty miles.
This will some day be q very populous
country, and lands worth now from $40 to
$50 per acIe will easily command $50 to
S75. In those days one acre will raise as
much as an acre and a half does now. And
the farmers will then have better houses
and barns and will live much better in every
, way than at present. They will have grove.
of trees and orchards and good gardens, ir
all of which they sadly lack now. In thost
days the farmer will not be at the wrong enc
as he is to-day-he will not then sell cheaI
| and buy dear, but cities and towns viii
afford him a remunerstive home market
His lands are the true basis of great wealth
; comfort, refinement and luxury for himself
: for Kansas and the whole country