St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-04-01
A TRIP TO OLD MExICO---H.

From the Mississippi to the Missouri
Kansas City and Kansas State.-The
Cattle Ranches of the PIains.-A The
DRY of RainfaII.-PersOna1M Mention.
We cross the Mississippi at Daven-
port, Iowa, and follow it's western shore
for some miles. The river was frozen
solid from shore to shore and people
were crossing on the ice at Muscatine.
The morning of the 10th found the
party at Kansas City. A halt of three
hours gave an opportunity to hurried
ly inspect this place of remarkable
growth and business activity. 1t al
ready has over 10000 inhabitants and
is growing marvellously. 1t is the
gateway and distributing point to the
great Southwest. Mr.. M. A. Potts has
Il very pleasant home on Locust street,
one of the best streets of the city, con-
venient to both church and school. For
convenience and attractiveness the
house is not unlike the one they left at
st. JohRsbury. A new and beautiful
ished with Rev. Henry Hopkins of
Massachusetts, the beloved pastor.
Mr.. Potts experience on the building
committee Of the North church in st.
Johnsbury made him valuable acqui-
sitiOn to similar committee here,
which the people were not slow to
avail themselves of.
This city already has its cable rail
road and is about to add another of
the same kind. 1t soon will have an
elevated railroad connecting it with
Kaw river, and really part of Kansas
City. This city has its jObbing dry
goods houses that carry half million
of stock its banks with 100000 cap
ital, over two millions deposits and 25
per cent. annual dividends and sur
plus. New churches, school houses
and beautiful residences are going up
10y the hundred. Surely it is marvel
of activity and business thrift, and al
though built on steep and high bluffs
ut great disadvantage it has il beauty
and picturesqueness which a city built
on level ground cannot possess.
At Kansas City. another great rail-
way system of this country is entered
upOn-the Atchison, Topeka 81 Santa
Fee, which stretches off across the great
state of Kansas, into one end of Colo
RADIO, and through the middle of New
Mexico to Ell PasO, TeXas-Over 1000
miles away. AS we leave Kansas City
the road follows up the south bank of
the Kaw or Kansas river through rich
bottom lands for many miles. AT To-
peka, the state capital, the train stops
for dinner, and from thence all through
the day till we sup at Newton, the
road passes through one OF the finest
farming countries to be found any
where. The New Englander misses
the mountain streams and the timber
lands, but he will admire the miles
and miles of arabic land with deep,
black soil, without stump OF a stone
to hinder the pillow or mowing-ma
chine. The farmers all along the road
were riding their sulky plows and
turning np the rich soil preparatory to
putting in their corn and wheat crop.
This seems early to- VermOnters who
have just begun sugaring, yet the Kan
sas season is this year very backward.
1t is not unusual to have the grain up
and the corn all planted by this date.
Although the train rolls steadily on
all night long, the passengers wake up
on st. Patrick's day in the morning
still in Kansas and pass for a hundred
miles or so over the plains and through
the ranches of Western Kansas before
of cattle, horses and sheep are fire.
quently seen, but houses are few and
far between. Occasionally a dug-out
is seen, and at Coolidge, where break
fast is served, there is quite a village.
The cruelty and avarice of the stock
men is everywhere apparent in the Ru-
merous carcasses of cattle which line
the railroad, killed by exposure the
past winter. They are driven before
the billiards. until they reach fence
or railroad track, when they fall and
die. There is very general cOndenna-
ton of this heartless cruelty. The
time cannot be far off when cattlemen
will be forced 10y law to furnish both
shelter and food for their stock during
the winter.
Eastern Kansas is now almost
wholly agricultural. Western Kansas
is nothing but stock range, and
(aside) does not look as though it ever
would be because of the lack of rain.
Yet the theory is promulgated, and
believed by some, that the turning of
the sod induces rain and moisture and
that gradually but surely the line of
productiveness is extending westward.
eighteen years ago when | managed
the overland stage route through this
country" remarked Capt. Shemmer-
horn to the little knot of passengers
who gathered around him in the sleep
er after leaving Topeka Tuesday af- |
ternoon, "you couldn't make tree or |