Smyrna times., 1886-05-26
For the Smyrna Times.
Prosperity and Development of
the West.
CONTINUED DEMANDS FOR TIE VIR-
GIN SOIL. NEW RAILROAD ENTER
PRISE CLOSELY FOLLOWED BY
THE INEVITABLE sPECU-
Forty Thousand Dollars Worth of Lots
Sold at CuLLisOn, Kan, by Real
Estate Firm While has Maps
aOere Getting Dry on His
aUay Home from Kan
sds City.

Mr.. EDITOR:-I have made a trip
across the country from Green Bay,
through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, a
portion of Nebraska, and three hun
dred miles west of Kansas City, where
the new counties are just opening up
and the civil engineer is measuring and
locating the pathway of that greatest
engine of commerce, the locomotive.
l want to tell your readers that the
West has not lost its ancient art of
growth, but has greatly improved on
its methods of phenomenal develop
ment. On the broad prairie plane
more progress is made with the i'm
proved facilities in a few anOnths, than
was made in as many years in the days
of the settlement of Kentucky, Ohio
and Indiana.
The buffalo and the bison, of which
Thomas Benton was wont to speak
and declare would trample a Pacific
Railroad out of existence if one should
be attempted to be built, are nearly ex-
terminated the feat has been accom-
plished three times over, and the once
great American Desert is to-day the
garden spot of the world for arability
and fertility. But fertility did not
always belong to it. In that the early
geOgrapher was right; there was a
great deficiency of rainfall and
little or none during the crop season.
A VIGOROUS CIVILIZATION.
A less vigorous civilization than ours
would have been deferred on the very
borders, as the same circumstance ap-
plies to the Pampas Of BuenOs Ayres
of South America, and the lazy custO
dians of the soil claim it is unfruitful
climatically barren and therefore good
for pasture or for nothing. Possibly
our brethren South of the equator
never thought Ofour pre-emption, home
stead and timber claim laws, as a stim-
ulus to enterprise and the acquisition
of personal property and independence
| If we judge their future by their pas
history, their mountains Of laziness will
never be dissolved, until two or three
Of our Opulent and enterprising rail.
road companies now pushing in tina
! direction extend their lines over tn
Isthmus of Panama down into tn
/ heart of that country whose pOpula
! ton shows a decrease as compared
with former years. and perchance tun
mel through their mines of silver AM
gold, tear down their defensive city
walls that have stood so many reVolu
tiOns; teach them a thing or tw
about the blessings of the triumphs c
progress and give those old cities
boom that would make the Welkin rims
Conquer, subdue the earth and beau
tify it, was the command in the earl
morning of mans existence, and no,
that wars have ceased and the day Q
arbitration has dawned upon us, prect
ded by the dawn of innumerable an
useful ulinventions developing that highe
and better attributes of our nature, al
Initiating time, and space and tn
drudgery of other days, we must ais
have room for our State craft whic
we have learned so well without
king or an empress how to organic
and endOw political divisions. w
have conquered our own domain an
we have done it so we'll that cOmpar;
lively little remains for subiugatol
As touching our prairie land and til
science of seasons, it was observed thu
somehow rain followed the settler
The electric currents, since the estal
fishing of agricultural colleges, hay
been closely watched by the professor
and the cause Ofthe lack of rainfall G
broad, untouched prairie was found
be break of the current of commun
cation between the neither and Il
upper sources of moisture. From tin
immemOrial the surface of the grOur
had been tramped and packed tOgeth,
by the tread of the hunter and h
game, until the proper electrical Gu
rent was broken, but as soon as Il
plowman came and stirred the soil Il
electrical currents were re-establisht
and now the production of hundreds
millions of bushels of grain is our a
nual report from the Department
Agriculture at Washington.