Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1889-12-26
KANSAS AGRICULTURE.

KANSAS AGRICULTURE.
It has been stated that no state has
been the subject of so much exaggera-
tion as Kansas, and that, of all the
liars since the father of lies went into
business the Kansas real estate liar has
removed the fruit cake from the stand
and lifted the linen from the shrub
berry. But, on the other hand, all of
you are witness that no other state
has ever been so abused as Kansas. I
have myself heard men say that this
whole homestead business was game
of chance, the government putting up
a quarter-secJion against the entry
mans eighteen dollars that he would
not stay there. If the alleged advan-
tages of the state have been advertised
at great expense, its alleged disadvan-
tages have been proclaimed free gratis,
for nothing. Twice in the history of
Kansas, in 1850 and in 1874, the east
has been covered with missionaries of
defeat, apostles of disaster, heralds of
ruin, fol the most part our own citizens,
who in the name of ''aid' proclaimed
Kansas a famine-smitten land beside
which the Desert of Sahara was a
blooming conservatory and a flourish
ing market-garden. In 1850, it was
announced that in stricken Kansas
"acorns had been used for food and the
bark of trees for clothing," and an aid
seeker in 1874, or, rather in the spring
of 1875, stated that the grasshoppers
had poisoned the grass SO that it made
the cattle's mouth sore to eat it, which
called forth another statement to the
effect that this poison not only affected
the mouths of the cattle but decayed
their teeth so that certain farmer in
a northern Kansas county had expend-
ed his entire fortune in cotton and oil of
cloves to stuff in the old cows grinders.
Besides what we have done ourselves,
against ourselves, every fugitive from
Kansas to his father-in Jaws mansion
beyond the Missouri has spread the
tale of misery and destitution, and
there never vas a newspaper beyond
the Mississippi that did not gladly pub
lish all the letters and communica tions
offered it in regard to the worthlessness
of Kansas.
Between the possibly too-glowing
eulogist of Kansas and the reckless
defamer, the truth has been discovered
through the teachings of experience.
It has been discovered that Kansas
IS, first Of all, an agricultural and
pastoral State. 1t has been definitely
ascertained that this is not lumber
ing or mining country; it is not Wis
consin or Pennsylvania, but Kansas
fifty-two million acres.
The numerous holes bored in the
ground at public expense has settled
the fact that the wealth of Kansas
does not lie 900 or 1900 feet below
the surface, but within eighteen inches
of it, that the farmer and stock-raiser,
probably a combination of both, is the
coming man, the sole hope of the state.
Now, in the view of the settled facts
about Kansas, what should the Kansas
farmer dop
In the first place, he should brace up.
1t is believed, and with reason, by
non-farmers that the Kansas farmer is
the most inveterate growler under the
canopy, and that benefcent and all
powerful Providence cannot make
weather to suit him. He is depressed
by adversity, and he is not elated by
prosperity. But the other day a friend
of mine was congratulating a Kansas
farmer on the big corn crop. "Oh,
yes" said the congratulated, ''but it
will be an awful amount of work to
shuck it,
With cessation of this chronic
growing should come declared pur-
pose to stay with Kansas. The Kansas
farmer should no longer spend his
time on the ridge-pole of his house
straining his eyes across the prairie
looking for somebody to come from the
east and buy him out. No man ever
made the most of a farm he proposed
to leave at the first opportunity.
There is an aged story of an Irish
gentlaman who had an old servant who
was a great aggravation. At last after
quarrel of unusual proportions, the
master said. This is intolerable, and
we must part" .'And where,'' asked
the aged servitor, ''does your honor
intend to go?" And if he leaves Kan
sas, where does the Kansas man,
farmer or other, then 'intend to go?''
Does he desire to go to the northward,
and meet the blizzard half way? Do
the drifting red sands and bitter
streams of Oklahoma present advan-
tages superior to Kansas. Are the
hot winds that occasionally visit us so
attractive that they are to be sought at
their sOurcep Does that broken blad-
der, the California boom, still WOO himY I
Are the arid slopes of the Rocky
Mountains more desirable than the
prairies of the state shown by indisput-
able figures to be this year the banner
corn state of the Union? Would the
Kansas man like tn fry apain tha