The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-04-11
FROM NILE TO NILE.

/
ted to see this all-out-of-doors change IN
a few brief years-not into a land that
| flows with milk and honey, for all such
land requires irrigation-but into land
diversified with green hedge rows and
groves Of quivering cottonwood that
serve as motor in tempering the winds
to the shorn lambs. He has seen the
boundless prairie fall q victim to the
John Deere pillow. and from a monoJo-
nous landscape change in night, as it
were by the magic of the lamp of Alad-
din, into beautiful squares, where the
rlpenlng fields of wheat undulated in
the breeze like the waves of old ocean,
and the growing corn, like miniature
forests, stood out in bold relief and whis-
pered in the night watches to ears that
were all attention the promise of hope 10
the Door man who had come west to
grow up with the country. Talk of a
land where corn and wine and oil were
the epitome OF agricultural pursuits
when the fiesh-pots of Egypt were held
in such high esteem as to make God S
chosen people yearn for them as a moth
er yearns for a kiss from her dead babe
here is a land that fairly groans with
its Superabundance of corn; here Is a
country adapted to the production Of
wine over which Bacchus sheds tears;
| the castor bean, which if but a seed Is
! dropped in the bosom of vOluptuous
earth, springs up and flour
ishes as the green bay tree,
yields an oil so soothing and yet so
searching in It's effects as to dwarf into
utter insignificence the oil that believed
/ the beard of Aaron. The leeks and the
melons, from specimens seen by the
writer in the Bible land, no more COM
pare with the cucumbers and water
melons raised by the average farmer i'll
/ Sedgwick county, as a pastime pursuit,
| than does the buckwheat cakes of our
/ dadies with the nondescript ''tougher-n-
! billed owl" affiictiOn forced on a suffering
/ public today. | have paid 20 cents
/ for an Eastern-shore. Maryland, water
melon, which if placed along side OF a
| SedgWick county twO-bit melon in the
/ latter part of August, would turn per-
fectly green with envy. And so it is
with peaches. [ have seen five success
sive crops of peaches in Sedgwick county
varying in the size of the fruit from a
tea cup to black walnut. | have grown
them when the nectar fairly oozed from
| the velvety skin which an all wise Provi-
denCe had wrapped around them as He
clothes the rarest virtue with a garment.
Of innocence. They were as luscious as
the tempting fruit that caused the down
fall of the race, and as sweet as the
stolen kisses from your best girl. Cher
ries are never failing crop in this
favored land. The man who sets out
forty acres and then goes fishing can
make an Independent fortune. When
the trees are three years old he needs
only to buy a capacious iron kettle and
attach himself to a tin shop to make this
assertion good
Apples do we'll as far as my observation
goes; the trees are all thrifty and when
ever old enough to bear have been as pro-
life as we could wish. | have eaten
genetings in the month of March, raised
within three miles of Wichita, that
would weigh s ounces, and they were
food for the gods. Small fruits flourish
admirably Strawberries do as well
here as any place in the world but re-
quire careful mulching. Blackberries
and goOseberries are certain of a big
yield. The gooseberry when grated on
70 the goose is especially prolific and Of
peculiar flavor.
Reverting to the cereal productions of |
this country, ] would call especial atten- |
ton to oats. | am aware that many
people have formed the idea that oats is |
''horsey' kind of prOvender. but / want /
to say before | forget it that oats is the /
brainieSt food that our soil produces. !
We do not grow oysters any more since !
our people came in contact with the let |
ter Z. Oats is one of our best holds: the /
WELD IS so enormous that it takes up the f.
balance of the farm for stacking ground. /
For this reason it is threshed as soon as /
ripe and shipped to Iowa. whence it /.
finds its way to all parts of the world. |
The CabilaStic words. Eat Quaker Oats"
applies to this branch of our industry.
Our Oat crop. while being diverted into |
a channel that viii produce brainy men. /
Is held in reserve by our more COnSerya-
tive farmers as horse feed. Hence we
produce some of the brainiest horses bred
outside Of the blue grass regions
of Kentucky. Having no steep
hills to limb. nor stony high
ways. such thing as ringbOne,
spawn. sprung knees. heaves and the
other ills to which horse flesh Is heir, in
Guiding bolts. is wholly unknown, thus
making this paradise for horse breeders,
posts-including the postottice and Grand
Army post-affords Us a market excelled
by no other in the United States.
The raising Of horned cattle in the
early settlement of the country was al
industry Of great magnitude. but quite
recently the trade has languished a the
dehorning architects got in their work.
Still. we do quite a business in neat cat
lie. Swine raising, however. Is the prin-
CipaI industry Of SedEwiCk county. 4
climate so eQuible. a soil that needs but
a hoe to tickle it that it may laugh with
a superintendent crop. Is the natural
home Of the refined pig Of the period.
With two immense pork packing eStab-
ljshments in Wichita paying eastern
prices for hogs there IS 10 spot on top Of
ground where men engaged IN swine
husbandry can reap such reward for
their labors Is in the county OF Sedg
wick. that contains more bottom land
than any other county In the state.
! started bv calling attention 10 a De
NOD not very remote when / trav-
ersed this county from northeast 10
southwest and found 1t q bouniiess
plain. Today | ascend 10 the root Of a
five story building that cost 1925. 900 and
see beneath nay gaze a city teenlng with
a population Of 81, 900 people. l cast my
eve upon a panorama extending To the
horizon. ten miles away. ard l see a
Landscape dotted with farm houses and
barns and straw stacks. / see four run
nIng streams OF wager-D1eTe threads 81
silver fTInZcd with dark lines Of timber;
the smoke II factories arises from 81
quarters, Ike the incense mounting 70
heaven; the hum of a busy city Is BE-
ra.Ln me-. ta- r-l.Lrnal- raA.a.a Ike l.e