The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-05-15
Daily eagle
NJ. NJ. MURDOCH. Editor.
KANSAS WHEAT AND WICHITA
GOLD.


Kansas counties. counting Wichita the
center. raised and marketed upwards OF
ten millions of bushels Of wheat last
year. The government agricultural
report. dated May 10, gives Kansas lo0
ner cent average, with an increase OF
acreage of IS per cent. The Eagle estl-
rootes that there will be harvested,
within a radius of fifty-five miles OF
Wichita. this year, twenty millions OF
bushels of wheat Hail or rust, or
some other unforeseen calamity alone
can cut this estimate down. Twenty
millions of bushels of wheat will prob
ably mean twenty millions of dollars
To say nothing of corn and like grains,
of pigs and beeves and other cattle, of
fruit and butter, Of gardens and
chicken houses, these South Kansas
counties will realize enough money
from the wheat crop alone to discharge
every municipal. corporate and person
al debt of these peoples, with money
to spare If, with this extraordinarily
promising wheat crop, at a high price,
the corn and hay crops should hold up
to a fair average, prosperity for the
peoples of these counties should be
thing so certain as to need no guar
anty. In short, the prospect is a very
bright one for all concerned, for the
farmer and for the trader, for all the
towns and the country communities
alike The prosperity of these South
Central Kansas counties, for the COM
ing year, should be greater than for
the year last past, proportionately
greater as to both crops and prices.
No section of the United States holds
larger promise or more marked ad-
Vantages.
Wichita will only fail of her full
share of benefit in failing to hold her
own as the central market of the ter
ritory named That twenty millions of
bushels Of wheat and more than as
much corn, together with the live
stock, should all find market at
Wichita more advantageous to the pro-
Queer than the one on the Missouri
river. Twice within two or three years
has this city been euchered out of grain
elevators. Whether the enterprises
were brought to naught by railway and
transportation interests, by rival ele-
vator concerns, or by a combine of
these with other market interests, the
fact remains that each of the elevator
when at the points where success SEEM
ed certain, completely floored. Wichita
is nearer the gulf expectation ports
than Kansas City, and with the proper
facilities dealers at this point could
control these millions of bushels of
wheat and corn advantageously to the
city and with greater profit for the
producer.
Next to this grain product in import
ance through control, is the livestock
of this same circumscribed but mag
nificent area of which Wichita is the
center The livestock interests of
this city will wake up some morning
to the fact that a new rival market has
been founded south between here and
the northern Texas centers. The Whit
aker plant. standing idle, is a menace
to the future livestock market of this
city. 1t should be put in operation. An
average of five to eight thousand hogs
Ter day would be a speedy result with
other packing plants to follow and still
a wider market area and a wider field.
Wichita is we'll nigh herself again,
and the examinations of crops, prices
and conditions referred to will. within
the years 1898 and 1899. fix the future
status of this city as a market and as
a general trade center, for this unrival-
ed section which counts its grain pro-
ducts by the millions of bushels and its
livestock by the hundreds of thou
sands.
With from two to three thousandhogs
now sold on her market daily. with
thribble the number of jobbing con
Germs boasted by any other city in the
-tate, with ten railway lines in and out
of the town. reaching every point of
the grain and stock area named, with
a commercial trade uneQualled by any
point between the Missouri and Den
Yer, il remains only a question OF an
energetic utilization Of self-evident ad-
vantages for Wichita to double her live
stock and packing interests. to double
her milling and her wholesale interests