The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1901-07-26
TALKING ABOUT DRoUTHS.

IADhlNU ADUO L DhOO lI1o.
Misfortunes, along with very many
other things in this world, are largely |
relative. A man who has lost one leg !
feels himself fortunate when he finds a
poor devil who has lost both. A man
with one eye feels himself a king in the
presence of the blind. One who mas
no cloak is comforted for that lack
when approached by one who Las no
coat.
For the first time in forty years
Kansas is suffering disastrous
drouth. 1t cid not come until the
greatest wheat crop in the history OF
the State has been safely ymatured. and
yet it very naturally causes bitter
complaint.
The chances are that Frank G.. Car
penter, who is now on the other side
of the world, knows nothing of the
conditions existing here. And yet on
the theory suggested above mis-
fortunes are relative and that one bad
luck may be comforted by comparing
his condition with one in far worse
luck, his last letter might well have
been written for the consolation of the
dwellers in the Mississippi valley.
The letter is dated Australia, and it
describes a drouth "as is a drouth,
and in comparison with which our own
Titled spell is wet weather. He
says:
zone of the great markets of the
future for the corn of the Mississippi
valley will be in Australia. The
country is subject to frequent drouths,
and at such times food for stock is an
imperative necessity. In Queensland
| saw green oats straw selling for $40
ton. and was told that several
shiploads of corn had been imported
from the Pacific states by that state to
feed its cattle and sheep. There has
been "A great drouth and the stock has
died by the thousands. one man who
had IS. 600 sheep and nothing to feed
them paid $40 ton for American
corn. He soaked it and then fed it,
and as a result saved his flock.
One who has not visited Australia
can have no idea ef the need of food
/ in time of drouth. Within the past
years millions of sheep have died of
| hunger and vast numbers of thirst.
This state of New South Wales had
62, 900, COO sheep in 1891. 1t has not
more than Al 900, 600 now. Within ten
years the number has fallen of more
than 10000, 600. Estimating each
sheep at $3.50 this means a loss of
$50, 900, 900 in the capital stock of the
squatters in one state only. There
have been large losses in South
Australia, Victoria and Queensland .
| am told that numbers of shep die al
most every year and that losses dur
ing the past ten years have been al
most continuous.
You need not go far in Australia to
hear of the horrors of the drOuth.
You can easily meet man who has
lost fortune by dry weather. Men
sometimes go crazy on their stations
far off in the interior because the rain
fails TO come. They have thousands
of acres and tens of thousands OF
acres of sheep, and they have to sit
and watch the animals die before their
eyes, knowing they cannot feed them
The drouths clear the land of every
thing green. The pastures become as
bare as the roads and the sheep stag
ger about, nosing in the dust for the
seeds of grasses and trees. Some
times trees are cut down to give them
food. One man who had 1000 acres
of land kept 100 men busy cutting of
the branches of his apple, oak anC
other trees to feed the sheep. The,
eat the leaves and even the small
twigs. This same man had another
force skinning dead sheep and anothe
whose business it was to lift up tn,
sheep when they fell down and could
, not rise of their own accord. This IL
. to keep them from the carrion crows
q which hover about over them and picl
out their eyes if they fall.
e During those drouths the rabbit
die as we'll as the sheep. They drol
dead outside the rabbit fences, Yo'
: may see kangaroos lying here ant
p there dead upon the plains, and
q have been told that even the bird
drop dead from the trees.
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