The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-01
5.e74,605



Many of the other western counties
have also largely increased their yield
this year, and this will more than offset
the falling off in the eastern counties.
The above estimate shows that the SO
million bushel counties will yield ST.
482,779 bushels, or within about three
millions of the yield of the entire state
in the record breaking crop of 1901. 1t
is on this same basis that it Is estimated
that the yield of the whole state will
this year be above one hundred million
bushels.
LAND BECOMING VALUABLE.
1t is not particularly creditable to the
east-central counties that they are fall
ing off wheat counties. 1t is true
that their yield this year was hardly
up to the standard from various causes.
but it also is true that the acreage in
these counties has fallen off AS the
wheat acreage falls off. that of corn
and diversified crops increases, and this
is caused largely by the fact that the
land has become too valuable to be
used exclusively for wheat The re-
ports of wheat growers made to Sec
rotary Coburn last year showed that
the cost of raising wheat in eastern
| Kansas ranged as high as 50 per acre.
| including interest on the land, while in
western Kansas it is only IS and Sc an
acre. The difference is caused largely
by the fact that in eastern Kansas land
| is worth $50 and upwards an acre, while
| in western Kansas wheat land can be
purchased at from SO to $40, and also
! by the fact that in some western coun-
/ ties the farmers ploW for wheat only
once in two years.
Wheat is worth on an average lit
tie less than so cents bushel, so that
it takes a yield of at least fifteen BUSH
els per acre to pay the expense of rais>
ing wheat that costs 50 an acre, while
| the same yield in western Kansas will
/ pay the expense and a good profit be-
sides. while all above that yield simply
adds to the profit
Then again the farmer who raises
wheat alone has little to do on his
farm from the time he gets his wheat
sown in October until it is ready to
harvest in June or July He can do
nothing with his wheat except sell 1t.
while the man who raises corn is busy
with that from early in the spring un-
til the middle of June. and in the fall
he can take his time about huSking 1t
instead of being rushed and having to
hire lot of extra hands, as the wheat
i farmer must during harvest. Then he
can either market the corn itself or he
can feed it and sell it in the shape of
fat hogs or cattle. But corn requires
| a more certain and more evenly dis
tributed rainfall than wheat. A few
drouth in July or August plays havoc
with corn but it has no effect what
ever on wheat. as the wheat is all in
the stack or in the bin by that time,
For this reason wheat is the advance
agent of agriculture in the ''semi-ario
! region
THAT SEMI-ARID REGION.
Gradually the wheat belt is pushing
back the boundary of the "semi-arid
region" and is taking possession of the
cattle country AS the country be-
comes older. the farmers pillow up more
sod which conserves the moisture:
they plant trees, which also increases
the moisture, and gradually the rainfall
is increased. This increase at first
comes in the fall and spring, just at the
time when needed to raise wheat, but
there is little during July and the first
of August when it is needed for corn.
So wheat is the first general crop that
can be raised as the boundary OF the
| ''semi-arid region" recedes, and that is
why wheat has made such great adj
vances in northwest Kansas this year.
Barley is also raised in western Kan
sas. but it is not as general crop as
wheat. In fact, most of the more than
two million bushels of barley raised in
Kansas each year comes from the short
grass counties.
In the course of years land becomes
more valuable, the rainfall becomes
more certain and better distributed, ana
the farmers begin to turn from wheat
to corn and other crops. That is the
period which Cowley, Marion, Sedgwick.
Clay, Dickinson and other counties on
the eastern edge of the wheat belt have
now reached. Their farmers are turn
ing more to diversified crops and the
wheat belt is moving west. This does
not mean that wheat will be entirely
abandoned in these counties but it does
mean that it will no longer overshadow
all other crops.
RAISING MORE CORN.
The farmers of these counties are
now raising corn and other crops. Last
year these thirty-eight wheat counties
raised 57.201 076 bushels of corn and by
far the greater part of it was raised in
the eastern counties The following
are some of the yields of these coun-
ties:
Sedgwick 49,. ........... 4,GG3, ISL
Cowley .... ... 4, 106, SOP
Reno ~ .........4 ,027, 500
| e,,r,r,ar. 267 400