The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1904-10-21
ITS REMARKABLE CROP RECORD.
EEYIABLK RECORD OF KANSAS WEST
OF SIXTH PRINCIPAL HKEIDIAH.
In 1908 Produced More WHEAT than All
% Thirty-ODe Other States a1d Efgh-
tseu Per Cent OF the Total wheat
Yield Of the United States

That Kansas has become one OF the
most remarkable of Uncle Sans states
in its crop productiveness seems now
beyond question. The readers atten-
ton is called to the irresistible crop rec
ord that this part of Kansas, west Of the
Sixth principal meridian, has earned.
This meridian crosses the state along
the eastern boundaries of Republic,
Cloud, Ottawa, Saline and Mcpherson
counties, and runs almost midway
across Harvey, Sedgwick and Sumner
counties.
Concerning the enviable position this
portion of Kansas occupies in its vast
production of wheat, F. D. COburn,
who perhaps is the best walking ency-
clopedia on facts of agriculture in the
United States, says:
LESS than FIVE decades ago that pOr-
ton Of Kansas lying west of the Sixth
principal meridian was known as
part of the Great American Desert"
The suggestion OF its ever becoming
agriculturally productive enough to sus-
tain even the few reckless frontiersmen
who might cast their lot there was jeer-
ed at blythe shOrtsighted wiseacres Of the
east. Horace Greeley, in his famous
advice to young men, to leave the over
crowed cities of the east and go west,
tabooed this region now so productive
Of wealth. IL it is human to err, that
such eastern fOrecasters were intensely
human IS borne out by official statistics,
thus:
THE winter wheat yield Of 1908 IN
the section indicated was 70, 739, zig
bushels, or 70 per cent Of the entire
states world beating yield, and 1874
per cent of the total yield of ali the
United States. In other words the
''semi-arid'' fraction of Kansas PrOdu-
ced in single year 1,o35, $50 bushels
more winter wheat than the combined
winter wheat crops Of Maine, Vermont,
New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Yir-
ginia, West Virginia, North and South
Dakota, North and South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkan-
sas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho, Washington,
Oregon, Indian Territory, Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Ar
iona, Utah and Nevada; OF ISL, 573
bushels more than Missouri, Nebraska,
Maryland and Indian Territory; ,870,-
z34 bushels more than Ohio, Indiana
and Illinois; three times as much as Ok
lahoma; twice as much as Nebraska,
and nearly three times as much as
Pennsylvania. In addition to its other
crops, livesto OK, poultry and eggs and
dairy products, this same fraction OF
Kansas in 1908 produced Sc, 991 ,S46
bushels Of corn of good merchantable
quality, or almost 40 per cent Of the
states yield"
One of the most encouraging things
about this territory IS, that the wheat
belt has gradually but surely been COM
ing west. Some of the older sections
of the east have been falling behind,
and others to the west have been in
creasing in the production Of wheat.
Within the last two years the eastern
portion of Thomas county has produced
a sufficient yield for entry into the
wheat belt counties, +" provided that
the acreage were increased. The peO-
pie of Sherman county have come at
last to recognize the fact that large
wheat raising with them is only a mat
ter of the right kind Of farming. And
the future Of Sherman county, no
doubt, is going TO surPass our most
sanguine expectations.