The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-08-10
Secretary CoburnCalIs Attention
to Kansas Position.
This Cereal Much More Import.
ant Than Wheat.
MANY MILLIONS MORE.
Value in Past 10 Years Exceeds
Wheat $lO6, 200, 900.
Comparisons That Will Cause
People to Think.

Secretary F. D. Coburn has issued a
circular boosting Kansas corn. Wheat
has been getting most of the glory
lately, but Mr.. Coburn shows that after
all, Kansas is first a corn state. The
information in the circular will be
good to send to people back east who
don't know much about western crop
figures. Mr.. Coburn says:
The fact that Kansas produces more
wheat than any other state or country
IN the world naturally causes much
earnest watchfulness and discussion of
It's acreage, condition, prospects, yield
ana quality, at home and throughout
the grain, milling, transportation,
preaostuff, banking and commercial
centers of civilization. This would nat
urally persuade those without knowl-
edge of the facts to suppose that wheat
is by far the states main and foremost
crop; yet compared in importance and
value with her corn, wheat is a side
issue, and but one of various secondary
items, the-worth of which must be
aggregated to even approach the value
of corn.
In the past ten years the value of
Kansas corn crops has been $1O6OOO.-
900 more than that of the wheat pro-
duced in. the same period, which in
cluded three of the states largest
wheat crops and one of the smallest OF
corn. In the preceding ten years tho
corn was worth nearly 100000
more than the wheat. The Kansas
corn crop was worth over $6,000.00O
more than all other products of the
soil in 1902, and in two preceding sea
sons corn outvalued all the other field
products, wheat included.
Great as the wheat crops have been
for 20 of the 43 years of which there is
Ord iac +I-.
gate value of the corn crop was more
than double that of the combined Yields
of winter and spring wheat, and in but
few years has the value of the wheat
crop approached or surpassed that Of
| the same years corn. The value of the
corn alone in each of Is years of the
past 20 has been greater than that of
all other field crops together. wheat
omitted, and in only one year (1901) OF
the past decade did corn fail to outvalue
the same crops. In other words in each
of the past 10 years save one the annual
corn crop was of greater worth than
| the same years oats. rye, barley, buck
wheat, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes.
castor BEANS cotton, fax hemp, tobacco,
broom corn, millet and Hungarian,
sorghum, milo maize, Kaf1r corn, Jeru-
salem corn, prairie hay, tame hay, al
falfa, and horticultural products mar
keted.
In 1899, according to the governments
reports, the Kansas corn yield was
/
states, New York, New Jersey, Della
ware. Michigan. Virginia, South Caro-
| lima, Florida, West Virginia, Maryland,
Minnesota, North and South Dakota,
Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. New
! Mexico Utah. Washington, Oregon, Cal
! ifornia and Oklahoma. Five years later.
| in 1904, in spite of her destructive floods
Kansas produced more corn than all
New England. Pennsylvania, Minnesota,
and Is additional states and territories.
| In almost any year three or four of the
more northern of the states 105 counties
produce more corn than the entire Do
minion of Canada. In 1889 the yield of
corn in Kansas was 273, ,S8S 321 bushels.
/ The value of the Kansas corn crop OF
| 1902, from only Is per cent of her area,
was sufficient to more than five times
cover the cost of the entire Louisiana
purchase, and nearly eleven times as
much as the United States paid for all
Alaska.
The value of her corn grown in the
past twenty years is $1O0,o0O,00O, more
than that of all the wheat crops grown
| by Kansas since her beginning.
/ The three or four states exce1ling
| Kansas in total corn production are
her immediate neighbors of the prai-
rie. OF these she is neither jealous nor
envious, and to overcome any deficit
in meat making foods caused by de-
crease in corn she has only to utilize
one of her three, four or five cuttings
of alfalfa harvested each year.
Missouri, for example, is admittedly
lone of the worlds foremost corn
Estates; yet Uncle Sans reports show
that Kansas in 1895 and 1899 raised
more corn by 40 per cent than was
raised by Missouri.
4 Uncle Sans reports point out that
in the five year period ending with the
year 1900 the combined value OF Kan
sas' corn and wheat exceeded that Of
the same crops of any other state in
the Union. Illinois came next, but fell
behind Kansas by little less than
$4,000, 900.
In corn Kansas is billionafre; in
the last twenty years the state has
raised 1851, 7,122,161 bushels, worth on
the farms where grown over $S21,-
900, 900.
In Kansas corn is the monarch cereal
and prosperity's barometer.
Kansas raises a wide diversity of
crops, and below are shown the bush
els and home values of two of them
(corn and wheat) for the. past ten
years:
oz