The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-02-21

KANSAS IS GLAD TO HAVE THEM

b.
ton county is welcoming with open
arms so Mennonite bridal couples who
have pre- empted homesteads in differ
ent portions of the county. They are
desirable settlers because they always
begin with comfortable, although
simple, habitations and provide good
shelter for their livestock.
They are the second generation,
some of them perhaps the third, of a
race of German Russians, who were
brought to this country by the Atchi-
son, Topeka & Santa Fee Railway COM
pany in 1874 and 1875. About that
time there was a great exodus of the
Tsar's German subjects out of Russia
-MennOnites, Lutherans and Catho-
ics-and the tide set toward western
America.
They temporarily camped at Topeka
and other land office and land agent
towns. For many months these towns.
until the newcomers located in home
steads, abounded with sheepskin coats,
roomy trousers, flowing petticoats and
cooking utensils peculiarly Russian.
Work Up the Ladder.
Finally they chose their homes, and
the Atchison, opeka & Santa Fe, with
it's usual good luck, got the most of
them. The Lutherans and Catholics
chose adjoining counties in the upper
valleys of the Smoky, and the Mennon-
ties, who outnumbered the others about
four to one, followed the old Santa Fe
trail and took lands in the valleys of
the Cottonwood and the Arkansas, in
the counties of Marion, Mcpherson,
Harvey. Reno and Barton.
They began with sod houses. but soon
they substituted wood. brick or stone,
and now. by thrift and good farming,
they have become among the first cit
liens of the communities in which
they live. and besides farming do
much of the banking, merchandising
and milling.
These people brought with them seed
for gardens and field and wrought a
complete change in the nature of crops.
They also brought the mulberry
tree and the silkworm, expecting to in
learned it in Russia. But the silkworm
in Kansas has been failure, and for
the present, at least, has been aban-
doned. The mulberry tree, however,
has come to stay, and from the origi-
nal Mennonite settlement it has spread
all over the southwest, making shelter
and food for birds, shade for children
and firewood for the family.
Harvesting Big Crops.
In addition, they brought from Rus
STA their religion, and in the genera ton
or more that has elapsed they have
not departed from it one jot or title,
they nor their children, nor their
children's children. Never has a more
Godfearing and industrious people
come to Kansas to make dutiful and
thrifty citizens.
And now younger generation of
these excellent people has departed
IL oIil lIlC IlolIlSS VI tiiCli ldlI
ers and moved westward to a new
and comparatively untried region
which they, taught by and following
the methods of their fathers, will make
productive and habitable. Already
they have harvested crops of milo
they will harvest their first crop of
wheat, which always is the big crop of
these Russians.
They will also plant alfalfa, orchards,
broom corn. small fields Of Indian corn
and the inevitable garden patch
This country, so long regarded as
desert, now bellies that name, largely
because of the intelligent lessons in
farming from these Russians who had
lived and prospered on the dry plains
of the TZars domain.
Homesteaders are taking the public
domain at the rate of about 5000 acres
a day Where there is no homestead
and good quarters are selling from 81
to Sc an acre 1t is quite evident that
a goodly proportion of homesteaders
coming west in the popular semi
monthly land excursions, have found
the country to their liking