The Oskaloosa herald., 1908-10-22
BELIEVES IN KANSAS.
M. S. Allen Says the State has
Been Maligned.
Weskan, Kans., Oct IA, 1908.


las have left Monument. ! left there
in June, taking my family out through
Nebraska, South Dakota, Colorado and
Wyoming TO Utah on account of my
son Tracy's i'll health, but he is still
lin a decline with little hope OF a
change.
| While | was in Denver / saw the
democratic convention building where
William j. Bryan was nominated, but
as thought there was no hope of my
being the next choice for president !
did not stay. - =
| am now located about eight miles
northwest of Weskan, Kan, on home
stead one and half miles east of the
Colorado state line, in Wallace county,
and Sharon Springs is our county seat.
| have a splendid 100 with 140 acres of
good plowed land and the rest in pas
ture. | have completed my sod house
and we moved in Sept. 81. We have
native lime along some of the
streams that makes excellent plaster
! ing, which used ON my house. The
country is a fine farming and grazing
region, but the high altitude makes
! the rainfall very uncertain. Good crops
are raised here when the soil is well
titled and the grain properly cultiVat-
ed. The great trouble with farmers
here is that they try to tend too much
land. They sow the grain in the stub
BILE, run a disc and a harrow over 1t,
and expect it to yield good crop. In
many places the ground is stirred only
once in three or four years, but l was
in one neighbours corn field that had
been worked like they do it in Iowa
and | am sure that it would yield 80
or more bushels to the acre. Wallace
is one of the northwest counties OF
Kansas and while have not been all
over it, l have crossed it several
times and judging from what l have
seen | think it is very good land, aV-
|eraging with any of the other land
of this part of the country. 1t lays
gently rolling with a steady slope
eatward. We have excellent water
here which can be reached from a
few feet to rs and 100. Some have
springs, but once reached there is no
danger of it's running dry, as it is
sheet water. Here in Wallace coun-
ty they raise corn, all small grains, al
falfa and all kinds of vegetables. We
have some as fine potatoes and tur-
nips as | ever saw anywhere, and all
~ nj
thing that grows in good truck gar
den, and without irrigation.
What Western Kansas really needs
is settlers to come here to live, to
pillow up the buffalo grass and get
the ground into shape that it will alb
sorb the rain that does fall, for that
buffalo sod turns the water almost
like a roof. Land with a good title
is selling for from twelve to sixteen
hundred dollars a quarter section.
There are still some good eighties and
Observation-Disclosures of government
land in Wallace county to be home
steaded. but they are being taken up
very fast Northwestern Kansas is a
country that in the past few years
has attracted much attention from
those who have been studying the
land problem and it has not been so
very long since people who were only
partially informed about it were say
ing that it was foolish to settle out
there; but such statements are no
longer made because they would be
ridiculous in face of the magnificent
progress that Kansas has made in the
past ten years. She has had her ups
and downs. but no worse than every
other state has had. and those who
have come from her sister states OF
Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and others are
the ones that think most of her De-
cause they know her best and can
make intelligent comparisons. West
ern Kansas has been particularly ma
ligned and misrepresented. | remem-
Der that when ! went to school, the
western part of Kansas was shown as
part of the Great American Desert.
The slightest suggestion that it would
ever become agriculturally productive
enough to sustain even the hardy
frontiersman was laughed at by the
short-sighted eastern man.
1t was my pleasure to drive over
about fifty miles of Wallace county
recently and l found it much better
than | expected, and country that
has license to attract the poor rent
ing farmer who is in search OF a home
where land Is cheap and that has a
promising future before 1t. We can
not expect to sit down and have even
poor home come to us. Out here
we may not raise one-half or even
onethird what the Illinois or Iowa
farmer can raise, but what we do have
is ours and we do not have to give
the biggest part of it to the landlord
What better can man do than get
mold of a piece OF land while 1t IL
cheap and Uncle Sam" still has some
to give away If you will come and
live on it five years. II other people
can make living so can you. The
coyotes are within hearing as l write
and yesterday there were six antelope
within half a mile OF our house, but
of course it Is against the law to xii
Them.