The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-01-25
F. ID. Coburn Replies to His
SANDER of Kansas.
Predicted Dire Calamity West of
Goth Meridian.
IN CITIZENS.
Have Comfortable Homes, Car.
riages and Automobiles.
People There Not Anxious to
Swap Farms With Fasteners.

Swap Farms With Fasteners.
F. D.. Coburn, secretary of the Kan
sas board of agriculture, has prepared
for the Missouri newspapers the fol-
| lowing defense of Kansas farming
lands from the attack some six or eight
weeks ago of VIM. E. Curtis. corre-
spondent for Chicago newspaper:
LAS a matter of fact have been i'm
portuned by people outside as well as
within the state. to make some reply
to this Curtis letter, but it had never
seemed to me worth the powder.
For the fellow who writes for the
press and is paid according to the space
he fills and runs out of material, there
is no more reliable staple theme to fall
back on than a calamity prediction,
and especially if they can faSten it on
Kansas, or near Kansas. This need
not necessarily be based on any fact Or
anything that has really occurred, but
forecast of something terrible that
may happen unless something else does
happen, which for their purposes is not
likely to happen. Summed up in a sen-
tence this always means that unless
there is rain we are sure to have dry
SPELL
1.-The Record Herald correspondent
must have been, about December 20,
short of something to write. and SO
filled a good part of his two columns
with a tale of woe credited to some
anonymous 'ablest agricultural expert,
who thinks he sees wreck and ruin
west of the ninety-ninth meridian II
there should be three years without
rain. The fact that it has rained in
the past three years cuts no figure In
his nightmare, and the fact that so far
as western Kansas and its people are
concerned taking the years together,
have had a decade and a half of pros
perity argues nothing of hopefulness
for the years to come
Having fertile land, homes with mod
ern conveniences, carriages automo-
biles, and money in banks at almost
every crossroads, affords no joy to this
'ablest expert who evidently has in
him the elements of typical, high
priced crop-killer, who beginning
salary from some bunch of grain gam
blers.
LAS to that country life commission.
haven't heard of their being in any
part of Kansas. or near Kansas, or
even interrogating anyone Who lives In
Kansas, although I have no doubt
and they are all honorable mem
they know and will be able to tell much
more about Kansas than is known by
the people of the state who have lived
here for twenty-five to fifty years and
made her the great commonwealth
we all know abogst that horrible
ninety-ninth meridian, and the staple
specter it is to people at a distance who
must have Scarecrow at any cost,
but the men and women who live in its
neighborhood are not wanting to swap
farms or meridians with their relatives
who live elsewhere. So, let us be cheer
full while we may"
That portion of the Curtis letter to
which Mr. Coburn refers follows:
For example, 1t is thought necessary
to warn land-hungry people who are
taking up homesteads and buying small
farms in the semi-arid regions of west
z % Nn1n
ing, Utah and other states that dry
farming is a very critical proposition.
1t is also considered important that
homeseekers should know that many
be irrigated under any circumstances
because of lack of water, and that the
prevention of waste to water is one of
the most important duties of the Amer
lean people.
A part of the letter Mr. Curtis quotes
from zone of the ablest agricultural ex-
perts in this country" Exception is
also taken to this by Mr.. Coburn.
IF normal rainfall should return, a
calamity would strike this whole area
from the ninety ninth meridian to the
one hundred and third meridian, the
whole length of the country, that would
be greater than the calamity that struck
western Kansas and Nebraska in the
sos. In fact, believe that the whole
agricultural population, outside of the
irrigation districts, would be driven
DaCK ZUU miles, ana hopeless.
The mortgages will be foreclosed on
these lands, and they will be converted
into great ranches and the grasses al
lowed to reSeed themselves, which they
will do in the course of probably 10,
Is or 20 years.
ct believe that dry farming on these
soils, other than the adobe and red
clay sections, could be made profitable
by men of large means and of the
highest SKILL by deep blowing, so to
sneak bV putting a ciStern under their
farms, and by subsoiling to put a lid
growing a crop of winter wheat every
other year. But to send poor, land
hungry people out onto these lands
as homesteaders and to sell the adjoin-
ing railroad lands at prices above men
toned is cruelty heart1ess. Men who
have made it a study for 10 to 20 years
know the folly of undertaking to farm
where nature never intended anything
but the steer or the COW to exist In
their judgment, the homestead laws
should be so amended as to permit the
farmers to homestead a section as in
tended in the Kinkaid law. In this way
they could dry farm so acres or a
quarter, leaving the rest in the grass
of which it requires from Is to 80 acres
to support a steer, and by doing so they
could make q. living"
A Wound Results Fatally.
Atchison, Kan, Jan. 25.-Harry Mar
shall, a young hardware merchant at
Whiting, Kan. is dead from the eff