Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1911-10-05

err down the declivity. No wonder you
people all have jay-bird heels! we
had, Of course, when we lived there,
with the addition of mud-hook toes.
but they have long ago been super
seeded with friction clutches with
which to navigate the buffalo grass
stretches. You, perhaps, do not ap-
preciate Just what this means; there
are but few acres now In Kansas COW
cred with the very short but h1ghly
nutritious grass known as bunalo
grass. When we first came here there
was no such vegetation as blue grass,
but the prairres we're clad in buffalo
grass that makes an almost impervlous
sward. Water will not penetrate 1t to
any appreciable depth, and it is as
treacherous to tread upon as 1s
asphalt. Rains that In Iowa would
make quagmires of highways and soft
en- the meadows to pulp would have
no such effect on the Kansas prairies.
but the water would shed as it does
from house roofs and swell the small,
inconsiderable creeks into turbulent
and dangerous cataracts frequently
flowing out and over the adjacent
grounds in such fury as to sweep
everything In its way. have seen
whole fields OF shocked wheat swept
clean of everything but the grass over
which the surging mass Of water
rushed-a whole crop being carried
away, the sheaves separated and dane
ing like corks upon the tide. When
you contemplate that Kansas is just
a vast plain, with very little Of its
surface pimpled with hills or even ap-
preciable slopes, but the whole face
of the earth inclined our way or the
other toward the rivers, you can
readily conceive Of such deluges as
have attempted to describe; every
swale in the ground would soon be
gorged with water that must seek its
level 1t was just such a storm of
water that swept away the culvert on
the Santa RE into which the train
dashed and was wrecked when Sher-
man Bailey met with death. But that
sort of scOurge is about over In Kan
sas, as said before very little Of the
aboriginal buffalo grass sod remains,
the country being rapidly broken up
SO that water scaks into the ground
and the terrors of unsupported floods
on the prairies have been Gained into
satisfaction with the filling of the num-
erous ponds and miniature lakes that
have been artificially constructed by
farmers in conservation of what other.
wise would be raging, wasteful ava
lanches when the rains fall Then,
again, the almost barren prairies OF
thirty years ago, over which one could
drive all day without meeting with
even a riding switch" have been
planted to trees and shrubbery, so
that the desert blossoms and unbrag-
sous shade is everywhere met with;
the dreaded simeon Of earlier days is
no longer anticipated, the Kansas
cyclone" has spent it's fury on Kan
sas plains and being worsted in its
with human fortitude has
orsaken this field and gone to harass
Ind terrorize older states. The Kan
;as cyclone, however, was always ex-
In earlier days habitations
we're hastily and rudely thrown to-
sether, hundreds Of them being no
safer against AS stormy winds as
lave felt in Iowa than canvas tents or
balloons. Latterly you rarely hear OF
avages Of cyclones in Kansas, the
eason being that houses are more
built. Why, just last
read in the Courier the &C.