The Coolidge examiner., 1938-06-09


Washington, D. C.-WNU Service.
OROP control measures
are of vital interest in
~ Kansas, where the
corn crop is ripening and
the problem of limiting wheat
acreage is due for discussion
in the fall of this year. To-
day, from Boston bankers to
Arizona cowboys, all America
eats bread made of Kansas
hard red winter wheat. Each
year some 120, 100000 bushels
are threshed here, and
enough is ground to make
about AZ loaves for every
human being in the United
States.
Until Mennonites settled in Kan
sas in 1873, little wheat was grown.
From Russia, however, these immi-
grants brought a new variety-a red
winter grain so hard that millers at
first had trouble grinding it.
Since that time, the best kinds of
wheat grown here have come
through selection or hybridization,
from Turkey, or from other imports
of Crimean wheat similar to Tur-
keys. Now agents of Soviet Rus
sia's government come here to buy
seed of this improved wheat, TAX
ing it back-after all these years
to the regions it came from.
To Kansas from Asia came white
blossom sweet clover; from Man.
churia the soybean.
In fact, most plants of economic
value in Kansas are from other
lands. This is true Of orchards,
vegetable, and flower gardens. Few
plants were introduced accidentally.
The pioneers covered wagon, carry
ing horse feed. may have been the
means Of first bringing in bluegrass;
influx of noXious weeds may also be
traced to accident But the spec
tacular change-in a few decades
in Kansas plant life was willfully
achieved after study. selection. and
scientific plant breeding.
Owned by Spain, Then France.
From Spain to Kansas was a long
way-in 1541. Yet that year Coro-
nado got here. seeking his tabled
Seven Cities of Cibola.
More Spaniards came later. but
they left only faint footprints in the
sands of Kansas time.
After La Sale floated down the
Mississippi and claimed its basin for
Louis XIV, French trappers ranged
all these Midwest streams. From
a trading post, built near present
day Oak Mills village, in one year
Q75O they shipped 10000 pelts to
Paris, via New Orleans. Many
French trappers married squaws.
Charles Curtis of Kansas, former
Vice President of the United States,
was proud of his Indian ancestry.
Banded back and forth between
Spain and France, this was little
known region even when Napoleon
in 1903 sold the Louisiana Territory
to the United States. 1t included
most of Kansas, though Spain still
ruled over what is now the south
west section Of the state.
Rightfully, we didn't get title to
all Of what is now Kansas till after
the annexation of Texas, which, as
republic. had owned the southwest
corner of it, the same corner that
had been first Spanish and then
Mexican.
By this time a few whites were
settling in east Kansas. From Mis-
souri, to New Mexico flowed that
steady, two-way stream of traders,
soldiers, teams, wagons, goods,
furs, and treasure which was to
make the Santa Fe trail one of the
most romantic and spectacular car
avan roads in all history.
Gold seekers, rushing to Califor-
MIA after l849, swarmed across Kan
sas by scores of thousands, along
with outlaws, swindlers, and road
agents, breaking still more new
trails, including the Oregon and its
branches, the Salt Lake, Mormon,
and California.
News that aroused the nation
broke in Kansas in 1854, over the
Kansas-Nebraska bill This law set
up the territories named, and said
that when they were ready to join
the Union each might say for itself,
by popular vote, whether or not its
citizens should hold slaves.
battle-ground of North and South.
Immediately Kansas became d
battle-ground. From the North came
colonists, sent by the New England
Emigrant Aid company to vote for
free soil" Some carried guns,
called "Beecher Bibles" because
paid for with funds raised by Henry
Ward Beecher.
Southern states raised funds and
sent armed bands of settlers to vote