Year: 1863

Not since the first setting in of emigration
toward Western Kansas has the prospect been SO
bright and fattering for our ultimate prosperity
as at the present time. The gloom and depres:
sion of business naturally resulting from the
feeling which pervaded the community during
the first two years of the war-a feeling of dis
trust and anxiety as to our success in putting
down the rebellion, causing capitalists 70 invest
reluctantly and business men to avoid large
ventures-is fast passing away and the encour-
agement inspired by the success of our armies on
the field, and the friends of the Government at
the ballot making the final triumph of the
Union as near certain as human minds can
divine it, is giving Us new life, and Western
Kansas is advancing with all the rapidity pos
sible with her present scarcity of labor 1t is no
feverish impulse that animates, but the healthy
action Of section replete with Natures choicest
gifts, needing but the hand Of industry to rear
Commonwealth of thrift and wealth.


Kansas is not surpassed by any State in the
Union for fertility of soil, mineral resources or
salubrity of climate and the Western part of the
State possesses these qualities in pre- eminent
degree. Our crops the past year were superior
to those of any other portion of the State; our
corn could not be surpassed anywhere. In
the Republican valley Salt manufacturing is
carried on by the settlers with the rude
appliances at hand sufficient to supply their own
wants and on the Saline, oil that is needed to
make Salt manufacturing paying business is
capital and skill. On the Smoky Hill, Coal is
found in abundance, and many veins have been
opened and worked, and our town is being
constantly supplied from them, and when
sufficient transportation is afforded it will take
the place of wood for common use.


The healthfulness of Western Kansas is bro.
verbal. Without local cause of disease, as
miasmatic swamps and sloughs, we are free
from the avages ofthose malignant fevers which
commonly prevail in the Western States.


Abundantly watered by the Republican and
Smoky Hill Rivers, with their numerous tribu-
taries, and with fair supply of timber for
prairie country, this section presents rare in
ducements to those seeking homes and we look
the coming spring for large increase of our
population. The great Pacific Railroad will
soon pierce this section affording transportation
either to the East or to the West for our surplus
products. The importance of this road to the
prosperity of this section cannot be over-estima-
ted. Giving US every access to the Gold Re-
gions of the Rocky Mountains, our farmers will
ever find demand for their grain, cattle and
pork, and the wealth of that region will he
poured into our lap. Land here at present is
''dog cheap" Improved farms may be had for
from three to eight dollars per acre, and second
hand unimproved land for two aud two dollars
and q half per acre. This may seem strange to
many, that with SO bright prospect before us,
land is so cheap. But they must remember that
millions of acres of as good land as ever was
trod upon still lays unclaimed, and may be had
as homesteads for the asking. Improved claims
are cheap because many of our first settlers are
Of that class of restless. dissatisfied spirits, who
are ever looking Westward for the realization eff
their hopes, and who now. having opened the
way to be filled by more permanent and stable
citizens, sell out, that they may push farther
West, and follow up the retreating footsteps of
the Indian and the Buffalo,


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