The Old AND The New. AS IT WAS AS IT IS AS IT WILL BE. ■ IOHT li LEONARD. PRINTERS. CMIQAQO. PRE FA TOR Y. Little, if indeed anything, in the shape of an introductory is required to pave the way of the reader to interest in the suc- ceeding pages. They bear the impress of fact upon their face, and perusal cannot but lead to the unqualified conviction that respect- ing all information no7v so eagerly sought for they embrace a scope of detail never before attempted in a work of similar . character. SoutMt'est Kansas may fairly be said to be in the eye of the nation. Certainly there never before was so remarkable a volume of anigration to any one section, and this being undeniable, there can be no question of the great importance of a thorough under- standing of the country, its capacity and its future. Telling, as do the follo7ving pages, of a progress without parallel in the history of the continent, the facts set forth are from the highest of official sources, the latest reports of the National and State Departments of Agriculture, and that there may be n» doubting their exact reproduction, chapters and pages of the reports are quoted, thus permitting ready and closest of reference. To the agriculturist desiring fact rather than faticiful play of imagination, plain, unvarnished data, not glittering generalities, these figures and comparisons must prove of inestimable worth. They cover not only the yield but the market value as well, and enable one at a glance to contrast the past, the present and the future — in short, the Nerv as against the Old. Those contemplating the growing of wheat upon a large scale will find in the chapter devoted to such enterprise much of value in the way of data of the most practical character, and with it suggestions of no little importance in fixing the basis of operations. The live stock interests of the Southwest are rapidly assuming commanding position, and to those considering the advantages of an . ••••■••• mvestjmvt; nt. emtec'^-sJieep^ or (^/ittU, Vie chapters containing concise, comprehensive and reliable information as to results already reached i>y thote' actively engaged in such pursuits will be read with no ordinary concern. The' i{ttAti-aiKh^^^>ibeitis'hing /if fiages of this publication are faithful representations of actual scenes in the Arkansas Valley, and Hiire' eh'graveJ from draivings made upon the spot. LARNED FKOM THE EAST. SOUTHWEST KANSAS AND THE ARKANSAS VALLEY A tmorTble n hf hM h\ . ^^^^ City we have merely to put foot over, the threshold of Kansas, whose earl v history is as O. K^nf ■" "^'^'^'°°^-;,^'"f ='""=>'^ °f the nation as is her development of late years in the record of the nation's progress. O Kansas, wrote Horace Greeley .n the early sumn^er of .S57, "I believe I have now descended the ladder of artificial life nearly To^ghly rl/Tus': '™^""" ''^' "-'^ '"™'° ''^ '^^' '°^*"*^'^' '"^^■^^'^ '^^ P^""'"- ^-P'-'^ °f hun,an existence ma; be "May 12.— Chicago; chocolate and morning newspapers last seen on the breakfast-table. "May 23.— Leavenworth; room-bells and baths make their last appearance. "May 24.— Topeka; beefsteak and washbowls, other than tin, last visible. Barber ditto " May 26.- Manhattan ; potatoes and eggs last recognized among the blessings that ' brighten as they take their fli-^ht ' May 27- Junction City; last visitation of a bootblack, with dissolving view of a broad bedroom. Chairs bid° us' good-bye. that U^.V P-P*^ Cr^'^'^ • ''^"^^^^ for seats at meals have disappeared, giving place to bags and boxes. We write our letter in the express wagon that has borne us by day and must supply us lodgings at night." vi^ic»!> ivaguri " Pipe Creek" is now less than a half day's journev from Kansas Citv. In iSjoMr. Greeley made another trip to Kansas, and in October of that year wrote to the New York Triiu.e. •• Settlers are pourin<, into eastern Kansas by car.|o.,ds, wagon-loads, horse-loads, daily, because of the fertility of her soil, the geniality of her climate her admir^e tlTZ > frT,T U \ '^'''''T'r' '" "^■'"° ^'"""^' '"" "^^ ■"^"-'°- '"-'"'■^ -^^---'^ '---teads may here be ere ted I predict that the child ,s born who will see her fifth, if not fourth, in population and production among the states of our Union " Mr. Greeley m-^ht K.nsa'Tet .T '" fi'm^'f r"".^ tV '■""'' °!^"" '^'^'^^--^ht well have declared that the man had reached his maturity who wouM^e the United S ate, De t VM "T '" ' ^'""1' " "°' '"'"' '" P°P""'''°"- '^'" P^^^'^''°" ^^^^ '^''^ '" 'S70, and the official report of Inr T >l Department of Agriculture in 1S7., placed Kansas the seventeenth state in the Union in the production of wheat, ninth in The ch- d h "t^r ' "m ;" T : r^''""'' '" '"'''^' ''^ "^^ ^^'"^ enumerated being the principal m..rketable crops of the countr ^he TTno Th f^:.^^""'/ '"'•'> '-V have been in his ABCs ere he would have seen Kansas spring from the seventeenth to the eighth state n the Union m the production of wheat, from the ninth ,0 the fifth in corn, from the fifteenth to the first in rye, from the fourteenth to the ninth m o ts, and from the nn.eteenth to the fifth in barlcy> such being the status of the state just five years later as shown by the report of the Depart ment of Agriculture for 1S76, issued in December, 1S77. J f f" ^ While whirling along the banks of the Kansas river, between Kansas City and Topeka, over the steel rails of the .Santa Fe, or perchance asIZ Irm ^f :h°e s" I p"" '' IfT". '"' •''"'"° ""°"=' "^ '^^""'"' ^^"^^ °'' "^^ G---PP-- to the common centralpoint, the two vears IS r, 1 XJ JT"^ r ' T -^ T' "' topeka, a comparative study of the reports of the Department of Agriculture for the more h^ t ^T^""". -^'Z """^ t"'""" '""''''' ^''""^ "^^ '"^ ''^°''' ''^' "^^^ ^'""'^ ^^ ^"^ "-t Kansas had .3,8:6,000 bushels more wheat in ,876 than 1S7:. Following out this same hne of comparison between the wheat product in the states of Maine New Hampshire KlZct oZt-T' T H In'- ^°':"^'^'"^"'.' ^-^ ^'°'-'^' New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,' ArkntrTe' ! Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska in 187. and in ,876, we find hat the increase o the wheat product o. the single state of Kansas was 257,«.. bushels in excess of that of the twenty-four states enumerated combined Th7, U an stounding resul to reach, but neverthe ess is the fact, as the official figures substantiate. The two'years were upon almost exactly equJl 00 ing 8- ThfTrea"'T'-"h r';: ' '°'"l r'"" °' "^ ''"'"^' ^'^'^^ ■- ■''" ^^-^^ 56,634,.oo bushels in excess of the tota^ produc of ' .• H T u '" i T '''''°' "^""^^'^ '^'''°''' '^''' "-^^ "P^^^'-'' °' ''°"'^'e the '"-ease in all the other Western States combined and was greater than that of any state in the Union. Neither Illinois, Michigan or Wisconsin had as much wheat in .S76 as n .87., while Iowa, with i iS:,54. more acres of wheat in 1876 than in 1S7., had 800,000 less bushels. Continuing the comparison we find hat the mcrease of corn product of Kansas m 1876 over .87., as was her wheat product, was greate.than that of an/state in th'e Union, and two and a hah imes that of the greatest corn state m the Union - Illinois; more by upward of ten million bushels than that of Illinois and Omo together; more by nearly five million bushels than Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota combined: and nearly twentv million more than Indiana Missouri, New York Pennsylvania, Maine and California. The increase of the rye product of Kansas in 1S76 over 187, can be summed up in a few w-ords As ,t has now become almost monotonous to state, Kansas showed similar increase in rve as in the case of wheat and corn: the greatest m the L mon being within a million and a half bushels of the entire increase in the United Sta'tes. The increase of oats in Kansas as between the years named was upward of double that of Indiana, Michigan, Iowa and Missouri combined, and within 197,000 bushels of that of the three greatest states m the Union - New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio - in the aggregate. As regards barley, the increase in Kansas was upward of a million bushels in excess of that of the states of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska, New York Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Maine. In no one of the three leading grains did Kansas show an increase of less than one and three-quarter million THE OLD AND THE NEW. A KANSAS HOME. f*,i^jiy&!t,.^.iiaK^'a4iiai«ii^ bushels, running from that up to eighty odd millions. In the three great- est of all marketable crops, Kansas led every state in the Union. Verily, Horace Greeley might have predicted that his own grown-up children would live to see Kansas the fifth, if not indeed the fourth, state in produc- tion, and their grandchildren see it the greatest grain-producing section in the world. Students in the great problem of supply, scholars in the attainment of learning cause and efl'ect, and masters in the intricacies of commerce, one and all, must from facts such as these learn lessons of inestimable benefit. If they would know yet more, let them turn to page Sy of the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1S76, whereupon commences the work of the government statistician, and follow his remarkably complete tabular statements of the grain yield of the United States. In opening his report the statistician says: "The period covered by the work of this division has been emphatically an era of statistical progress. The advance of the world in industrial invention and social science has demanded increased activity in statistical investigation and greater breadth in statistical statement. The progress of nations in beneficent legislation and good government has been found dependent upon the -work of the statistician. The profit of the tradesman and the thrift of the farmer are greatly affected by the accuracy of the information upon which the business opera- tions of each are based. The truth in its plainest garb subserves best the live interests of consumer and producer." The tabular statements commence on page 91, and the accuracy of the comparisons now to be made as between Kansas and the other states of the Union, are open to the test of minutest reference to the official figures. Kansas led every state in the Union in corn average to the acre; New Hampshire second; Vermont third; the product of Kansas being upward of twenty-one times greater than the combined product of the two states following her in ratio of average. In number of bushels Kansas ranked fifth, her 82,836,000 bushels being nearly ten times greater than the combined product of the New England .States; upward of 6,000,000 bushels greater than the combined product of the Middle States, which include, of course, both the great commonwealths of New York and Pennsylvania; within 2,250,000 bushels of as much as the New England and the Middle .States combined; greater by 500,000 bushels than the aggregated product of the ten states of New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Michigan, Minnesota and Nebraska, and seventeen times greater than the combined product of the Pacific States, with the territories thrown in — and all this with but one tenth the tillable land of Kansas under cultivation. The product of Kansas was one third that of the entire South, Of the Western States, Kansas had as much as Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota together, and considerably more than 27,000,000 bushels to spare. As if aught more was required to prove Kan- sas tlie great corn state of the Union in average yield to the acre, the product of 1S77 is esti- mated at one hundred and five million bushels, or an increase of from thirty to forty per cent over 1876. Though the report of the Depart- ment of Agriculture for 1S77 is hardly as yet fairly under way, and will not be ready for issue until some time in the fall of the year 1S78, it is confidently believed that Kansas will again be found at the head of all states in the Union in average, and show her right to the third instead of fifth place in aggregate of production. Nevada was first in the Union on wheat average to the acre in 1876; Massachusetts second; Oregon third; Delaware fourth; New York and New Hampshire a tie for fifth place; Vermont seventh. Kansas came eighth, so far as the tabular statements went, but when the official figures of the report demonstrate, as they do beyond all question, that the wheat product of Kansas was greater by 144,500 bushels than the combined product of the seven states ranking above her in average per acre, few indeed of those having practical knowledge of the ratio of average to acreage would hesitate a moment in according Kansas the first place. In e.vtent of production Kansas ranked as in average eighth; and as in average per acre so in total product in bushels was the situation strikingly peculiar, inasmuch as Kansas, eighth in average per acre, had greater aggregate of yield in bushels than all the seven states ranking above her combined, so did Kansas, eighth in aggregate of product, show greater average per acre than any of the seven states having greater product in the aggregate. Kansas, the fifteenth state in the Union in 1871, in the production of rye five years later, as the Report for 1876 shows, led the entire United States not only in production, but in average per acre as well. Oregon had 21 bushels to the acre from the small space of 247 acres, but Kansas, with 165,865 acres, had an average of 20.8, only two tenths of a bushel, to the acre less than the one little patch in Oregon. None could question the right of Kansas to first place under these circumstances. The next highest average was that of Te.\as, 17.5, but she only had a little over 50,000 bushels all told. New York and Pennsylvania each had, in round numbers, 65,000 more acres than Kansas, but Kansas had over 1,000,000 bush- els more than Pennsylvania, and nearly 1,000,000 bushels more than New York. Kansas had more rye by upward of 250,000 bushels than all the Southern and the Pacific States put together; more than four times as much as all the New England States combined. Illinois, ne-Kt to Kansas, had more rye than any other one state, but Kansas had nearly 750,000 bushels more in the aggregate, and nearly six bushels more to the acre than Illinois. Kansas had ten bushels to Iowa's one, and more than Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wis- consin, Minnesota, Missouri and Nebraska combined. Oregon led the United States in average of oats to the acre in 1876; Vermont second; California third; New Hampshire fourth, *and Kansas fifth, with nearly a million and a half more bushels than the four states having higher average combined. In aggregate of production Kansas was ninth among the states; but of the eight states preceding her in production, not one equaled her average; or in other words, Kansas had more bushels in the aggregate than all of the states excelling her in average combined, and more bushels to the acre than any of the states having greater number of bushels in the aggregate. Notwithstanding the dense city pop- ulations of New England, and consequent great demand for oats for feed, Kansas had 2,500,000 more bushels than the whole of New England, and upward of double THE FIRST CROP. BY THE WAY.SIDE. THE OLD AND THE NEW Wheat. Corn Oats Barley. State Value State Kan , . Value State Value State Value Kan. . $12.55 $10.44 Kan . . $6 97 Kan.. $10.57 111.... 8.64 Iowa . 7-5° 111. . 5.20 111.... 8. 85 Minn. 7-65 Minn. 10. 16 Iowa . S-84 Neb.. 7.04 Ind... II .22 Ind. . , 10 20 Mo. .. 5-25 Iowa . 5-49 9.09 111.. . I 55 8.10 Neb . 5-S. Wis . . Neb.. Neb. S.39 11.90 7-79 Mo... Ark . 7.88 9-36 Oreg. Ark... T0B,\CCO. Buckwheat. Kan $52 50 R' I'E. N. Y- 44.00 Kan.. $7000 Kan.. $14.00 N.J .. 48. 00 Kan.. $8.94 N.Y.. 58.80 Mass. 6.45 Pa. .. 42 so Ohio. 8.70 Md. . . 5.S-^o N.|... 9,46 Ohio 43 40 Neb.. 5.60 Va. .. 48. 00 Ohio. 9-i.S Mich . 39.60 Iowa . 7-4^ N.C.. 49-50 Mich . 9.7a Ind ,. 35-60 Ind .. 8.66 Tenn. 50 '.so Minn. 9-99 111.. . 44-75 Ark.. 8.69 W.Va. 5 1 . 20 111.. . 11,98 Wis 39 20 Mich. 8. 04 Ohio. S2 65 N. H . 1= 35 Minn 34 56 Ill ... 8. 28 111.... 43-12 N.Y . 12.00 Mo. . . 30.92 Wis . . S.22 Wis . . 48.00 Conn. .12.04 Neb.. 24.64 Min . . 8. 76 8.43 Mo. . . 54-^5 5- -65 Penn. 10.04 T-Io . . Ky... comparative values of products to acre. the aggregate of the Pacific States. Kansas had over one and a half to every one bushel to the acre in Illinois, and almost the same ptopoition to the yield in Missouri. Her average was the largest of any Western, Middle or Southern State, 5 bushels greater than Ohio, 9 greater than Indiana, 5 greater than New Jersey and Delaware, 6 greater than Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota, 8 greater than Maine, 11 greater than Arkansas, 7 greater than Kentucky, and all the way from 8 to 20 greater than the Southern States generally. Kansas had more oats than Minnesota or Michigan and almost any three of the Southern States combined. Oregon and Texas tied in 1S76 on highest average of barley to the acre, though both together they did not come within a million and a quarter bushels of the total barley product of Kansas; Nevada third; Massachusetts and Connecticut, a tie for fourth place; New Hampshire si.xth; Kansas eighth with upward of a half million more bushels than the combined product of the six states just enumerated. In point of production Kansas was the fifth in the lists of states, having in round numbers a million more bushels than all of New England, and a million and a half more bushels than the entire South. With the exception of Iowa and Illinois, Kansas had more barley than any other western state, upward of double that of Ohio, more than four times that of Missouri, Nebraska or Indiana, and more than three tunes that of Pennsylvania. Merely as illustrative of the capacity of the soil of Kansas, in the vegetable line, the figures on potatoes are quite interesting, and at the same time suggestive. In 1S71 Kansas was the fifteenth state in the Union in point of production, and the six- teenth in average per acre Just five years later, as per the report tor 1S76, she was the seventh state in production and the fourth in average, being excelled in the latter respect by only the three states of Vermont, California and Oregon, leaving the average of Kansas greater than that of any of the Western, Middle and Southern States, and with the bare exception of Vermont, the New England States. Having thus followed the figures on acreage and yield so closely, the next question naturally occurrmg would be as to the comparative money value of the difterent crops, the doubt possibly of the market keeping pace with the increased supply. The Commissioner of Agriculture, — who, by the way, was a Pennsylvania man, and hence not to be suspected of far western preferences, — appears to have rightly conjectured the raising of this very point, and on page 103 of the report will be found a decidedly interesting table giving in most minute detail the average cash value of farm products for the year 1876. This complete covering of the ground in the table given herewith shows more strikinglv than even the com- parisons hitherto submitted the tremendous strides Kansas has made the past few years. On page 158 of the report, and under the head of Sorghum, will be found the following: "The value of sorghum is scarcely realized by the general public. In a state not in existence when sorgh un was introduced into this country, Kansas, the production of syrup has attained a volume equal to one third of the entire yield of i860." On the opposite page will be found a paragraph as follows: "As an illustration of the increase in a new western state, the product in 1875 in Kansas is reported as 2,542,512 gallons, to 449,409 gallons in 1869 The crop of 1S75 was produced on 23,026 acres, average per acre no gallons." An examination of the statistics on sorghum sliows Iowa to have been the first state in production in 1S60, Indiana second, Illinois third, Mis- souri fourth, Ohio fifth, Tennessee sixth. In 1870 Indiana was first, Ohio second, Illinois third and Iowa seventh. In 1S75 Kansas takes first place, her 2,542,512 gallons, at .65 per gallon, reaching $71.50 per acre, or $1,652,632.80 for the crop. On page 104 is given a tabular statement of the average yield and average value per acre in the United .States as a whole: The yield of corn per acre was at 26.1, while the yield in Kansas was 43.5 bushels; average value per acre of farm products is placed at $9.62, Kansas $10.44. Average yield per acre of wheat in the United States, 10.4 bushels; average yield of wheat per acre in Kansas, 14.6 bushels; average value per acre, $io.S6; Kansas, $12.55. Average yield of rye, 13.8 bushels; Kansas, 20.S. Average yield of oats, 24 bushels; Kansas, 31.7. Average yield of barley per acre, 21.9; Kansas, 23.5. Average yield of buckwheat per acre, 14.5; Kansas, 18; average value per acre, $10.53; Kansas, $14.40. Average yield of potatoes, 71.6; Kansas, 105 ; average value, $48.14; Kansas, $52.50. Average yield of tobacco, 700 pounds; Kansas, 700 pounds; av- erage value, $52.33; Kan- sas, $70. As to be expected, the finances of so healthy a state as Kansas are of a character calculated to farther increase one's ad- miration of the unparal- leled thrift of her people. Upon the authority of Hon. Jno. Francis, Treas- urer of State, is the statement made that Kansas has no floating debt of whatever character, having for the past three years paid upon presentation every warrant or order drawn on the treasury. The bonded debt, January i, 187S, amounted to $1,182,175. Of this amount there has been purchased by the state $713,600, leaving a balance of $468,575 actually outstanding, and which if called on Kansas could pay upon sight, having more actual cash in the treas- ury than would cover the indebtedness named. Of the balance of $468,575, however, $382,500 was issued for military purposes, and is due from the United States government to the state of Kansas. A bill is now pending before congress to reimburse the state for this expenditure, and which will reduce the debt of the state to the nominal sum of $86,075. This amount the state is desirous of purchasing, having more money in her treasury lying idle than the bonds come to. In 1865 the population of the state was 135,807, and the state taxes per capita $1.60; in 1S70, with a population of 364,399 the state taxes per capita were $2.22; in 1S75, with a population of 531,156, the state taxes per capita were $1.37, and in 1877, with an estimated population of 700,000, the state taxes per capita were $1.12, or a decrease withina fraction of one hundred per cent in seven years, and the lowest debt per capita in the United States. HOW THE MENNONITES LAV OFF THEIR LAND. THE OLD AND THE NEW. GERMAN THRIFT. Having learned from national and state authority of the remarkable position Kansas has so rapidly assumed among her sister states, b_v the time Topeka is reached few indeed, with even ordinary comprehension of the facts already stated, could restrain a desire to inquire to a more or less extent into the inner workings of a state of such commanding influence upon the markets of the world. Topeka is not only the capital of the state, but the location of the main or home office of the Land Department of the Santa Fe road, an institution honestly and justly credited with the lion's share of the proud work done in peopling the state of Kansas with the strong-armed, big-hearted, industrious men who have made the old Santa Fe trail blossom like a very garden. Granted by the government some three million acres of land, which up to the time of transfer to the company was hardly removed from a desert, and utterly without revenue to state or nation, it has been transformed into so vast a granary that since the completion of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to Kansas City that point has become the greatest grain centre of the new West. We say, transformed it, meaning but such portion only as has been transformed, for within its grant the Santa Fe has yet nearly two and a half million acres of land unsold, and much of this in the Arkansas Valley, the growth, capacity and fertility of which is utterly without parallel on the continent. As have the statistics of the National Department of Agriculture shown Kansas to stand toward the other states in the Union, so do the statistics of the State Department of Agriculture demonstrate the Arkansas Valley to stand toward Kansas. The Arkansas Valley does not, as some persons may think, take its title from the state by that name, but rather from the river from which the state of Arkansas takes its name. The line of the Santa Fe strikes the Arkansas Valley at Newton, in Harvey county, and from thence to the Pueblo in Colorado follows the banks of the Arkansas so closely as to rarely, if ever, lose sight of it. In 1S72 — five years ago — the entire acreage of all grains in the whole Arkansas Valley — comprising then five, and now nine, counties — was but 7,421. In 1S77 the acreage in the nine counties of the Valley, as given upon the sworn statements of assessors and county clerks, was 582,86s, an increase in the five years of 575,446 acres, or nearly Soo per cent. Possibly the extent of increase year by year in detail would please the reader, and it is here given: Increase 1S73 over 1S72, 31,843 acres; 1S74 over 1873,91,910 acres; 1S75 over 1874,97,277 acres; 1S76 over 1S75, 96,369 acres; 1877 over 1876, 201,428. The acreage of the diflerent years up to 1877 is given from the highest, and in reality only, official authority in the state, the Board of Agriculture; the acreage of 1877 is from the supplementary report, the official report for if.'77 being only in its incipient stages. The basis of all the reports of the board are the sworn statements of county officials .especially designated by legislative enactment to perform such duty, hence the figures given are of record and susceptible of proof by that record. Of the entire wheat acreage of the state in 1877, nearly one fourth, was in the nine counties of the Arkansas Valley, while the increased wheat acreage of the Valley over 1876 was nearly four times greater than the net increase of the entire state. Of the corn acreage of the entire state, one thirteenth was in the Arkansas Valley, and of the net increase of corn acreage in the slate, one seventh was in the Valley. Of the barley acreage in the state, more than one seventh was in the Arkansas Valley, and while the state as a whole showed a decrease, the Valley showed an increase. Of the oat acreage of the state, one sixth was in the Arkansas Valley, and though the state entire showed a decrease, the Valley had an increase. Of the rye acreage of the state, one twelfth was in the Arkansas Vallev. Of the potato acreage of the state, the Valley had one twelfth, and an increase, whereas the state at large showed a decrease. Of the sorghum acreage in the state, the Arkansas Valley had one ninth, and nearly one fourth of the increase. The tobacco acreage of the Valley showed an increase, while tlie state at large showed a decrease. The broom-corn acreage of the Arkansas Valley was nearly one half that of the entire state, and the increase within 1,410 acres that of the whole state; and in millet and Hungarian an increase nearly equal to one fifth that of the state. The total acreage of the Arkansas Valley, that in 1872 was but a trifle over 7,000, was in 1S77 nearly one seventh that of the whole state, and showing nearly one third the increase of all Kansas over the previous year. When it is taken into consideration that there are some seventy odd counties in the state of Kansas, and the majority of them old in organization when the Arkansas Valley was known as a portion of the " Great American Desert," the growth of the \'alley cannot but assume a wonderful interest. A word or two as regards Mr. Alfred Gray, the secretary of the Kansas Board'of Agriculture, would not be amiss at this juncture. A more conscientious, conservative or faithful statistician never lived than Mr. Gray, and no man ever worked more diligently, energetically and unspar- ingly in the interest of a state than has he in the interest of Kansas. So conscientious and careful is he in all his statement of yields that it is often said of him that were he to secure absolutely exact figures to the very gill to the bushel of an aggregate yield, he would straightway deduct from ten to fifteen per cent, and so give it to the world. The Department at Washington having the fullest confidence in him, and knowing his almost universal rule of being below rather than above the actual result strikes a happy mediuin between him and its own extensive corps of corre- spondents in the state, and the consequence is the Department returns are often, if not always, a shade above Mr. Gray's. And now for a brief glance at the yield of the Arkansas Valley in 1877 as compared to the state entire. In bushels of wheat, the nine counties known as the Arkansas Valley, equaled one-fourth of the state of seventy odd counties entire, while in increase of bushels over the previous year that of the Valley, exceeded by twenty-three limes the net increase of the state. In bushels of corn the Arkansas Valley had nearly one fourth the entire increase of the state, and in bushels of barley upward of one-half the entire net increase of the state. In bushels of oats the Arkansas showed an increase nine times greater than the net increase of the state as a whole, while of the decrease of rye in the slate but one-eighteenth was in the Valley. In bushels of flax the state at large showed a decrease, but the Arkansas Valley had an increase, the same situation of things occurring as to potatoes, both Irish and sweet. In gallons of sorghum the Arkansas Valley had one-eighth the aggregate of the state, and nearly one-half of the increase. In pounds of broom- corn the Arkansas Valley had within a little over a million, the entire increase of the state. A general summary of product in the aggregate shows the Arkansas Valley to have had an increase of 8,455,394 bushels of wheat, corn, barley, oats, rye, flax, buckwheat, Irish and sweet potatoes and castor beans, an increase of 127,478 gallons of sorghum, an increase of 4,376,933 pounds of tobacco and broom-corn, and an increase of 18,559 tons of millet, Hungarian and timothy, an increase all around averaging fully one hundred per cent. In bushels the Arkansas Valley equaled one-tenth of the slate, and in increase of bushels upward of one-fifth that of the whole state. In gallons, one-eighth of the state, and in increase of gallons, nearly one-half that of the state. In pounds, the Arkansas Valley equaled nearly one-fourth the entire slate, and in increase of pounds within a million, or iittle more of the aggregate increase of the state. In tons the Arkansas Valley equaled one- CORN BOTTOMS. DAIRY FARM. THE OLD AND THE NEW. 5 tliirteenth the state entire, and in increase of tons one-seventh. None of the statistics thus far given have included the 10,526 acres of clover meadow, 501,006 acres of prairie meadow, 4,201 acres of timothy pasture, 1,433 acres of clover pasture, and 551,093 acres of prairie pasture (under fence), wliich properly come under the head of total acreage of the state which in 1S77 was 5,545,7^5- Certainly no excuse could be demanded for thus devoting so much time to statistics so closely concerning not only the welfare of the nation but thousands of its best men, who, in the overcrowded sections of the older states, view with dread and anxiety the future as it looms up so blackly to them. The earnings of years of patient toil and sacrifice, if not already ruthlessly swept into the fearful vortex so rapidly swallowing up the savings banks of the country, are mayhap upon its very verge; and with the workshops closing, up, the tightening upon the money-bags of the rich, and fear of investing in anything requiring free use of capital, all combined render life dependent upon the confidence of others simply unbearable. There was a time when labor was safely and happily distributed; manufactures and commerce were conducted by private firms of two or three individuals who depended on their own capital and were cautious in risking in hazardous speculations. Under the private regime labor was freely mobilized and equally distributed among all the industrial occupations. The force needed by one of them was not weakened by the demands or attractions of another, and capital and labor moved on hand in hand. But when congregate industries, established by incorporated capital, drew vast amounts of labor from agricultural life and occupation, and massed it in manufacturing towns, the market soon became gorged with the pro- duction of so many competing wheels, and then came the inevitable result; Thousands of sturdy men stranded upon the beach of speculative life, and forced to look to themselves rather than great corporations for sustenance, have already become their own masters in this land of thrift and plenty; and how better solve the problem of relief for the idle manhood of the country than by a simple showing of what those have done who, in the full conviction of the fact that God ever helps them that help themselves, have demonstrated their faith by their deeds.' The record of the unparalleled increase in grain production in the Arkansas Valley itself tells of an immigration of no ordinary magnitude. Latest census statistics give details of such character as cannot but impress one with the firm belief that the Valley is destined at no distant day to rival the grandest agricultural districts of the world. In 1S70 the entire population of the nine counties comprising the Arkansas Valley was but 2,019, i" 1S76 it reached 45,868, and by as close an estimate as possible to make, in the summer of 1877 it had then reached 67,450, or an increase of upward of 22,ooQ new people within less than a year. There is not the slightest question of there having been a further increase of fully 8,000 people by the close of the year, for outside of the vast amount of railroad land sold, the official report of the transactions of the government land office at Larned, on the line of the Santa Fe, denotes an increase of business of astounding proportions. The transactions for the year 1S77, as reported over the official signature of Hon. Charles Morris, U. S. register, show upward of 600,000 acres presented by the government to those asking in a single year at a single land oflice in the Arkansas Valley, and yet rabid demagogues of every political stripe blatantly repeat and insist that railroad cor- porations have gobbled up all the public land worth having. Register iVIorris has yet from ten to twelve millions of acres of public land in his district, any or all of which is to be had by those asking it for homes. The 600,000 acres taken up in 1S77 at the Larned office represented in round numbers 5,030 claims, and averagmg claimant families at five persons each, — certainly a light estimate, — we have an increased population at the western end of the Arkansas Valley in the year from this one source alone of 25,000. At Wichita, Sedgwick county, there is another government land office, the business of which for the year 1S77 was very much larger than ever known since it was established. The official figures of the year's transactions are not before us, but well authenticated reports place the number of acres taken up during the year at something over 400,000, representing 3,500 claims, which, at the rate of five persons per claim, would show an increased population in the eastern end of the valley from this one source of 17,500. ' Having learned thus much of the line of the Santa Fe, the embarking for the trip over it is accompanied with anticipations all the more keen, and once fairly off, the sensation while novel is none the less pleasing, for what is more enjoyable to the experienced traveler, as we will suppose the reader to be, than a break in the routine of finished country. The newness of the new world is conspicuous always. The towns are young and precocious, the villages are young and awkward, and the lumber-yards young and green with the freshly-cut verdure of the forest, and the universal boast seems to be, " See how young we are." You stop at a city of 10,000, and upon every side you will hear it casually remarked that but a lew years ago it was almost an unbroken wilderness. You stop at a thriving town of 5,000, and they will tell you that three or four years since there wasn't so much as a shanty within a mile, and bright and early of a morning you wake up to find a new town upon the site of which the month before there was not even a clump to mark the spot. In this very newness, this babyhood of prattling pride, there is a something that causes our blood to leap again, as it did when we were new to the world, so new that every thought was of activity, every muscle hard, yet flexible, and every breath one of conscious power that in us was the stuff that made man worthy of Him in whose image he was created. So with these lusty young cities of the new West. Beauty in their infancy they have but little; in this, however, they not infrequently verify the old saying, to the effect that pretty babies make ugly grown folk, and vice versa. What is lacking in beauty is more than made up in muscle, nerve and industry; and if the streets are not thronged with multitudes, it proves that the people have something else than sidewalk measuring to occupy time and feet; and if no grand palatial mansions, a healthy scarcity of savings bank presidents and cashiers is indicated. As fancies of such character flit through our mind we have glided into the valley watered by the Cottonwood, and backed by hills with gentle acclivities from the summit of which you see directly beneath you the fertile valley dotted v/ith farms, and broken here and there by patches of wood- land, smiling in the sunlight, and constantly changing as the waves of shadow chase each other across the varied mass of green. The rich bottom lands so abundantly watered are not surpassed in the world in yield of corn; and the high uplands, covered with most luxurious grasses, afford pasturage for cattle not to be excelled anywhere. As we continue on through the very heart of the Valley we gain new admiration for the thrift of those who, appreciating the wonderful adaptability of this region for dairy uses, have brought here splendid herds of fine graded cattle, which, seen from the train, look fat, sleek, and healthy enough to enter any sweepstake-ring in competition with the best in the land. As we near Florence, the countrv becomes more broken, more diversified in its features, and would set an Eastern dairyman's palms to itching to control it for grazing purposes, as it is certainly eminently fitted for it. Cropping out on either side of the road the visible supply of limestone is such as to at once set at rest any doubts one may have of the abundance of building material in this section, the quarries about Cottonwood Falls and Florence having long been worked with decided profit. That portion of the capitol building erected since the opening of the Santa Fe road to Florence, as well as many others in Topeka, were built of stone from the Cottonwood Valley, and several of the finest structures in Kansas City of the same material. There is excellent water-power almost anywhere upon the Cottonwood, there being a never-failing supply of water and ceaselessly rapid current. There are several mills already running with power from this one source alone, and the erection of others is merely the question of time required for construction. The counties of Chase, Marion, Butler and Morris are all in the Cottonwood group, and of the greatest producing counties in the state. At Newton we are at the end of the first division of the road, and at the entrance, or gateway, so to speak, of the Arkansas Valley, the most glorious domain of rich, fertile and well-watered land on the western hemisphere. To the north of Harvey county, of which Newton is the commercial centre, is McPherson County, and to the south Sedgwick county, like pillars of a gateway, and forming in their imposing development most fitting entrance to tlie garden of the continent. Beyond, step by step the landscape leads you over swelling plain to vast distance, which melts bv imperceptible gradations into the gracious sky, and impresses the heart with a conviction that just beyond your power of sight is a better, nobler clime — a lovelv land where all is beautiful. The first sensation of the prospect is simply one of immensity. The sweep of the vast spaces are bounded only by the haze of distance. Opening out at Halstead to a width of fully fifteen miles the Valley glows with universal vegetable profusion, the earth is carpeted with vernal green, and the prodigality of vegetation reigns supreme. The line of the road for a long distance before us is on the north side of the river, which constantly bends and curves, knotted like a broad, tangled, golden ribbon over the green country. Back from the THE OLD AND THE NEW. river the long slopes of ideal fat fields, which a New England farmer can only see in his dreams, extend for twenty miles to the northern limit of the Santa Fe's land grant, which marks the top of the divide from which the streams feeding the Arkansas and its branches flow east and south. A long, smooth, southerly slope of twenty miles to the Arkansas river is, then, the grant of the Santa Fe, an unbroken fertile prairie with scarcely a square foot of untillable land for two hundred miles, or to the extreme western limit of the present agricultural settlement. Halstead, while possibly of itself not deemed worthy of more than a passing glance at its neatness and general air of comfort, is from its associations one of the most interest- ing points on the road. It is the commercial center of the Mennoniles, those peculiar people transplanted from the steppes of Russia to the rich Valley of the Arkansas, and who, in bringing with them habits and customs of a hundred ^'ears ago, form one of the most interesting and sug- gestive features in the rapid development of the New West. They are a distinctly religious people, and make their settlements in colonies with mutual interest and a common church for bonds of fellowship. There are now about S,ooo of them in this section, and more coming every year. They own something more than 2chd,ooo acres of land on the line of the Santa Fe, all purchased of the railroad company, and mainly for cash. Each colony has a village consisting of one long street, with houses a few rods apart all built in the same style, and the farms of the colonists lie contiguous to these villages. The church, which is also a schoolhouse, stands at one end of the single-streeted town, and around it cluster all the moral and social interests of the colony. It is a plain structure, always, and the minister, like all his parishioners, is a farmer, who with his own hands supports himself and family, and preaches only because "called of God" so to do. The religion he expounds is similar in many respects to that of the Lutherans — its patron saint, Menno Simonis, having been contemporary with Luther in Germany. It opposes infant baptism, the bearing of arms and the taking of oaths, and inculcates practical moral laws and duties rather than abstract theological speculations. It is not a cheerful religion, by any means, but it seems wonderfully adapted to its stolid professors, and it certainly makes honest men and good citizens of them. The Mennonites take no part or interest in politics, and rarely fellowship with other religious denominations; indeed they have as little as po|sible to do with "the world's people" in any way, though if you visit them you will find them remarkably hospitable, polite and communica- tu e. Their homes are plim and neat, without cirpets or stoves, and th very little furni- i re. The houses are 1 eTted by huge brick jvens in the centre, V here most of the cooking is also done. Their food is of the most frugal kind, and principally vegetable. Their favorite fruit is the watermelon, which they raise in abundance and eat without stint. As farmers, the Men- nonites are models of tlirift and industry. Their fields are culti- vated with scrupulous thoroughness and their 3'ields of grain are en- ormous. They raise corn and wheat mainly, though they do some- thing also in smaller crops, and they are ])reparing to go into silk culture, an indus- try to wliich they say the soil and climate of Kansas are peculiarly adapted. They have good live stock, as a general thing, though they do not devote special attention as yet to that branch of husbandry. The women are a plainly- clad, good tempered set of beings, "a little lower" than the men in point of force and intelligence, but equally industrious and practical. In fact, personal industry is the Mennonite crown. A drone or shirk cannot live among these toiling and economical people. Their very religion has labor for its corner-stone and chief glor^', and "a good crop" is the outward and visible sign of moral and spiritual grace — or at least without that sign, unless the season has been notably unfavorable, the possession of grace is seriously doubted. The Mennonites have contributed largely to the rapid development made in Harvey and McPherson counties the past five years. The former county had in 1872 a total acreage, under cultivation, of 1,994, ^""^ '" 1S77 75,552 acres, an increase in the five years of 73,558 acres. The figures are all from the official reports for the year named of the State Board of Agriculture. Newton, the business centre of Harvey county, is a lively, thriving town of 1,200 to 1,500 people, and division headquarters of the Santa Fe road. McPherson county, north of Harvey, is eminently an agricultural section, having no towns of any note, and is as yet without direct rail- road communication, though living in great hope of becoming the main support of a division of the Santa Fe — by no means to be classed as insignificant. The development of the county has within the past five years been most marked, having in 1S72 had but 3,615 acres under cul- tivation, all told, and an idea of the remarkable progress made since may be gleaned from the fact that in 1S77 the county had a total of 119,619 acres, an increase in the five years of 116,004 acres. Sedgwick county, south of Harvey, is another illustration of the amazing growth of the Arkansas Valley since 1S72, not only so lar as relates to the production of grain, but in the building up of leading commercial centres, the city of Wichita being the metropolis of the southwest and the fifth city in population in the state. The trains of the Santa Fe run to Wichita direct, with fine prospect of continuing on through the counties of Cowley and Sumner before the summer is over. Sedgwick county in 1S72 had but S94 acres in the aggregate under cultivation, and five years later, or in 1S77, the county had a total of 129,222 acres. MENNONITE SETTLEMENT AND SURROUNDINGS. THE OLD AND -THE NEW. 7 WELL TO DO. Thus in the three first counties of the Arkansas Valley as you enter it, Harvey the arch and McPherson and Sedgwick the supporting pillars, we are confronted with a development in the short space of five years that cannot but fairly stun one from the older and finished states. In all these three counties there was but the pitiful little batch of 151 acres of wheat in 1S72, and in 1876 145,439 acres. But 6,503 acres under culti- vation in 1S72, and the enormous aggregate of 324,393 acres under cultivation in 1S76. Truly this is a crusher on the arithmetic of one's comprehension, yet we are not through — have not reached the clima.\ of stupendous progress — only barely reached the Valley in fact. Following the main line of the Santa Fe we leave Halstead behind and are soon at Burrton, the centre and heart of the greatest width of the Arkansas Valley, and the full realization of one of Nature's most charming pictures, a Kansas prairie. Seen in the early summer time, the rich emerald green carpeting of its gently rounded billowy surface form as beautiful background for the many- colored and delicately-tinted flowers that deck its breast, lovely as that of a virgin. It is a charming scene, and, as if to inspire its enjoy- ment to the very greatest degree, the purity of the atmosphere lends an exhilarating effect, and stimulates to the keenest the pleasure of the ever-varying panorama presented as we glide swiftly on. In the picture before us we feel something of the enthusiasm inspiring Bryant when he wrote : " Lo they stretch in easy undulations far away, as if the Ocean in its gentlest swell stood still ; with all his rounded billows fixed and motionless forever." Owing to the line of the Santa Fe having been constructed on the north side of the river, the towns have naturally clustered upon that side, and the river also acting as a barrier, settlement until of late on the south side was rather meagre. Within the past year or two, how- ever, much new ground has been broken south of the Arkansas, and some of the finest crops known in all the Valley raised from the sod or first breaking. Just opposite Burrton there is one of the largest and finest bodies of unoccupied land on the eastern end of the grant, and with the erection of a bridge over the river early in the spring, as determined upon, this splendid tract will be rendered as advantageous for settlement as any in the Valley. Bridges now span the river at all leading points from Hutchinson westward, and judging from the rapidity with which settlement on the south side has followed their completion, the new bridge at Burrton will prove a most profitable investment for the people of that and adjacent townships. Pulling up at Hutchinson, a glance from the car window adown the busy main street tells truly of the thriving character of the place. It is a metropolis in miniature, with its handsome stores, substantial brick buildings and general commercial character. Its inexhaustible water- power cannot but render Hutchinson something of a manufacturing center at no distant day, and if ever the Arkansas is made navigable this will be one of the most important points on its course. Just as the train comes to a Jialt, the spacious doors of a large and exceedingly at- tractive school house are dashed open, and from them bursts forth a troop of lusty-lunged, rosy-cheeked children, the girls vying with the boys in all outward manifestations of perfect health. There must be fully a hundred youngsters in the merry groups that go tearing about like so many frolicksome colts, and what with the children so strong- limbed and bright-eyed, school-house so substantial and roomy, homes so inviting in their nests of abundant foliage, stores so attractive in their bright plate-glass fronts, churches so imposing in their towering spires, and citizens so well conditioned generally, any idea one may have en- tertained of the Arkansas Valley being simply a remove from the very borders of civilization takes wings never again to appear even in a dream. Aside from the hallucination entertained by a good many people, to the effect that the main streets of business centres hereabout consti- tute favorite grazing ground of the wild untamed bison, equally pre- posterous notions are cherished regarding the ruling prices for such com- modities, not to say necessities, without which life would be drear and forlorn. The fact is, the cost of necessities as well as luxuries through- out the entire Valley is so exceedingly reasonable as to cause surprise even among those supposed to have a very fair theoretical knowledge of the country. While in the smaller towns the demand for luxuries is not so great, there is an ever-present conviction that the very best of substantial are the cheapest, hence one will find stocks of goods in all lines of trade which will compare favorably with those carried in the oldest of New England towns. In the way of every -day demands, No. i coffee runs from three to four pounds for a dollar; sugar from five to eight and a half pounds for a dollar; flour from two and a half to four dollars a hundred; canned fruits, vegetables, etc., two pound cans for twenty cents, three and four pound cans in similar proportion; salt three dollars per barrel, and so on through the long list. Calicoes range from eight to sixteen yards for a dollar; cotton eight to twelve cents. "Indian Head," "New York Mills," " Wamsutta" and other well known brands of muslin, ten to twelve and a half cents per yard. Boots, shoes, clothing, hats and caps, and such sort of things, run about the same as in the East. One can get a good stove with accompanying utensils from twenty dollars upward, while in all classes of hardware the prices range equally rea- sonable. Not only are the stocks carried as extensive and well selected as in places of similar population at the East, but in very many in- stances throughout this Valley the stores are a long way in advance, both in dimensions as well as in handsome, and in not a few cases really elegant, appointments. To some it may appear incomprehensible that merchants so remote from the great business centres of the East can equal the advantages of brother merchants in the Middle and the New England States in respect to low range of prices for all descriptions of staple goods. To those so puzzled the single item of freight appears to be insurmountable. Granted that the freight on all classes of goods, and p.irticularly on hardware and other heavy merchandise, is an item of no inconsiderable importance, it is more than counterbalanced by the much lighter range of store expenses. Here the merchant is his own head clerk, his own book-keeper and cashier, to a greater or less extent. If occasion demands, he is his own porter, is first up in the morning and last to bed at night. His rent is less, gas bills ditto; in short be lives upon what many of those East would consider the unavoidable loss incident to business life. This is the class of business men, close and keen in their purchases, liberal in their dealings, and untiring in their energy and ^ - " X enterprise, who have built up the thriving, prosperous commercial centres which now line the \ beautiful Valley of the Arkansas, and render the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad the great artery of communication it is from river bank to mountain base. Hutchinson is the business centre of Reno county, and some conception may be formed of the agricultural wealth of its surroundings from the fact that though in 1S7:: Reno county had onlv S94 acres in all under cultivation, in 1S77 the county had a grand aggregate of 79,298 acres, an increase in the five years of 78,404 acres. Southwest of Reno is. the great cattle range of the Medicine Lodge country, where immense herds have been gathered for years, and wintered year after year with no other feed than that aftbrded by the wonderfully rich grass TWO YEARS iin luoPMENT. of the range. Beyond Hutchinson a few miles we stop for water at a little station known A NEW SETTLEMENT. 8 THE OLD AND THE NEW. as Nickerson, and at which point, as well as just opposite on the south side of the river, there are fine bodies of land as yet unbroken, and waiting only the sturdy arm of the husbandman to blossom into gardens of vegetable profusion. Reaching Sterling, the seat of the local commerce of Rice county, we have another near view of busy life, the little town being fairly thronged with farmers' vehicles of every description, and a general air of ceaseless activity pervading everywhere that bodes well for the future of the young city. The centre of trade in Rice county, with Reno county just opposite on the other side of the Arkansas, Sterling cannot but thrive so steadily and substantially as to become at no distant day one of the most important points in the whole Southwest. The country around and about it is settling up with wonderful rapidity, the sales of land at the local agency in Sterling the past few months having been enormously large. Rice county must have fully doubled her population in a single year, it being little of the hazardous to estimate the present population at S,ooo to five persons all told in 1S70. Indeed one cannot wonder at this remarkable rate of progress when viewing the beautiful country that lies within the confines of the county's boundaries. The lay of the land, to indulge in a common agricultural phrase, is most captivating to those who can appreciate a perfectly natural drainage, the prairie gently undulating between stream and stream, and so absolutely smooth its surface that one could drive in the dark over almost any part of it without the slightest danger of accident. From Sterling north nine miles to Lyons, the county seat, the road the entire distance is all the way through a beautiful pastoral country where in the happy harvest time the fields laden with bearded grain rise and fall in billowy slopes as if waving graceful recognition to the babbling brooks permeating the rich bottom lands as they go singing on their way. After an early supper and the coming of the cool invigorating breezes that ever fan to sleep the hottest of midsummer days in this locality, the ride, or perchance the canter horseback, from Sterling to Lyons is beyond descrip- tion in glorious commingling of landscape and atmospheric delights. The entire beautiful, boundless and priceless expanse lies before you all aglow with color under the low sun, and out to the west the color deepens and deepens until it seems to be no longer atmosphere, but substance like some supernal gem. If ever one had asked himself if by any other name a rose would smell as sweet, he could not but think in crossing Cow Creek that by any other name it could be more picturesque in sparkling puritv of water, in high grass-covered banks, or in exquisite pro- fusion of densely foliaged trees. There was little of the romantic in the herdsmen that but a few years ago ranged this section over in winter grazing immense herds of cattle, and the mere chance of a stray cow being found chewing her cud of contentment under the shady banks of the stream would have sufficed to have given it the anything but suggestive name which it must doubtless bear evermore. There is the Little Cow Creek and the Big Cow Creek and numberless smaller streams watering the countrv for miles about, and from the roof of the Court House they so enhance the fascination of the view as to make one despair of ever reproducing it in pen or pencil picture. Everywhere one gets delicious effects, and so beautiful as to be beyond all expression. Truly one might exclaim, Here indeed are the lungs of the continent! Rice county in i872,had barely a single quarter-section of land — 160 acres — under cultivation, while in 1S77 so grand had been the progress that the total acreage of the county reached 51,139. Next beyond Sterling is Raymond, a little hamlet now, but who dare tell of the possibilities of the future hereabouts.' From Raymond it is but a short run to Ellinwood, a German settlement of far from insignificant proportions. Already there are two churches completed, and the stores, dwellings and general cfiaracter of the place has the solidity of appearance betokening years rather than months of progress. Ellinwood, as well as the territory immediately surrounding it, is settled largely by a class of rich, well-to-do farmers from the older states, coming here with plenty of money to almost instantly transform the prairie into an agricultural section, vying with New England in all that goes to make the farmer's heart glad. A good many of the people in this immediate section are from Pennsylvania, and with the perfect ease of preparing the ground in the Arkansas Valley for the seed, so thoroughly appreciated, can laugh heartily over the early accounts giving such ludicrous pictures of attempts in their own state to clear land. A number of hardy, stalwart pioneers would assemble around some giant sycamore. Part of them would pull at the branches with ropes, and others would hack at the trunk all around until the ground would be covered with chips and the tree gashed from top to bottom. A whole day would be spent in the task, and when at last the tree fell, it generally carried with it some of its awk- ward executioners. To get rid of the fallen tree they would make a trench alongside, and with many a shout push it in and bury it out of sight. 2^ HE OLD AND THE J>J E W . 9 It would certainly be absurd to claim that there is now any such novel method of clearing land as this in vogue in our free and enlightened country, yet nevertheless there are thousands to-day who go to more expense in simply clearing land than better land itself still costs in tlie Arkansas Valley. And when they have their land cleared they suffer continually from the forests not cleared, and if not tempted to write, as did one of the early pioneers in New York: "The harvest cost me nothing, as it was most effectually done by the squirrels, coons and other wild beasts of the forests," often think of the primitive days and sigh at the little progress made since. Constantly running afoul of snags of stumps long since thought to be completely demolished, turning short here to avoid a huge rock, or barely there escaping collision with a full fledged tree in its prime, latest improvements in those marvels of labor saving achie\ements, agricultural implements, are vexations rather than blessings, for without them their value was not known, and with them a mortification that it cannot be profited by. On the other hand, the farmer in the Arkansas Valley has not only no clearing to do, but in the breaking of the virgin soil, the pulverizing, seeding and cultivating, the cutting and the harvesting is enabled to take fullest advantage of the grandest triumphs of the inventor, having no fears of running the most intricate of mechanism over his fields day or night. It is like driving over some great monster floor or mighty roll of beautiful carpet stretched by cunning hands so that perpetual motion might at last be achieved by simple perfection of level. Last summer, when the rapidity in which the grain ripened in some localities caused the straw to become so heavy and brittle as to be handled with difficulty during the heat of the day, many farmers cut at night with headers, reapers and mowers, or harvesters, as readily and eflectually as by daylight. In no country can the most approved farm machinery be worked to such advan- tage as here, and certainly no country of four times the age of the Arkansas Valley has more improved machinery at work. Harvesting was once considered the laborious season of the year, but so far as this section is concerned is so no longer. The old cradle has completelv given way, and for that matter the old style of reaper as well. It no longer requires a man to drive, one to rake, five to bind and one to shock, or eight men to a reaper. Even the self-raker has almost disappeared before the harvester, the latter requiring one driver, two binders and one shocker, just half the force of the old reaper. Then comes the "self-binder," doing the saine work with only two men — driver and shocker. And there is still, as a good many think, a speedier and cheaper method than the "self binder" — the header. This machine, used to so great an advantage upon the broad, level lands of the Valley, simply takes the heads off of the standing grain and deposits them in a wagon driven alongside; when loaded, the wagon is driven to the stack — or to the threshing machine — and another takes its place at the "header." With the header there is neither binding nor shocking, and with those who have become familiarized with its use claim they can do the work of harvesting at less than half the expense attending even the binder. With the latest improved haying machinery hay can be cut and stacked at less than $1 per ton — how much less depends upon how thick it stands on the ground. Corn is planted and cultivated at a corresponding reduction of labor and expense. Instead of one man to "mark," one to "drop" and three or four to "cover" with hoes, two men with, a planter mark, drop and cover two rows at the same time, and do on the average fully as much as ten men could in the same time by the old metho^j. In cultivating corn one man with a modern cultivator plants the corn twice as fast as with the old one-horse plow, and hoeing corn is entirely unknown in the Arkansas Valley. In plowing, the neat iron sulky on which the driver rides and drives three horses reduces human labor to the mere guidance of the team, and the amount of work is regulated entirely by the strength and endurance of the horses. Then there is the gang plow, similar to the sulky, and to which two or three plows are attached, the team driven and the plow operated by one man. Of late, a steam plow, with attachments for not only cutting but threshing the grain, has been invented, and will doubtless be tested in the Valley this season. In sowing wheat in the Arkansas Valley drills are used almost, if not quite, with- out exception, wheat drilled in thoroughly having by experience been proven to do incomparably better than when sown broadcast. With the drill the seeder rides as in a sulky-plow, doing more eftective work, in the sowing of the grain as well as placing it in the ground, than five men sowing it broadcast. To many readers these are familiar if not common-place facts, but to many more they are new and almost romantic in interest, while to all they tell a story of achievement at the very base of human industry that cannot be measured. Labor is reduced and relieved of many of its old forms of endless drudgery, and in comparison made easy if not indeed attractive. With such machinery as is now provided for the farmer, and such land as is offered by the Santa Fe Company at from $3 to $S per acre, thousands of young men in the great cities of the East, now idle, or the next thing to it, can here find, not employment only, but by industry and economy, soon place themselves above the fluctuations of the labor market of the overcrowded manufacturing centers. While money in the Arkansas Valley, as elsewhere, commands many advantages not other- wise secured, still, here industry, energy and a will that knows no daunting, go far toward supplying the place of dollars. Good land can be bought of the Santa Fe Company for $5 per acre and eleven years' time had in paying for it with seven per cent interest. On this plan of purchase all the money required for the first payment on 160 acres, upon taking possession, would be $So, with the interest on the principal $50.40 or $130.40 all told, while at the expiration of second and third years there would simply be the interest to pay, $50.40 each year, ^r the nine years following the yearly payments would be $So each with the constantly decreasing interest, which from $44.80 the fourth year ends at l;he eleventh year at $5.60. Now supposing a young man with one team of horses, a breaking plow and a harrow, purchases 160 acres on these terms. He commences work early in the spring, has no fences to build — the herd law requires all stock to be herded — no stumps or stone to clear, the land being free from both. He commences breaking his land at once, and within a few weeks has enough sod turned over and pulverized to put in a fair crop of barley, rye or broom-corn, and possibly a little spring wheat. From these, and such vegetables as he puts in during spare time, he clears profit sufiicienl to carry him through the summer, and the ground broken and planted in the spring will in the fall be in good condition to seed in winter wheat. If at all energetic the young man will have prepared enough ground to enable him to put at least fifty acres in wheat in the fall, and with say 15 bushels to the acre — a light yield — will the following June harvest 750 bushels, which, at the low rate of 90 cents per bushel, will give him $675 cash, out of which to pay his second payment on the land, $50.40, leaving the proceeds of his first summer's crop of barley, rye, broom-corn, etc., to support him until he realizes on his wheat. This support may or may not be meagre, but whatever it proves to be it must be made the best of, for the young man starting with say no more than $150 in cash, cannot expect to live upon the fat of the land. He may have to work for others, break land for so much per acre, or perchance spend the greater portion of his winter doing chores, and attending to odds and ends about some more fortunate man's farm. But his own wheat is growing all the time, his own land becoming of more value in the future to him than a mine. If miserably poor and depriving himself ofttimes of the very necessities of life he will enjoy his comfort all the more when earned. He harvests two crops from the same piece of ground within fifteen months, and after his first crop of wheat commences to realize his reward. Each year adds to the number of acres cultivated and to the productiveness of the farm, and the voung man would be doing no more than many others before him, if at the expiration of the third year he pays for his land in full and takes a perfectly clear deed to it, securing the cash discount. We have gone thus far upon the supposition that the young man has none to care for but himself. If, on the other hand, he has wife and children, so much the better, if the wife is what the name implies, a helpmeet. If there are no funds in the mutual purse wherewith to build a house, there lies the material to build it without money and without price. Not lumber, nor brick, nor stone, but the warm, solid breast of good old mother earth. A half day's work with a common breaking plow and the sod is ready for the builder's hands. "What, live in a sod house!" exclaims the man whose wife and children have known not a new garment for a year, and whose grocery bills have expired by the statute of limitation — "never!" Yet this same man will poison wife, children and self with the foul air of the low ceiling, illy lighted and reeking walls of a filthy tenement house, beside which a sod house on the broad open prairie is a very palace. We have been in sod houses far preferable in every way to many buildings of wood, brick or stone of much greater pretensions. Cool in summer and warm in winter, as roomy as the builder pleases to make it, a little plaster- ing inside and as much on the outside renders the interior susceptible of all the ornamentation of houses of any material, while that upon the outside may be blocked off in squares, and resemble stone or mastic so closely as to deceive the most experienced eyes. A man of any taste, no matter how crude, and with willing hands, and not absolutely witless, can make for himself a home out of the sod of the prairie that will improve with age and render liimself and lamily so comfortable as not to dream of abandoning it until from the very land once covered by the sod of his lO THE OLD AND THE NEW. — I'i<^ri<"iiiS^ihiiiin — s=^ C lu t TtE VJAI NU V Ltf I I'l ^ ""'^^^^^mMmmk^^iiMm house he takes that which results in the money to build him such a home as his increased means stifles. Some of the least uncomfortable of sod houses are those in the construction of which not a stick of timber enters, the roof being of thatched straw. With the material for his dwelling us afforded him, with no other cost than the labor necessitated, with no fencing to be done, and long term of years to pay for the land, the young man, with or without wife and children, has no cause to fear his future. The young man with little means, should he prefer six to eleven j'ears' time on his land, receives the benefit of the twenty per cent discount offered by the company, and with his payments $106.67 for si.\ years, with interest at seven per cent added, really pays but $4 per acre for the same land costing $5 per acre on the eleven-year plan. For all cash at the time of purchase the discount is thirty- three and a-third per cent, making the land costing $5 per acre under the eleven-year plan and $4 under the si-v-year plan cost but .$3.33 per acre. Thus one can secure his home here almost upon any terms he wishes, paying for it according to his means. To those who may have a notion of coming here to rest, the advice unhesitatingly given is, don't — that is, unless you have plenty of money and contemplate a sojourn in this section for pleasure or health. If for the latter,, you cannot in all the country find a more inviting place. I he altitude of the Valley ranges from 1,445 feet at Newton to 2,224 ^^^^ ^^ Kinsley, an average found to be most beneficial, especially to those who cannot without very serious danger ascend at once to the altitude of the mountains. Of late numbers of invalids en route to Colorado have adopted the plan so generally advised by experienced medical men, of stopping o\er at \arious points in the Arkansas Valley, primarily with intent to proceed as soon as recuperated, but m many instances the clear, pure, invigorating air, the e\en temperature and great preponderance of sunny days have led to the determination not only to go no farther, but to locate in the Valley permanently. The climatic ad\antages have thus tended to the settlement of not a few men of large means in the vinous towns, and their, in nnny cases, really elegant dwellings serve largely in enhancing the attractn tness ol these places. Others of tliis class have gone quite extensively into fancy farming, as Western people term vineyards, orchards of great varieties and expensive grains. Grapes grow in the greatest possible profusion in the Arkansas Valley, and many of the wild varieties rival the most luscious of the hot-house varieties in exquisite flavor. Wild plums are also wonderfully abundant. Kansas has for years, as is well known, ranked among the greatest of all fruit states in the Union, having for seasons in succession been awarded the highest prizes at the American Institute in New York and other noted competing exhibitions throughout the country. The annual apple crop of the state has become so great as to have commanding influence in the markets of the country, Kansas apples being known and ranking with Michigan apples in all leading centers. In the production of grain, of tobacco, cotton, fruit, vegetables, — in fact evey thing embraced in the scope of land cultivation, — Kansas ranks as do few, it indeed any, other state, while in the raising or improving of live stock no state has equal ad- vantages of range, grasses, water and climate. The man of wealth, of impaired health himself, or invalid wife or weakly children, finds in the Arkansas Valley not only that most priceless boon, health, but opportunities without end to invest capital, brains and judgment. From EUinwood we glide on to Great Bend, the county seat and principal business point of Barton, one of the garden counties of all the West. The town takes its name from what was known, in the days when the Santa Fe trail was the only means of communication between the Missouri and New Mexico, as the big bend of the Arkansas. The pride of the residents is the splendid great Court House that looms up so grandly above the prairie, and certainly it is worthy of their pride, for it is not only a really imposing structure, but was built for just what it cost, or in other words, exactly as a man would build with his own money, with no ring of plunderers to have their division of double prices charged for everything. From the apex of the tower one is as if upon a very ocean of land, the eye finding no resting place even in the horizon, and the mind actually oppressed by the incomprehensible immensity of the situation. While none of us can fathom the future, we are here almost as much at loss to comprehend the past. It seems almost as but j'esterday when all this glorious country to the southwest was one vast expanse of nothingness so far as any good came of it, to human kind. Then rank grass tangled the feet of the buffalo, the wolf, the coyote and kindred, and when startled by sight of man, jack rabbit, prairie dog and owl sank on the instant from sight into its wondrously luxuriant depths. Now the broad, beautiful prairie is transformed into diversified divides of grain, the ripe rich heads of which the wind sends in long sweeping billows until they become as very oceans of golden wealth. Turning to the north and letting the GREAT BEND AND VICINITY, THE OLD AND THE NEW. II eye roam at will westward to the very boundaries of Rush county, nothing can be more exquisitely perfect in every detail than the picture before us. Winding its serpentine way as far as the vision carries us is the gloriously foliage-fringed Walnut river with its long and grace- fully modulated southern slopes, as it follows its easterly course to the Arkansas. To the westward, where the Dry Walnut comes into the Walnut proper, we challenge the world for a finer scope of country than the triangle thus formed by the Walnut and the Arkansas, with the Dry Walnut piercing its centre. Watching the cloud shadows sweeping over the broad plain, and witnessing the going down of the sun in all its beauty, and the stillness of twilight overstretching the happy valley, we cannot but declare with others who have come before us that in diversified scenes, in slopes and wooded streams, in rich and lu.vuriant foliage and park-like valleys, Barton is the garden county of southwestern Kansas. Six years ago Barton county was not in existence, had no mention of whatever" character in the report of 1872 of the State Board of Agriculture, and was wholly given up to the cattle herders. The following year, 1873, Barton had a total of 1,049 acres under cultivation. Four years later, 1877, the aggregate reached 41,939 acres. North of Barton county lies Rush county, isolated from railroad communication, but possessing great bodies of land of unsurpassed excellence. Though hardly known until within the past year, so rapidly has Rush settled up that her acreage for 1S77 aggregated 6,472, nearly half of which, or 3,096 acres, was in wheat. Leaving Great Bend with regret, the next point of interest is the historical — even in this new country there are histories — old tower of stone known as Pawnee Rock, the battle-ground for centuries before settlement in this Valley, of the Indians from the old Indian territory south, and north to what is now known as Nebraska. Here the Indians came with most terrible regularity to intercept the traders en route over the Santa Fe trail for New Mexico. The battles between the opposing forces, the traders always traveling in numbers, and prepared for anything, were ofttimes frightful in extent of bloodshed, and not infrequently resulted in one party or the other being completely annihilated. In those days the Santa Fe trail was looked upon as as near to an air line as wood and water could make it, and in the construction of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the road first crossed the old trail at Burlingame within twenty or thirty miles of Topeka. Thence the trail ran northwestward to Council Grove, and then due west to Sterling, where the Santa Fe road again crossed it and followed it closely to EUinwood, where a junction between the old and the new was made and continued to the river bank beyond Fort Dodge, passing Pawnee Rock on the way. The old rock looms up high over its surroundings, an ancient landmark bearing upon its abrupt face thousands of deeply-graven names, dating back to the earliest days of the Santa Fe trail. In those times a pleasant rivalry existed among voung army officers ordered to duty on the plains to cut names in deeper and higher than those already upon the rock, and Pawnee Rock became the goal for the time being of the young soldier's ainbition. Upon the rock are still plainly discernible the names now of great historical interest, Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnson, placed there by the hands of each when fresh from West Point. Many great scientists of latter days have sunk their names deep into the rocky face, while hardly the name of any noted frontiersman ever visiting these parts is not to be found. Duke Alexis cut with his own hands his name, while of old and distinguished army officers the roster is almost complete. The rock now stands some thirty to forty feet in height, but formerly attained double this height, and much resembled an old castle. Around and about it the land teems with richness, and great boulders of stone from the main rock have been sundered from it and broken into material for foundations, fences and the like. Hardly have the thoughts of the past obtained full possession of the mind before we reach Larned, and the present crowds the past back into its graveyard. Larned is a little giant of a town in the powerful strides it has made toward a solidity and importance rivaling very many of the oldest points in all the West. Springing up out of the prairie as if by magic, its spirited, energetic, and at the same time substantial manner of progress is indicated in everything. The site of the town has a little character of its own, and is in strong contrast to most points on the road from the fact of bemg backed up by a long, sloping, symmetrical hill that towers far above the business streets and affords most charming opportunities for the display of taste, if not indeed elegance, in the building of residences. From the summit of this commanding elevation the Arkansas river is plainly visible for fully fifteen miles in either direction. The sight is grand, and few witness it without carry- ing away pictures in memory which remain distinct for many a year. Looking out across the beautiful valley of Ash Creek from its source as far as the eye can reach to its junction with the Arkansas, it is difficult, almost impossible, to believe that little over three years ago not a house, if indeed a man, could have been seen over all this now widely-diversified territory. Had any one predicted barely three years ago the present status of this portion of the Valley as a wheat supply, he would have been laughed at, and the hunter who came here less than four years ago as the best centre for buffalo and antelope in all this part of the Southwest, would have shot him without compunc- tion upon the score that thiS was no place for such arrant fools. Doubtless there are those reading these lines who will readily remember all this sec- tion of country as they first saw it from the car windows of the " mixed " trains run upon the Santa Fe road following its construction over what was then deemed but a monstrously long bridge, so unproductive was this end of the Valley in anything approaching business. Indeed, very few capitalists would have undertaken the laying of a single rail, let alone two, for ten acres, where the Santa Fe re- ceived but one in the way of land grant. The entire magnificent expanse of .country hereabout was looked upon as fit only for buffalo, antelope and their kind, and an officer at Fort Larned who would have attempted the cultivation of the most insignifi- cant of the products now grown so successfully in the extensive gardens about the post, would have been eyed with suspicion and promptly reported for medical examination. So much for the ab- surd fallacy that because of distance away from old-time farming sections, land is less rich and susceptible of tilling to a profit. Another and equally absurd notion as to the state of society in the new West is being rapidly, if it is not in fact already wholly, done i.AKNiiD AM) viLiMTV. away with. At least ninety per cent of the purchasers of rail- L«fC, 12 THE OLD AND THE NEW. road land are actual settlers, not speculators, and coming as these people do very largely from the oldest and most cultivated farming centres of the country, it is sheerest nonsense to believe that with their coming west they are transformed into little less than brutes in taste and cultivated instincts. The very absence in an entirely new country of such as they had been habitu- ated to in their old homes renders the desire to again enjoy the ~' privileges and blessings of church, school and library all the more intense, and leads to their completion without thought of delay. As a consequence the establishment of churches of all denominations follows j;s naturally as the construction of schoolhouses that in all modern conveniences, in ventilation and general solidity put to shame those as a rule to be seen in very many of the oldest towns and cities in the country. The character of the churches, schoolhouses, libraries, and in fact all buildings denoting public as well as private enterprise in the towns throughout the Arkansas Valley prove beyond all question the class ot people who have made up and composed the wonderful flow of emigration into the Valley the past five years. Of the family of sons in over-crowded communities, the one who resolves to strike out for himself in the new West is invariably the one of all others -of grit, energy, and a will that falters not at obstacles, no matter of whatsoever character. He will have as soon as possible such cultivated surroundings as he was familiarized with at home, and if his house be at first only one of sod, the surroundings will show the cultivation bred in the very bone. West of the little baby-town of Oferlee we saw a piano in a sod house, and upon a sod floor, while the character of the music in the music-stand denoted an education thoroughly up in the classic as well as the popular music of the day. Larned has undoubtedly a future such as few new places can boast of, being the key to so wide and bountiful a territory that its possibilities are absolutely beyond esti- mating. The Government Land Office, notations of the transactions of which have hitherto been made, is located here, and Fort Larned, one of the prettiest and most romantically situated of all government posts, but seven miles west. It is an e.\ceedingly pleasant drive to the fort, and the officer in command, as well as his subordinates, receives all visitors with that free, openhearled and generous hospitality for which our American army officers are proverbial the land over. Pawnee Fork, the parent stream, as the name implies, of the Pawnee, and also of the Buckner and Saw Logs, the main streams with their numerous smaller tributaries surging like veins throughout the county, runs through the grounds of the government at the post, and lovers of the picturesque can- not but go into raptures over the ch2.rming situation of the bridge leading to the fort. The banks of Pawnee Fork are quite high, and so densely studded v.ith trees locking their richly-foliaged branches in archlike embrace overhead that the deep-running crystal stream is almost darkened out of sight, and save only Irom the dazzling sheen where the sun shoots its bright rays upon the waters its existence would be almost doubted. Immediately adjacent to the government reserve there is a fine large body of land still unbroken by plow or spade. South of the river, which at Larned is spanned by a most substantial bridge, a New York colony has but recently located, the country around and about having been originally settled by a colony of the best class of farmers from Illinois. Subsequently quite a colony came in from Iowa, principally from Lee county, and now the few New Yorkers who had ahead}' secured their homes are reinforced by many friends from their own state. Until within the past year there was not a solitary farm south of the Arkansas in Pawnee county. A range of low sand hills, varying in depth from one to three miles, was looked upon as an insurmountable barrier and led to the wholesale condemnation in the minds of the majority of all the land back of them. But finally one and another quietly cotnmenced operations on that side of the river, and now no inore beautiful country to look upon, or more prolific land in production, can be found in all the West. The sand hills that but a few years ago presented faces as bare as a baby's are now covered with vegetation growing so rank and green as to leave no doubt of a depth and wealth of soil far as yet from being properly appreciated. One or two venturesome parties have, however, of late gone into the very heart of the hills and raised not only corn, but wheat as well. The entire region of these hills is astonishingly fertile in wild fruits, plums and grapes growing in such lavish abundance as to waste half their sweetness upon the desert air. Back from the hills in Pawnee county there are now fully a thousand people, several of whom have paid for their larms from a single season's crops. The first farm was laid oft" in Pawnee county in 1S74, and that year the county had a total of 18,047 acres, an increase in three vears of 16,588 acres, or upward of 800 per cent. The character of the country in Pawnee cannot fail to awaken enthusiasm in the breast of the veriest dullard. Drained perfectly from one end to the other, the rises are as gentle as the falls are even and regular, while the thickly-sodded buffalo grass, that sure indication of deepest and richest soil, suggests one vast carpeted hall of nature. THE OLD AND THE NEW. ' Distant thirty miles from Larned and near tlie eastern line of Hodgeman county, watered by the same splendid system of streams, ren- dering the soil of Pawnee so fertile, is Brown's Grove, a recently established little town, its origmatcrs a thrifty and enterprising set of young men, and the object the occupying of the beautiful country immediately adjacent. It was, as one of them enthusiastically declared, so beautiful, that though they did not intend stopping there, they simply couldn't help it. Hodgeman is merely a county in name, having no organization as such, and until within a very short time little else than a wilderness, so far as human habitation was concerned. There are immense bodies of most inviting and beautifully located farming lands in the county, and such as is not government land is included in the railroad land grant, the one to be had for about as much per acre as the other. It cannot but rise in value very rapidly from the tide of immigration destined to pour in during the early spring. As yet, however, owing to its sparsely settled character, the ruling rates per acre are very low. Just north of Spearville, in Hodgeman county, a large body of land has been taken up by parties going into sheep raising, their ranch being upon the Saw Log. North of them a few miles is the most remarkable abnormal thing on the prairies, a huge range of lime- stone cliffs, averaging fully a hundred and fifty feet in height, with face almost absolutely perpendicular. It is known as Gorham Point, and is looked upon by the sheep men as a natural shelter for stock that money could not command. Beyond Larned on the line of the railroad is Garfield, so named from the fact of its being largely settled by people from General Gar- field's old Congressional District in Ohio. The surrounding country is similar in all respects to that tributary to Larned, and equally valu- able land can here be secured very much nearer the town site than at Larned at much less rate per acre; Garfield being a new station but recently established. The same is true of Nettleton, the next station, which has sprung up within a year, nearly, if not quite all the build- ings as yet standing having been shipped direct from Illinois. A few miles west of Nettleton is Kinsley, now one of the most important points in the west end of the Valley, and upon the site of which barely three years ago was nothing but an eating station, and the principal meats of its tables buflalo and antelope. All the country around and about was unbroken prairie, dotted here and there with monster herds of cattle, while now and then great numbers of buffalo would dash in upon the scene and render things exciting to those unaccustomed to such breaks in the monotony of life. Though in all the country from Maine to the Pacific Coast there are no more perfect sweeps of rich and wholly unobstructed land, no grander slopes, no more thoroughly drained valleys than here in Edwards county, still the prevailing opinion appeared to be that it would not pay to farm in this end of the Valley. In the first place it was declared to be too dry, then it was claimed to be too far west, and so on to the end of the chapter. At first the awakening to a fitting sense of the situation was slow, some two hundred acres of wheat being sown in 1875, but though done in the half-hearted way ever characteristic of an experiment, and very few fields worked up to that degree of excellence incident to perfect confidence in the undertaking, the average yield of the good, bad and indif- ferent was fifteen bushels to the acre. Certainly anything but discouraging results when considering that the crop was entirely from the sod. In 1S76 the total acreage under cultivation was increased to 1,642. In 1S77 business was commenced in earnest. In the meantime the influx of thoroughly experienced farmers was remarkably large, colonies coming in from Massachusetts, East Pennsylvania, Maryland and from the Western States generally, the county springing into prominence as no other county since the first plow entered Kansas. The statistics of the acreage of the county for 1877, as taken from the official report, aggregated 3,752 acres, an increase of 2,110 acres in a year, and this too in a county on the extreme southwestern limit of grain cultivation. The yield of wheat, as shown by the supplementary report of the State Board, averaged 20 bushels to the acre; rye, 22 bushels; corn, 30 bushels; barley, 30 bushels; and oats, 40 bushels; two-thirds of the year's crop being made from entirely new ground — the first turning of the sod. Pawnee and Barton counties, east of Edwards, each averaged 20 bushels of wheat to the acre, while the little about Spearville, the baby town in Ford county, next west of Edwards, also averaged 20 bushels, and Rush county, immediately adjacent to Edwards county on the north, likewise had the average of 20 bushels. If this fails in proving to the satisfaction of the most exacting that the west end of the Arkansas Valley is destined to become the great wheat belt of all the West, it could further be shown that these five counties, three of them the newest in the state, and one of them hardly organized a year, show greater average to the acre than any ten counties immediately adjoining each other, and nearly eight more bushels to the acre than the average of the state as a whole. Edwards county was first settled by a Massachusetts colony, almost immediately followed by others from New England, East Pennsyl- vania and Marvland. It is the county selected by the committee of the Baltimore and Philadelphia colonies, of which so much has been said in the eastern press. Quite recently one of the largest colonies ever made up in the United States, that at Cincinnati, decided upon locating just south of the road between Offerle and Spearville, and not only decided, but made first payment on no less than fifteen sections, or 10,000 acres in the aggregate. Next west of Kinsley is Offerle, established by an enterprising and well-to-do colony of German farmers from Illinois, and through them the introduction of a population largely German. The fame of the place has already extended beyond the ocean, and a large colony in Sax- ony is preparing to come over and settle here during the early spring. Another colony destined for this immediate point is forming in St. Louis, and quite a number of those composing it are already here and at work. In addition to these, this has become the chosen location for a large and substantial colony from southwestern New York and northern Pennsylvania. Offerle is a one-year-old, but the next station we reach is a baby, Spearville, as it is called, being in the very earliest stage of existence and the frontier settlement, agriculturally speaking, of southwestern Kansas. It is in Ford county and the very heart of an inexhaustible expanse of richest lands. What its future may prove can only be judged by the progress of those behind it. WHEAT RAISING. At no other period of our country's existence has so great an anxiety prevailed among men of money to discover investments of even a reasonablv safe character as now. It is the conviction of the ablest thinkers in the land that relief must come through an increase of the natural, not the manufactured production of the country, and President Hayes in his last message to Congress fully coincides with such conviction in declar- ing that we must turn to the agricultural industry of the Union, "the most important of all our resources," for the revival of the depressed industries of the country. Wheat, as all know, is the most important result and outcome of the agricultural industry of the country, and this the case, its source of supply is one of the most important questions of the day. We have already shown the tremendous strides Kansas has made of late years in becoming one of the greatest of all states in the Union in production, not only to the acre but in the aggregate as well. Seventeenth in the list of states in the production of wheat m 1872, eighth in 1S76, and at least seventh in 1S77, though, as the Report for that year is hardly commenced as yet, there are no official data to go by. Kansas will go to the fourth place in 1S7S, indeed it is not altogether improbable that she will rank third. The State Board of Agriculture has recently issued a supplementary report of the acreage of winter wheat in the ground November I, 1S77, and though incomplete, so far as including all the counties of the state, is still so replete with detail as to show the amazingly great increase of wheat acreage for 1S7S as over 1S77 of forty-seven per cent, with strong probability when the returns are all in of the increase reaching fifty per cent. A jump in a single year of from 857,125 acres to upward of i,250,(XX) acres, or in actual figures, 1,243,515 acres, and several counties yet to be heard from. When completed it is hazarding nothing to predict that the total winter wheat acreage of the state will reach nearly, if not quite, 1,500,000. So great was the success in 1877 with spring wheat, that there can be no question of its rate of increase equaling that on winter 14 THE OLD AND THE NEW. wheat, and in fact it will doubtless be greater, owing to the thousands of new people that have settled in the state within the past few months, and too late to get in winter wheat. All things considered, spring wheat can hardly show less increase than sixty per cent, which would aggregate 124,120 acres, or an entire acreage of 330,988, making the aggregate wheat acreage of the state for 1S78 upward of 1,800,000 acres, as against a trifle over 1,000,000 acres in 1S77. The condition of winter wheat in ground is reported by the State Board of Agriculture as thirty per cent above a fair average, a condition as remarkable as is the breadth sown. So favorable a fall and winter as that of 1S77-7S was never known in Kansas, if indeed in any state in the Union. It appears almost impossible to imagine anything that could aftect the crop now, and if an average of twenty bushels to the acre is reached, the aggregate of production will e.\ceed 36,000,000 bushels, the greatest total yield ever known in a single state in the Union. If the yield per acre reaches only the average of 15 bushels, the aggregate crop will equal the greatest aggregate ever known in any one state, with the single exception of California's great crop of 30,000,000 bushels in 1S76. Here are developments, results that none can but pause to consider when the question comes before them as regards the single item of wheat supply. With wheat produced in Kansas cheaper than any state in the Union, with a steady average per acre greater by far than in almost any state where one acre cannot be bought for what would buy all the way from fifteen to twenty-five acres in Kansas, and with an average market rate per bushel, when taking into consideration the value of land and cost of production, far in excess of most states, what better, surer and safer investment can be made than in wheat raising in Kansas. Where will money command such remunerative returns on such slight risks.' It is not necessary for the capitalist embarking in such enterprise to live on the land, or for that matter within a thousand miles of it; he need not own even a spade, hoe or rake, has no necessity for house, barn or shed; simply farms by contract, leaving those with whom he contracts to do his work to furnish everything. The capitalist having his money at command, visits the state, selects his section of land, 640 acres, or more as he chooses, contracts for the breaking, pulverizing, seeding, cutting, stacking, threshing ;,nd delivery at the nearest railroad station. He knows the exact cost of the land, the work done upon it, and that so many bushels per acre over the cost per acre of everything are clear profit. As he. is going into wheat, he quite naturally seeks such locality as is best adapted to its cultivation, and how more effectually demonstrate this than by careful examination of the results in wheat reached by others.' In other words, he finds the wheat belt of Kansas through the unquestioned evidence of the ofiicial reports of the State Board of Agriculture. This testimony, as adduced in the latest supple- mentary report of the wheat acreage of the state, is decidedly of the most emphatic character, for the si.x counties showing the greatest increase of acreage over the previous year are in a single cluster in southwestern Kansas, all si,\ adjoining, three of them in the Arkansas Valley, two directly on the Arkansas river, and the other upon a tributary to the Arkansas. The increase of these six counties, three of which, as heretofore stated, are in the new Valley of the Arkansas, is 169,889 acres, and adding to this the increase in the remaining six counties of the Arkansas Valley, — all of them in the newest portion of the Valley — 58,505, we have an aggregate increase in the southwest of 228,394 acres, leaving but 157,996 of the total increase of 386,390, as the share of all the remaining 58 counties in Kansas. All this great body of wheat as shown in southwestern Kansas lies in counties immediately adjoining each other, and forms the grandest wheat belt on the continent. Five counties of the state show a decreased acreage. The greatest increase in any one county is in Cowley, on the Arkansas river, southwestern Kansas, 37,966 acres, and the greatest decrease is in Dickenson, on the Kansas river, western Kansas, 6,304 acres. The aggregate of the year's acreage of wheat in the ground in the twelve counties of the southwest shows even more amazingly their commanding position as con- stituting the great wheat section of the West, it being within 124,173 acres of the half of all the wheat sown in the entire state. Cowley county has the greatest acreage in the state, and McPherson second by a little over 300 acres less than Cowley, the one having 88,587 acres, and the other 88,266 acres. McPherson was the only county in the state in 1877 reaching a total yield of a million and more bushels of wheat, and in value of all crops as a whole led every county in Kansas. Yet this banner county in aggregate of yield in the Arkansas Valley only five years ago had but 125 acres in wheat, and all told but 3,615 acres under cultivation. McPherson county is only the forerunner of the fame as a wheat section the whole Arkansas Valley is destined to win in the very near future. As we have already shown, the average per acre in the five farthest west counties in 1S77 was twenty bushels, which was a greater average than the eastern coun- ties of the Valley could show, being three bushels better than McPherson, and five bushels greater than the general average of the four eastern counties. Of the increase of the wheat acreage of the state as a whole, the Arkansas Valley has more than a third, and while of the total acreage of wheat in 1877, the Arkansas Valley had nearly a fourth, of the total acreage of 1S7S the Valley has nearly a third. Harvey county with no wheat in 1872 now has 36,480 acres; Sedgwick with 26 acres in 1872 now has 73,681; McPherson county with 125 acres m 1872 now has 88,266 acres; Reno county with 2 acres in 1S72 now has 52,972 acres; Rice county with 10 acres in 1872 now has 42,189 acres; Barton county with 18 acres in 1873 now has 37,602 acres; Pawnee county with 33 acres in 1874 now has 18,968 acres; Edwards county with 206 acres in 1875 now has 3,112 acres, and Rush county with 417 acres in 1875 now has 5,420 acres, a grand total of wheat acreage in the Arkansas Valley for 187S of 358,690 to 163 acres in 1872, and the spring wheat acreage of 187S not mentioned. The acreage of spring wheat in the Valley in 1877 was 9,809, and adding an increase of 60 per cent for 187S, we have a total acreage of 15,694, and a grand aggregate of wheat acreage of 374,384 in 1S7S to 163 acres in 1S72. In addition to the extraordinary fertility of the soil in the west ^nd of the Valley, the high average yield per acre in all that section, the marked facilities and unequivocal success in wheat demonstrated by those who, in the remarkably large increase of acreage, have shown their faith in its continuance by their deeds, large bodies of land can be had in uninterrupted tracts and at prices ruling, for cash, very low. The advantages of having the money actually in hand when commencing operations are many, for in addition to securing the thirty-three and a third per cent discount made by the Santa Fe company for cash at the time of purchase, it often happens that one can get a reduction in the ruling rates on breaking and preparing the land for its harvest, by paying in installments as certain stages of the work are reached. With the cash discount a section of land, 640 acres, rating at $6 per acre, is secured for $4 per acre, or $2,560. Many a field of wheat on land in Barton, Pawnee and Edwards counties rating at much less than $6 per acre harvested in 1877 all the way from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre. The price of the land is graduated not so much by quality as location, that near principal towns ranging much higher than some dis- tance away. On the north side the land rules higher than on the south side of the river, owing to the railroad being on the north side. Land no poorer in any respect than that ruling at $10 to $15 per acre near leading points can be had ten miles from town for from $4 to $6 per acre, and in this country where all the roads are like race tracks, so level and hard, a ten miles' drive is a mere bagatelle. The section of land, an item of $2,560, the next step is to contract for its breaking, harrowing, seeding, in short for everything to its delivery for shipment. Prices for this work vary somewhat. At Sterling the rate given for the work complete per acre is $6.25, at Great Bend $8, at Larned $7.10, and at Kinsley $7.25. About $7.50 is the average price for thoroughly good work, this including the breaking, $2 per acre, prepar- ing the sod for the seed, $1, wheat for seed, $1, drilling, 50 cents, cutting and st.icking, $1.50, and threshing and storing, $150. With riding plows, from three to four acres are broken in a day, six acres cut, pulverized or harrowed, eight to twelve drilled, and with header thirty acres cut and stacked. It will be noted that at the prices given and the capacity for accomplishing the work, the opportunities for fair reasonable profit are excellent. At $7.50 per acre the cost of production for the 640 acres is $4,100, making the entire outlay $6,660. With every possible precaution taken to insure a good crop, the average yield per acre should be at the least twenty bushels, which at 90 cents per bushel, certainly a fair average rate, would be $10,240, or $3,580 in excess not only of the cost of production, but the cost of the land as well. Putting the average yield per acre at 15 bushels, and the wheat at Socents per bushel, the aggregate of receipts would be $6,912, or $252 more than the costof production and the land, and the latter worth the $2 per acre paid for the breaking more than when first purchased. Allowing say $200 for traveling expenses m visitmg the land, as much more for the party on the spot who may have charge of it, interest at 10 per cent for a year on the total investment $660, and taxes $10, the margin of profit remaining is certainly most inviting. The local agents of the land company at Hutchinson, Reno county; Sterling, Rice THE OLD AND THE NEW. ^5 county; Great Bend, Barton county; Larned, Pawnee county; Kinsley, Edwards county, and Spearville, Ford county, do a great deal In the way of superintending the work on wlieat land lor parties residing out of the state, attending to the breaking, harrowing, seeding and other details of the preparatory proceedings. During the winter and growing months generally they keep careful eye over the fields, and at harvest time supervise the cutting, threshing and storing. They are responsible, reliable and thoroughly experienced gentlemen, and any or all of them will take con- tracts for the production and delivery of the wheat at $8, or thereabouts, per acre. These agents, as well as Col. Johnson, the land commissioner at Topeka, cheerfully respond to all requests by mail for such information as one would naturally desire regarding the country and its capacity, and send at the same time maps showing lands sold and unsold, terms, preemption law, and in short everything possible to a thorough acquaintance of the land bv other than personal inspection. The best plan, however, for those seriously considering the advantages of this country, is pay it a visit in person, and this may be done at a very light expense by purchasing what are known as land-seekers' tickets, at much under the usual rates, the fare from any point in the country, going and returning, being about equal that generally charged one way. Upon purchasing land of the railroad company such fare as has been paid over its line is refunded. WOOL GROWING. Southwestern Kansas is preeminently adapted for the raising of sheep, as throughout the entire country on either side of the Santa Fe road east of the cattle quarantine at Dodge City, the range is practically unlimited. In this fact alone lies one of the greatest advantages possessed by the Arkansas Valley over Colorado, the claim of the cattle men of the latter state of priority of the occupa- tion of the range causing no little ill feeling between those engaged in the two interests. While certain portions of Colorado and New Mexico are already practically closed against sheep raising, it is thought by many who have considered the matter seriously, that it is but a question of time when the sheep range of Colorado will be confined to such exceedingly narrow limits as to render the herding of large flocks anything but profitable. It will well repay those impressed with the advantages of wool growing in this section to write to the Land Commissioner of the Santa Fe road at Topeka, who in response will at once forward a pamphlet devoted to sheep interests, maps showing the grant of the company, the lands sold and unsold, and much other valuable information not only as to railroad lands but government lands as well. The securing of a pleasant home with a well-tilled farm about it in the beautiful Valley of the Arkansas in southwestern Kansas, with full and profitable control of an unlimited sheep range, has great attractions for those who in the older states keenly appreciate the advantages and pleasures of such a life, and while greatly desiring to enter upon wool growing extensively have only such facilities as enable the gratification of this desire upon a small scale. In the Arkansas Valley a thousand sheep wintered at home may early in the spring be sent out upon an unlimited range, and, cared for by experienced herders, return late in the fall, old and young in perfect condition, the only expense of the spring, long summer and protracted fall being the pay of the herders, any number of whom can be had at the rate of $io to $15 per month. But the sheep men who make wool growing their sole business, and to whom all other pursuits are secondary, are rarely if ever content with less than a range entirely under their control, and this class find in the Valley inducements not equaled, or in fact approached, on the continent. There are millions of acres of government land, the finest for sheep raising in the gift of the nation, to-be had in southwestern Kansas merely for the preemption fees, while the thousands of acres of railroad land are to be had at prices hardly averaging $2.50 per acre. Millet and rye are two of the surest crops in the section of country referred to, while timothy, alfalfa and tame grasses are grown with the greatest facility. When permanently located one may readily raise corn, rye, millet, clover, any or all, and thus always have feed for stock, while if it be deemed advisable to go into winter wheat, experience has proven that its growth in the spring is greatly enhanced by permitting sheep to range upon it during the wmter months. While many of the sheep men in the Valley carry their flocks through winter as well as summer without feeding a pound of grain, it is generally looked upon as a good thing to have it on hand in case of an emergency. The loss from disease in this section is exceedingly light — Mr. Wadsworth, one of the heaviest breeders in these parts, not having lost a single sheep from disease in all his herd of three thousand and more for upward of a year. Mr. Wadsworth says: " In regard to this country as compared with others for sheep raising, I would say I do not see how any one in any of the eastern states can compete with those here in the production of wool; it costing so much to winter stock where there is no winter range, and requiring too much high-priced land to feed upon in summer. As to Colorado, I think the country there overcrowded now with all kinds of stock; and even if such were not the case, it is liable to very hard storms and deep snows, and without hay or grain very heavy losses of stock are often suftered. In addition to this the cattle and sheep men in Colorado are not on the best of terms, and are having trouble regarding the right of range. Another disadvantage is the low price Colorado wool rates in the market; and summing all up, I think this country far preferable to any I know of for the wool business. I am confident that any one can come here with sheep, managing them as they should, and realize fifty per cent on the investment." To prove that it can be done, Mr. Wadsworth declares the following to be a summary of his first year's result: 1,000 ewes, second cross, $3,000; 15 bucks, $150; hay, $75; corrals and sheds — lumber, $300; loss on sheep, $100; shearing and other expenses, $300; one shepherd, $300; total, $4,400, Credit by 800 lambs, $2,000; credit by wool, $1,200; total credit, $3,200. Less expenses, $1,250, net profit upon the investment of $3,000, and aggregate of expenses $1,250 — $1,950. The item of $300 for corrals and sheds should really appear as a portion of the investment, being permanent improvement and reducing expenses of subsequent years. The Hon. Cyrus Frye, postmaster at Larned, gives his expenses upon an original flock of 47S sheep for twenty months, including the $1,075 paid for the sheep, at $1,516; and the returns $2,885.85, a per cent of profit on the investment in twenty months of gop;!, equal to 54.2 per cent per annum. No account is made of sheep killed for family use, averaging two per month during summer and one per month during winter. Only 38 sheep, including those killed for family use, were lost during the entire twenty months. Mr. Samuel Archer, of Kansas City, the most noted fine-wool breeder in the new west, says of the Arkansas Valley and southwestern Kansas generally, quoting his exact words: "I regard the grasses of central and southwestern Kansas as better than those of Colorado, New Mexico, or any portion on the west side of the plains. The east side of the plains — southwestern Kansas — is undoubtedly the best in every respect; the grasses grow thicker on the ground and grow longer. I am persuaded that alkali is injurious to the wool; in fact, experience with the wool of northern Colorado and northern Kansas has proven this beyond all dispute. The water facilities are much better in southwestern Kansas than in any other section I know of in the west. Another great advantage over northern Kansas and Colorado is the milder winters, fewer storms and lighter winds, thus not calling for so much expense in providing shelter and feed." CATTLE RAISING. Passing Spearville, the next point of prominence on the line of the road is Dodge City, the centre of the cattle shipping interests of southwest Kansas, northern Texas and eastern Colorado. Dodge City is on the eastern limit and inside the Texas quarantine grounds, or, as every one here- about terms it, the cattle dead line. It is for the protection of the native cattle of the state that the legislature defines the boundaries within which l6 THE OLD AND THE NEW. stock fresh from Texas shall remain for a certain period of time ; though this, as. a matter of course, has no bearing upon the shipment of cattle to the Eastern markets immediately upon arrival at Dodge, it applying entirely to driving and grazing. In this almost limitless expanse of Nature's own domains for supplying beef for the comment the portion of the country restricted by the quarantine line is as a mere garden patch, the cattle man having open to him the entire territory from the line of the Santa Fe in Ford county, south to the Indian Territory, southeast to the Sumner county hne, including the incomparable cattle range throughout Barbour, Harper, Kingman and Stafford counties, known as the Medicine Lod"e Country. Southwest the territory is unrestricted, not only to the boundaries of Kansas, but as far out upon the great stock plains of Colorado as one cares to go. Throughout this vast and unsurpassed section for cattle herding, grazing and driving the advantages for handling stock are simply beyond computation or detail, and the opportunities for gaining large returns from investments innumerable. Until recently, and during the manv years the great cattle drive from Texas has centered in southwestern Kansas, the cattle arriving from that state, or "the drive," as it is so generallv called in the West, was, as a whole, shipped East, the cattle being driven in, in fact, for no other purpose. The cattle men who make the drive and subsequent shipment their business visit Texas during the fall and winter months, and, making their purchases of large mixed herds, bring them up to graze in the Arkansas Valley and other regions north and south of the road. If the Eastern markets are in condition to warrant it the cattle are shipped at once, if not they are sent forward from time to time during the few succeeding months, improving of course all the time they may be held on the range. But of late an entirely new feature of the cattle business has been most successfully inaugurated, that of buying small herds, from two or three hundred up to ono or two thousand, out of the drive and taking them back into the sheltered and broken country found within fifty to one hundred miles on either side of the road, but more especially south, and there hold and graze them for one or two, or as many years as one may choose. In these terribly dull times in the East, when it is so exceedingly difficult for young men to get any .sort of start in life, the advantages of operating even upon a small scale in this great feeding ground of the nation are all the more strikingly apparent, and already a very considerable number of young men of highest standing in Eastern commercial and social circles are actively engaged here. The total " drive " from Texas last spring and summer — May 15 to July 15 — was 280,000. Of these 100,000 went north to the Union Pacific country, some 60,000 were held in southwestern Kansas and the remainder shipped East. In 1S73, \n the country south of Great Bend and Dodge City — Great Bend being then the cattle shipping point — to the state line there were not to exceed io,ooo cattle upon the range. In 1S74 there were about 25,000, in 1S75 about 35,000, in 1S76 45,000, and last year, 1S77, as hitherto stated, 6o,ooo. In addition to the thousands wintered in southwest Kansas last winter there were some 30,000 in the northern part of the Pan Handle of Texas and tributary to the Santa Fe road. Of the drive the early cattle are usually in the best shape, because these come from northern Texas and have a shorter drive. They are also a better class of beeves than coast cattle, which are coarser and longer horned. The profit in the business of purchasing either class of cattle with judgment is owing to the little expense from the country, being so peculiarly adapted to stock — such nutritious grasses, plenitude of spring water that never freezes, and no outlay for shelter or feed. The change of climate adds immensely to the condition and value of the cattle, for here they take on fat readily, having no troublesome flies or extremes of heat to annoy and debilitate them. Texas two-year-olds can be grazed and fattened here tor one year and sold at three years old for from eighty to one hundred per cent profit. The ruling rates at Dodge City prove this beyond all question, as for instance, Texas two-year-olds sold last summer for $14, and the same beeves wintered and grazed in Kansas until the present year, when they are of course three-year-olds, sell for $24. And now the question naturally arises as to the expense of the year's keeping. There are almost any number of parties with herds of their own upon the range, and it being practically unlimited, the expense of addmg to the extent of the herd is simply one of increased help, and as herder's wages per month' average about $25, the item is not of very great proDortions. It is a common practice for other owners, non-residents or those not caring to devote their time individually to their cattle to place their herds with those of parties attending personally to the stock upon the range, and the ruling rates governing such proceedings are $2 each for yearlings and $2 50 each for cattle two or more years old. Each owner's stock is branded with his own recorded brand, hence there can be no trouble as to proprietor- ship, and as the owner of the main herd recognizes it as his own best interests to take the best possible care of his stock and the combined herd grazing in common there can be no discrimination, and all in the herd necessarily receive equal attention. Generally three or four owners giving their time to the care of the cattle lay claim by right of occupation to some particular range with running streams of water permeating it, and driving their stock upon it locate their camps or cabins at equidistant points. Twice a day, every morning and afternoon, the entire limits of this range are visited, some one riding in both directions from each habitation, and, meeting at half-way points, retrace their respective routes to starting places, this being called in herdsmen's parlance " riding the range." Thus the range is patrolcd every day in the year, and the cattle not only pre- vented from roaming beyond the particular range upon which they are placed to graze, but all outside intrusion guarded against. The percentage of loss by death during the year will not exceed two per cent, and one can figure for himself what his profits would be upon an investment in Texas two-year-olds at $14 per head, paying $2 50 per head for their keeping, allowing two per cent for loss, and selling them at three years old for $24 per head. The saine cattle kept in Texas until three years old would increase in value but very little, the change of climate making a most marked dif- ference in weight and condition. Most of those who have engaged in the business of purchasing cattle and holdmg them for the year, as indicated, have found it so profitable as to decide upon reinvesting their profits in more extensive operations, and of this class we will take the figures of a gentleman who copied them from his own books, from accounts opened last spring, when he commenced in his enlarged field of investment. His total of expenditure for live stock was $23,075, His expenses at the expiration of the year will be $3,000. At the end of the year, his herd, which cost him $21,600, will be worth $33,750, leavinga net profit for the year of $9,150, or 42 per cent, and this not taking into account the cost of mules, horses, bulls and outfit still on hand. An allowance should, however, be made for loss during the year, which, at 2 per cent for the herd entire, would reach 30 head, worth $450, and which, deducted from the net profit as given, would make it $8,700. A calculation made upon a basis of two years' keeping brings interesting results. Take, say, 1,000 Texas yearlings bought September 15, at Dodge City, for $S,ooo; keep them two years, and sell at corresponding date — these three-year-olds, double wintered, which is much better than single wintered, should weigh 925 lbs., and at the very lowest estimate would bring 3 cents per pound, $27.75, "t Kansas City. The freight per head from Dodge to Kansas City would be $2; commission for selling, 50 cents; yardage, 20 cents, or a total expense of $2.75, leaving the net receipts per head $25. The loss by death per annum, at 2 per cent,, would be 40 head, which deducted from the 1,000 head would leave 960 at $25 per head, $24,000. The next thing to consider would be the expense, which would be $5,000, which, added to the $S,ooo paid for the cattle, would make a grand total of investment and expense of $13,000, leaving a clear profit of $11,000, or 44 per cent per annum for the two years' operations requiring but $13,000 in way of capital all told. Another gentleman, engaged quite extensively in breeding and fattening cattle, hands us a careful balance of the books, which show an aggre- gate value of $53,280, and aggregate expenses of $24,000, leaving the very comfortable profit of $29,280 on five years' operations, based upon an original capital of less than $10,000. Should one wish to commence upon a smaller capital, say $4,500 to $5000, the figures given by a young New Yorker, who started in last summer, cannot but prove of value, based as they are upon the operations of a gentleman of no previous experience whatever with capital. He invested $3,300 in cattle, $550 for an outfit, and his running expenses, reaching $460, make the aggregate of expendi- tures the first year $1,000, and his stock being now worth $7,580, the net profit reaches $2,280. These figures require no extended comment, carrying, as they do, the impress of fact upon their face, and proving most conclusively the preeminence of the cattle business in southwest Kansas as a source of profit, which is rarely, if ever, below 40 per cent upon the investment inade. The great demand that has sprung up in England the past year for American beef, the introduction of refrigerator cars, and the limited area of grazing grounds east of the Missouri all tend to farther enhance the value of southwestern Kansas as the great feeding grounds of the continent. Atchison,Topeka Sc Santa Fe R.R. SPECIAL EMIGRANT AND MINER'S FREIGHT TARIFF, For Emigrant's and Miner's Account only and not for Mercantile Purposes. On and after January ist, 1878. the following rates will gov- ern on shipmentsof Household Goods, Farm Implements, Wag- ons. Stock and Second-hand Miner's Tools, also Trees and Shrubbery at owner's risk when shipped with emigrant outfit. a X From Atchison or Kansas City to 40.6 LAWRENCE Kansas 66.6 TOPEKA " 127.8 EMPORIA " 147.7 COTTONWOOD " 172.7 FLORENCE " 201.7 ELDORADO " 184,3 PEABODY " 104.3 WALTON " 201.2 NEWTON " 210.6 HALSTED 211. 2 SEDGWICK " 2ig.o BURRTON " 22S.0 WICHITA 234.3 HUTCHINSON " 243.0 NICKERSON " 252.8 STERLING " 265.1 RAYMOND " 275.6 ELLINWOOD " 285.7 GREAT BEND " 299 I PAWNEE ROCK " 207.9 LARNED " 318.8 GARFIELD " 332.6 KINSLEY " 3(o.3 OFFEREE " 352.1 SPEARVILLE " 368.6 DODGE CITY " 4.6.2 PIERCEVILLE " 440 5 LAKIN .. " 470.2 SYRACUSE " 4974 GRANADA Colorado 531.3 CADDOA ,;47 g LAS ANIMAS ^52.0 WEST LAS ANIMAS .. 571.0 LA JUNTA i8i.6 ROCKY FORD " 636.2 NAPIESTE 634.4 PUEBLO 679 o COLORADO SPRINGS, 754.0 DENVER 674.0 CANON CITY 684.0 CUCHARAS 706.0 VETA...". 720.0 EL MORO 734.0 GARLAND 832.0 DEL NORTE 887.0 L.\KE CITY 838.0 FORT UNION New Mexico 86g.o LAS VEGAS 941.0 SANTA FE In Dollars per Cur Load of 20,000 lbs. •35 • 4° .40 .40 .40 ,40 .40 .40 •45 ■ 45 ■45 ■45 ■45 ■ 50 ■50 ■5° ■50 ■50 ■50 •5° ■5° ■50 ■5° .60 .60 ■ 70 75 .80 .85 .90 .90 .90 ■95 95 1 .00 1.30 1.3° 145 17. CO 22.00 30.00 35.03 35.00 35^o° 35^00 3500 35^00 35.00 35^00 35.00 3i.co 35 00 40.00 40.00 40.00 40.00 40.00 40.00 40. CO 40.00 40.00 40. CO 45 00 50.00 70. CO 7500 80.00 85.00 90.00 90.00 90.00 95.00 95.00 100. oo 100.00 100.00 100.00 130.00 130 00 130.00 130.90 145.00 Emigrant and Miner's RATES AND FARE IN EFFECT January 1st, 1878. SUBJECT TO CHANGE. FROM KANSAS CITY AND ATCHISON. $4.00 4,00 4.00 4.25 575 4.50 4-75 5.00 5.25 5 50 5 75 6.00 6.25 6.50 6.75 7.00 7-50 20.00 20.00 20.00 22.00 22.00 23.00 25.50 24.00 33 00 48.00 43.00 47 ■ =5 55 50 = 52 M ^1 rt J- B O D 'u to J= u o w .5 s. ° o ^ ^ •*- rt CJ3 •s -a "^ _ (U Irt V X. k 0. 5 s^ ? The above rates will only apply to the personal effects of Emigrants and Miners. Grain. Groceries, Mixed Goods or any kind of freight other than the articles specified above will not be carried at these rates, but will be weighed and charged for at the regular Classification and Tariff Rales, When car load shipments embrace Live Stock, the man in charge will be entitled to pass free on the regular Stock Contract, which must be executed with the Forwarding Agent of this Company. When parties fail 10 execute this contract and pay fare, it iviii not be refunded. Live Stock, when shipped alone, will be taken at rates named above. When in less than car loads, the rates on one hundred pounds will be charged at the regular estimated weights. One man will be passed free with one car of live stock. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS To those who intend Emigrating to Colorado, San Juan Mines and the South-v\'^estern Territories. Read carefully, and if there is any tiling you do not understand, show this to the near- est Railroad Siation Agent and he will explain. 1. Emigrants are carried on regular first-class express trains with second-class accom- modations at an average of about two cents per mile. 2. No cars are chartered for the transportation of passengers. Every passenger must hold a ticket at the rates quoted without reference to the number traveling in a party. 3. In ca^e a party of thirty or upwards arc traveling together, there will bs no diffi- culty in securing a special car without extra cost above the price of the tickets, but no reduc- tion will be made on account of numbers. 4. .Always secure your tickets as near your starting point as possible, and you will save both time and money. Our tickets are on sale at all the principal railroad offices in the country, and the Agent will ticket you by the route you desire. Passenger trains leave Kansas City and Atchison every day in the year on the arrival of trains from the eai^t. The connection is made in Union Depots, and there are no delays or omnibus transfers. The time to Topeka is 3 hours; Emporia. 6 hcurs; Newton, 10 hours; Wichita. 12 hours; Hutchinson, 12 hours; Sterling. 13 hours; Great Bend. 14 iiours ; Larned. 15 hours ; Kinsley. 16 hours ; Dodge City, 17 hours ; Pueblo. 27J'2 hours ; Colorado Springs. 29 hours ; Denver, 32 hours; El Moro, 32 J^^ hours; Garland. 33 hours. Miners for the San Juan Mines and other mining districts in Color.-ido, New Mexico and Arizona, are entitled to the above rates, and will be carried to their destination on regular express trains. If thi^ circular does not answer alt your questions, write for additional details to M. L. SARGENT, lieneral Freight Agent, Topeka. Kansas, W. F. WHITE, Gen'l Passenger and Ticket Agt., Topeka. Kansas. THE BEST THING IN THE WEST." 2,S00,000 JLCI^ES — IN THF — Arkansas Valley^ Southwestern Kansas^ FOR SALK ON Eleven Years' Credit and 7 per cent Interest. 33 1-3 per cent Discouat for Casb, Sectional maps, showing these lands on a large scale, with the sold lands colored red, will be furnished for fifty cents each, and circulars with full informatiun will be sent free. Address A. S. JOHNSON, Acting Land Commissioner^ 'I'opeka, Kansas. 'ZT' -2-oTT Txr.^3^ar \0\J SHOULD BUV OF THE Atchison, Topeka k Santa Fe Railroad Company, FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS: First. — The Atchison. Topeka & Sant.i Fc Railro.iJ is the newest railroad enterprise in the west, and has opened up for settlement a vrist body of new country lying along the Cottonwood and Arkansas rivers, which is attracting; p.irticular attention for its fertility, healthfulness and beauty, ajid for the opportunities to get choice selections, and protit by the rapid development of the country. Second. — The location is central, occupying the geographical center of the United States, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east and the Pacific on the west ; from the frozen waters of Hudson's Bay on the north and the tepid Gulf stream on the south ; the "golden mean" between extremes, and equally adapted to corn, wheat, fruits and cotton. Thikd. — The healthiest country in America. With .i mild climate, dc'ightfully tem- pered by high altitude, 1,500 to 3 000 feet above the level of li.- sea. a well-drained sur- face, no stagnant water or overflowed land, it is partlcuhirly inviting for its healthful features. Fourth. — The prices of the land> are very low, ranging from two to nine dollars an acre ; and the fertility of the soil is such, that with ordinary industry the purchaser can pay for his farm and improvements from the products of the land. Fifth. — You are not compelled to go into a wilderness, but into a country settling rapidly, where you will find immediately good society, good tWiVspapej-s. good churt:hes and markets, with good schools arid free education /or your children. Sixth.— Pure, sweet water is abundant everywhere, and is found in springs and run- ning streams, and in wells at a depth of from six to forty feet. Seventh. — With rich coal fields immediately on the line of the road, and reaching now at its western terminus the vast coal fields of southern Colorado, settlers can be assured an abundant supply of cheap fuel. Eighth. — Excellent building stone is abundant. Gypsum, salt, fire-clays, pottery and porcelain clays, good brick clays, mineral paints, and many useful minerals are found along the line, providing every resource for the development of the country. Ninth. — They can offer the largest body of choice valley land in the west, situated along the Cottonwood and Arkansas rivers and their tributaries, and valley land has been estimated in all ages the most productive, durable and valuable. Tenth. — Good soil, abundance of pure water, a mild and remarkably healthy climate, cheap fuel, assured eastern, western and southern markets, with low prices and eleven years' credit, make up a total of inducements greater than is offered anywhere else on the continent of America. For circulars containing full description and prices of these lands, with particulars of terms to purchasers, exploring tickets, and rebate on fare and freights, address a. S. JOHNSON, Acting Land Commissioner. Toieka, Kansas. 0"U"I^ .Z^^O-EInTTS. The following agents of the Land Department will take pleasure in furnishing informa- tion relating to the lands of the Company, their location, advantages, etc.. and upon application will forward free the Arkansas Valley Guide : JOHN L. TRUSLOW, C. A. SEYMOUR. Gen'l Eastern Passenger Agent, 239 Broadway. New M. SOLOMON, General Land Agent. 46 Clark St., Chicago H. C. FISH. General Land Agent. 127 Vine St.. Cincinnati. O. SAM'L B. HYNES, General Agent, 402 Pine St.. General Agent. 44 Louisiana St.. Indianapolis. Lnd. W. E. TUSTIN, Agent. 154 Fifth Ave.. H. L. CARGILL. Agent. 122 Market St.. PrTTSBlIRGH. Pa. Philadelphia, Pa. St. Louis, Mo H. KAHLO A: CO., Agents, 46 Madison St.. Toledo. O. EDWARD HAREN, General Traveling Agent. Topeka. Kansas. M. Z. SMISSEN. Agent. Op. Union Depot. Kansas City, Mo. R. M. SPIVEV. Superintendent of Agencies, Toi'EKA. Kansas. or A. S. JOHNSON. Acting Land Commissioner. Topeka. Kansas. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS I ili'iiMiii Mill Hill Mill mil mil mil nm mi mn mi mi llllllll 020 994 863 1