The wheat crop of the State, last year, was called a failure. It was, for Kansas. And yet it would fill 31,939 grain cars, and load a train 189 miles in length. The oats crop of the State, for the same year, would fill 44,335 cars, and load a train 260 miles long; while the hay crop would load 768,534 cars, making a train 4,510 miles long.
These four crops of Kansas, for 1885, would fill 1,329,808 grain cars, and load a train 7,804 miles in length. In other words, the corn, wheat, oats, and hay produced in Kansas last year would load a train reaching from Boston to San Francisco by the Union Pacific route, and back again from San Francisco to Boston by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé route.
COMPARATIVE VALUES.
In speaking of the value of the farm crops and farm products of Kansas, I can present a dearer idea of the wealth our farmers have digged out of the earth by some comparisons. In 1881 the products of all the gold and silver mines of the United States aggregated only $77,700,000; for 1882 they aggregated $79,300,000; for 1883, $76,200,000; and for 1884, $79,600,000—making a total, for those four years, of $312,800,000. The value of the field crops of Kansas, for the same years, aggregated $411,092,498; and the farm products of the State for the same period, aggregated in value $595,099,894—or very nearly double the aggregate of all the gold and silver products of all the mines of the country.
The gold and silver products of the world average about $208,000,000 per annum. The farm products of Kansas for 1885 aggregated $143,577,018, or nearly three-fourths the value of the gold and silver product of the world.
For the past four years the farm products of Kansas have aggregated in value each year more than double the annual yield of all the gold and silver mines of the United States.
The gold and silver products of Colorado, for 1883, aggregated only $20,250,000; those of California, $16,600,000; of Nevada, $9,100,000; of Montana, $9,170,000; of Utah, $6,920,000; of Arizona, $5,430,000; and of New Mexico, $3,300,000. The corn crop of Kansas for the same year was alone worth more money than the combined gold and silver products of Colorado, California and Nevada; the oat crop of Kansas was worth $705,000 more than the gold and silver product of Arizona; and the Irish potato crop of Kansas was worth more than the gold and silver product of New Mexico.
PROPERTY VALUATIONS.
The property valuations of Kansas have increased in steady proportion with the growth of the State in population and productions. In 1860 the true valuation of all the property of the State was estimated at $31,327,891; in 1865 it was estimated at $72,252,180; in 1870 it had increased to $188,892,014; in 1875 to $242,555,862; in 1880 to $321,783,387; and for 1885 the true valuation, at a very moderate estimate, was $550,000,000.
The following table presents the assessed valuation of all the property of the State for the years mentioned, and also the assessed valuation of all the real, personal, and railroad property. It will be seen that the increase in the total assessed values from 1865 to 1875 was $85,434,344, while from 1875 to 1885 it was $127,300,928.