I cannot offer any opinion on the great question of water supply, but the Railway Company aver that the eastern half of their grant is well watered by running streams, and that though in the western half there are longer intervals between the watercourses, ample supplies of this great necessary can be obtained at a depth of 15 to 50 feet below the surface, and it is only on the summit of the high divides that greater depth must be reached before water is struck. The employment of windmills is becoming pretty general.
Now as to the rainfall. Over such a large extent of territory, it is not to be wondered at that there should be a considerable difference in the averages. The Eastern Belt of Kansas has an average rainfall of 33 inches, the Centre Belt 25 inches, and the Western Belt 20 inches; the sufficiency of this rainfall depends upon the nature of the soil, a fact to be remembered and taken much to heart by every man who goes out to Kansas with a view to settling there, and his family. There is almost a menace in the words in which they are told by the local authorities, that deep ploughing, repeated harrowing, and frequent rolling are required for success, and that no State requires so high a standard of intelligence as Kansas. Slipshod farming is not profitable anywhere, least of all in Kansas; my friends of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway admit that there are people who, returning to the east, denounce the climate and the country which they could not understand or work; but take heart at the thought that they are the shiftless who are weeded out, and that pluck and intelligence are attracted and will prosper on a soil peculiarly suited for them.
Kansas was organised as a territory in 1854. It then contained 8000 people. In January 1861 it was admitted into the Union as a State, but the population at that time was not 110,000 souls. In the Civil War party spirit ran high, and the struggle between the Federals and Confederates was protracted and fierce. But the majority of the emigrants were the hardy and adventurous people of the North and North-west States, and these, notwithstanding the vicinity of the great slave States and their consequent influence, established their ascendency, and amongst the most valiant soldiers of the Union were the men of Kansas regiments, of whom it is said that 61 per cent. fell in battle.
On the establishment of the Federal Government, the increase of Kansas was rapid, and the development of the State in the last fifteen years is said to be unparalleled in the history of these lands of wondrous growth and progress, even when compared with the most rapid extension of the most prosperous of its western neighbours. The population increased from 136,000 in 1865, to 997,000 last year. Taxable property in the same time increased from $36,000,000 to $160,000,000; the taxation for State purposes from $217,000 to $884,000. The taxes which were $1 60c. in 1865, were not 89c. last year. The State debts had increased from $456,000 to $1,182,000; but the amount per head had fallen from $3 35c. to $1 18c. The assessed value of the State is 50 per cent. less than the real value. The total number of acres in the State was given at 52,000,000 some odd thousands; but there is a remarkable fact to be noticed, that of these only 22,000,000 and some odd thousands are returned as taxable. The wealth of the State per head is given at the very respectable figure of $323, which may be taken to be about 65l.; and the total value of farm products in 1879 was $81,000,000. There were 5000 school-houses; 7000 teachers in the State; the invested school fund amounted to $1,684,000, and the annual school fund to $303,000; and the estimated value of all unsold school lands to $13,000,000.
We are threatened over in the East with an extraordinary rush of cattle across the Atlantic, and from Kansas will come, should that menace be realised, which I do not believe, a very large share of the contribution to our food resources. The corn crop of the State yielded over 100,000,000 bushels in one year; but it is not so much what the value of that crop is, as the amount of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses it would feed, that the Kansas people consider. In 1880, however, the returns did not quite alarm one, although the increase in stock in fifteen years was very remarkable. There were 1,116,000 cattle; 1,282,000 pigs; 427,000 sheep; 368,000 horses, and 59,000 mules. The total value of the stock was estimated at something over 12,000,000l. Note, however, that there has been a failure in the grass crops of Mexico and Colorado, and that vast flocks of sheep were driven perforce from those regions into Western Kansas. I have heard from a good authority that it has been found that herds of cattle absolutely deteriorate the grass instead of enriching it, which is a phenomenon that requires explanation. With respect to sheep there appears to be more certainty. In some districts a threefold increase has taken place in the quantity of stock in one year. Generally, as to prices, there is but an increase of 5 per cent. over the cost of necessary articles in the East, in the large Kansas stores.
While the increase in the population of the United States for the last ten years has been about 1,000,000 per annum, the increase in that of Kansas has been 100,000 annually, or one-tenth of the entire increase of the forty-seven States and Territories of the Union. It is believed that when the next census is taken nine years hence, Kansas will be in the position of the fourth or fifth of the States in population and productiveness—yesterday an infant, to-day a giant. However, the giant is exposed to many sorts of trouble as he is attaining his development.
I fear to weary my readers more with figures, but any one who is interested in the actual condition of Kansas, and desirous of investigating the statistics connected with it, will have no difficulty in obtaining full information by applying to the Land Commissioner at Topeka, or to any officer of the United States Government connected with the land.
In order that emigrants may test with their own eyes as far as possible the reality of the statements made respecting these lands, tickets are issued, good for forty days, which may be obtained at all the railway offices in the United States. The holder must go in five days to the Arkansas Valley, and return from it in the same time, so that he will have thirty days to examine the country between Cottonwood and Dodge City; and if a purchase of 160 acres be made from the Company, the amount of the fare will be refunded, and half the fare if the emigrant buys eighty acres. Now as to the people who should come. The artisan looking for employment, the young man who desires to be a clerk, the farmer who has no capital, the man who wants to be rich in a few years without hard work—these are not wanted; there is no hope for them; nor is there for the man who has made a failure wherever he has tried to succeed; nor the agriculturist who sets out with a great stock of machinery under a heavy mortgage. But men and women who expect to meet drawbacks, and who are not discouraged, and not afraid to work; who know how to economise, and possess intelligence, judgment, and enterprise—these, and plenty of them, are wanted. So are people of capital. What is called a gritty farmer may start in a small way with 200l., but to give him a fair chance he ought to have at least double the money. A man with 1000l. can secure—mind, non mea sermo—a fine farm in South Central Kansas in a well-settled community, near schools and churches; put one-third of his capital into stock, and nothing short of mismanagement can prevent the realisation of 33 per cent. from his stock investment. The people who have got all these good things, moral and material, to start with, may do very well in other places. The remark upon that is, that they must succeed in Kansas.
I have seen too many evidences of wealth, natural and acquired, to doubt of the greatness of the future which is opening in the Far West to the citizens of the Republic; but I also have witnessed, even from the windows of a railway train, sufficient to make me aware of the great struggles which must be made by pioneers, and by the early colonists and settlers in these distant regions, before the conditions of civilised life be fulfilled. There can be no question of the severity and length of the winters, but then we were told on all sides, with a concurrent testimony that could not be disputed or doubted, that the exceeding dryness of the climate renders the most excessive cold of very much less actual consequence to the sufferer than it would be in a country where there is moisture in the air. In fact in these Prairie regions, when the thermometer is perhaps 15° or 20° below freezing point, the cold is not so severely felt as with us when it is only 2° or 3° below 32°.
The existence of insect plagues—bugs and beetles of all kinds, or at least many destructive species—the prevalence of drought, violent tornados, the sudden rising of great rivers, forest and grass fires, all and each present elements of insecurity for the harvest. It would seem that one of the most serious mischiefs which the early settler has to encounter—I do not speak of the Indians, who are only to be found in certain districts far away from the region of which I am writing—is the insufficiency of the capital with which most of them begin life. They think that when they have got a square of land they have an assured subsistence, but when they come to break it up and to procure seed and agricultural implements, in a country where labour is scarcely to be had even on exorbitant terms, they find that their little capital with which they commenced—the greater part of which was probably absorbed in the erection of the humble dwelling in which they are content to live at the beginning—is quite insufficient to meet their needs and to enable them to tide over the interval between their establishment on the land and the time when any reward can be reaped for their labour. They and their families must live; food must be bought; and so it is that among these outlying settlements there is one sure harvest to be reaped—that is, the gain of the money-lender, I will not say usurer, who advances on the security of the land sums for which he charges 10, 15 or 20 per cent. interest. Formerly the struggle was not so severe as it is now, because the land was more accessible, and speculators, whose operations have attracted unfavourable comment, had not come into possession; but now it will be very hard indeed to obtain at moderate rates any land on the great lines of railway of a superior quality, except at a high price; and the settler is obliged to go far afield, and to strike out into the country which has not been appropriated by the land-shark.