The soil of the upland prairies is generally a deep rich clay loam of a dark colour. The bottom lands near the streams are a black sandy loam; and the intermediate lands, or “second bottoms,” show a rich and deep black loam, containing very little sand. These soils are all easily cultivated, free from stones, and exceedingly productive. There are exceptional spots on the upland prairies composed of stiff clay, not as easily cultivated, but very productive when properly managed and enriched. The south-west section is distinctively sandy.
Agriculture.—The United States Census of 1900 shows that of the farming area of the state in 1900 (41,662,970 acres, 79.6% of the total area), 60.1% was “improved.” The value of all farm property was $864,100,286—of which land and improvements (including buildings), livestock and implements and machinery represented respectively 74.5, 22.1 and 3.4%. Almost nine-tenths of all farms derived their principal income from livestock or hay and grain, these two sources being about equally important. Of the total value of farm products in 1899 ($209,895,542), crops represented 53.7, animal products 45.9 and forest products only 0.4%. In 1899 the wheat crop was 38,778,450 bushels, being less than that of Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio or South Dakota. According to the Year Book of the United States Department of Agriculture, the crop in 1906 was 81,830,611 bushels, almost one-ninth of the crop of the entire country for that year, and much more than the crop of any other state. In 1909 it was 87,203,000 bushels (less than the crops of either Minnesota or North Dakota). Winter wheat constitutes almost the entire output. The hard varieties rank in the flour market with the finest Minnesota wheat. The wheat belt crosses the state from north to south in its central third. Greater even than wheat in absolute output, though not relatively to the output of other states, is Indian corn. In 1906 the crop was 195,075,000 bushels, and in 1909 it was 154,225,000. The crop is very variable, according to seasons and prospective markets; ranging e.g. in the decade 1892-1901 from 42.6 (1901) to 225.1 (1899) million bushels. The Indian corn belt is mainly in the eastern third of the state. In the five years 1896-1900 the combined value of the crops of Indian corn and wheat exceeded the value of the same crops in any other state of the Union (Illinois being a close second). In the western third irrigation has been tried, in the earlier years unsuccessfully; in all Kansas, in 1899, there were 23,620 acres irrigated, of which 8939 were in Finney and 7071 in Kearney county. In this western third the rainfall is insufficient for Indian corn; but Kafir corn, an exceptional drought-resisting cereal, has made extraordinary progress in this region, and indeed generally over the state, since 1893, its acreage increasing 416.1% in the decade 1895-1904. With the saccharine variety of sorghum, which increased greatly in the same period, this grain is replacing Indian corn. Oats are the third great cereal crop, the yield being 24,780,000 bushels in 1906 and 27,185,000 in 1909. Alfalfa showed an increased acreage in 1895-1904 of 310.8%; it is valuable in the west for the same qualities as the Kafir corn. The hay crop in 1909 was 2,652,000 tons. Alfalfa, the Japanese soy bean and the wheat fields—which furnish the finest of pasture in the early spring and ordinarily well into the winter season—are the props of a prosperous dairy industry. In the early ’eighties the organization of creameries and cheese factories began in the county-seats; they depended upon gathered cream. About 1889 separators and the whole-milk system were introduced, and about the same time began the service of refrigerator cars on the railways; the hand separator became common about 1901. Western Kansas is the dairy country. Its great ranges, whose insufficient rainfall makes impossible the certain, and therefore the profitable, cultivation of cereals, or other settled agriculture, lend themselves with profit to stock and dairy farming. Dairy products increased 60.6% in value from 1895 to 1904, amounting in the latter year to $16,420,095. This value was almost equalled by that of eggs and poultry ($14,050,727), which increased 79.7% in the same decade. The livestock interest is stimulated by the enormous demand for beef-cattle at Kansas City.
Sugar-beet culture was tried in the years following 1890 with indifferent success until the introduction of bounties in 1901. It has extended along the Arkansas valley from the Colorado beet district and into the north-western counties. There is a large beet-sugar factory at Garden City, Finney county. Experiments have been made unsuccessfully in sugar cane (1885) and silk culture (1885 seq.). The bright climate and pure atmosphere are admirably adapted to the growth of the apple, pear, peach, plum, grape and cherry. The smaller fruits also, with scarce an exception, flourish finely. The fruit product of Kansas ($2,431,773 in 1899) is not, however, as yet particularly notable when compared with that of various other states.
According to the estimates of the state department of agriculture, of the total value of all agricultural products in the twenty years 1885-1904 ($3,078,999,855), Indian corn and wheat together represented more than two-fifths (821.3 and 518.1 million dollars respectively), and livestock products nearly one-third (1024.9 millions). The aggregate value of all agricultural products in 1903-1904 was $754,954,208.
Minerals.—In the east portion of the state are immense beds of bituminous coal, often at shallow depths or cropping out on the surface. In 1907 more than 95% of the coal came from Crawford, Cherokee, Leavenworth and Osage counties, and about 91.5% from the first two. The total value of the production of coal in 1905 (6,423,979 tons) was $9,350,542, and in 1908 (6,245,508 tons) $9,292,222. In the central portion, which belongs to the Triassic formation, magnesian limestone, ferruginous sandstone and gypsum are representative rocks. Gypsum (in beautiful crystalline form) is found in an almost continuous bed across the state running north-east and south-west with three principal areas, the northern in Marshall county, the central in Dickinson and Saline counties, and the southern (the heaviest, being 3 to 40 ft. thick) in Barber and Comanche counties. The product in 1908 was valued at $281,339. Magnesian limestone, or dolomite, is especially plentiful along the Blue, Republican and Neosho rivers and their tributaries. This beautiful stone, resembling white, grey and cream-coloured marble, is exceedingly useful for building purposes. It crops out in the bluffs in endless quantities, and is easily worked. The stone resources of the state are largely, but by no means exclusively, confined to the central part. There are marbles in Osage and other counties, shell marble in Montgomery county, white limestone in Chase county, a valuable bandera flagstone and hydraulic cement rock near Fort Scott, &c. The limestones produced in 1908 were valued at $403,176 and the sandstones at $67,950. In the central region salt is produced in immense quantities, within a great north to south belt about Hutchinson. The beds, which are exploited by the brine method at Hutchinson, at Ellsworth (Ellsworth county), at Anthony (Harper county) and at Sterling (Rice county), lie from 400 to 1200 ft. underground, and are in places as much as 350 ft. thick and 99% pure. At Kanopolis in Ellsworth county, at Lyons in Rice county and at Kingman, Kingman county, the salt is mined and sold as rock-salt. In the south-west salt is found in beds and dry incrustations, varying in thickness from a few inches to 2 ft. The total product from 1880-1899 was valued at $5,538,855; the product of 1908 (when Kansas ranked fourth among the states producing salt) was valued at $882,984. The development has been mainly since 1887 at Hutchinson and since about 1890 in the rock-salt mines. In the west portion of the state, which belongs to the Cretaceous formation, chalks and a species of native quicklime are very prominent in the river bluffs. The white and cream-coloured chalks are much used for building purposes, but the blue is usually too soft for exposure to the weather. The quicklime as quarried from the bluffs slakes perfectly, and with sand makes a fairly good mortar, without calcination or other previous preparation. The lignite found near the Colorado line makes a valuable domestic fuel.
Natural gas, oil, zinc and lead have been discovered in south-east Kansas and have given that section an extraordinary growth and prosperity. Indications of gas were found about the time of the Civil War, but only in the early ’seventies were they recognized as unmistakable, and they were not successfully developed until the ’eighties. Iola, in Allen county, is the centre of the field, and the gas yields heat, light, and a cheap fuel for smelters, cement-works and other manufacturing plants throughout a large region. The pools lie from 400 to 950 ft. below the surface; some wells have been drilled 1500 ft. deep. The value of the natural gas produced in the state was $15,873 in 1889, $2,261,836 in 1905 and $7,691,587 in 1908, when there were 1917 producing wells, and Kansas ranked fourth of the states of the United States in the value of the natural gas product, being surpassed by Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Petroleum was discovered about 1865 in Miami and Bourbon counties, and about 1892 at Neodesha, Wilson county. There was only slight commercial exploitation before 1900. The production increased from 74,714 barrels in that year to 4,250,779 in 1904; in 1908 it was 1,801,781 barrels. Chanute has been the most active centre of production. The field was prospected here in the ’nineties, but developed only after 1900. In 1877 an immense deposit of lead was discovered on land now within the limits of Galena. Rich zinc blendes were at first thrown away among the by-products of the lead mines. After the discovery of their true nature there was a slow development, and at the end of the century a notable boom in the fields. From 1876 to 1897 the total value of the output of the Galena field was between $25,000,000 and $26,000,000; but at present Kansas is far more important as a smelter than as a miner of zinc and lead, and in 1906 58% of all spelter produced in the United States came from smelters in Kansas. In 1908 the mines’ output was 2293 tons of lead valued at $192,612 and 8628 tons of zinc valued at $811,032. Pottery, fire, ochre and brick clays are abundant, the first two mainly in the eastern part of the state. Coffeyville has large vitrified brick interests. In 1908 the total value of all the mineral products (incompletely reported) of Kansas was $26,162,213.
Industry and Trade.—Manufactures are not characteristic of the state. The rank of the state in manufactures in 1900 was sixteenth and in farm products seventh in the Union. The value of the manufactured product in 1900, according to the Twelfth United States Census, was $172,129,398, an increase of 56.2% over the output of 1890; of this total value, the part representing establishments under the “factory system” was $154,008,544,[2] and in 1905 the value of the factory product was $198,244,992, an increase of 28.7%. Kansas City, Topeka, Wichita, Leavenworth and Atchison were the only cities which had manufactures whose gross product was valued in 1905 at more than $3,000,000 each; their joint product was valued at $126,515,804, and that of Kansas City alone was $96,473,050, almost half the output of the state. The most important manufacturing industry, both in 1900 and in 1905, was slaughtering and meat-packing—for which Kansas City is the second centre of the country—with a product for the state valued at $77,411,883 in 1900, and $96,375,639 in 1905; in both these years the value of the product of Kansas was exceeded only by that of Illinois. The flour and grist mill industry ranked next, with a product valued at $21,328,747 in 1900 and nearly twice that amount, $42,034,019, in 1905. In 1900 a quarter of the wheat crop was handled by the mills of the state. Lesser manufacturing interests are railway shop construction (value in 1905, $11,521,144); zinc smelting and refining (value in 1905, $10,999,468); the manufacture of cheese, butter and condensed milk (value in 1905, $3,946,349); and of foundry and machine shop products (value in 1905, $3,756,825).
Communications.—Kansas is excellently provided with railways, with an aggregate length in January 1909 of 8914.77 m. (in 1870, 1880, 1890 respectively, 1,501, 3,244 and 8,710 m.). The most important systems are the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Union Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the St Louis & San Francisco systems. The first train entered Kansas on the Union Pacific in 1860. During the following decade the lines of the Missouri Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and the Santa Fé were well under construction. These roads give excellent connexions with Chicago, the Gulf and the Pacific. Kansas has an eastern river front of 150 m. on the Missouri, which is navigable for steamboats of good size. The internal rivers of the state are not utilized for commercial purposes.
Population.—In population Kansas ranked in 1900 and 1910 (1,690,949) twenty-second in the Union. The decennial increases of population from 1860 to 1900 were 239.9, 173.4, 43.3 and 3.0%, the population in 1900 being 1,470,495, or 18 to the sq. m.[3] Of this number 22.5% lived in cities of 2500 or more inhabitants. Nine cities numbered more than 10,000 inhabitants: Kansas City (51,418), Topeka—the state capital (33,608), Wichita (24,671), Leavenworth (20,735), Atchison (15,722), Lawrence—the seat of the state university (10,862), Fort Scott (10,322), Galena (10,155) and Pittsburg (10,112). The life of all of these save the last two goes back to Territorial days; but the importance of Fort Scott, like that of Galena and Pittsburg, is due to the development of the mineral counties in the south-east. Other cities of above 5000 inhabitants were Hutchinson (9379), Emporia (8223), Parsons (7682), Ottawa (6934), Newton (6208), Arkansas City (6140), Salina (6074), Argentine (5878) and Iola (5791). The number of negroes (3.5%) is somewhat large for a northern and western state. This is largely owing to an exodus of coloured people from the South in 1878-1880, at a time when their condition was an unusually hard one: an exodus turned mainly toward Kansas. The population is very largely American-born (91.4% in 1900; 47.1% being natives of Kansas). Germans, British, Scandinavians and Russians constitute the bulk of the foreign-born. The west third of the state is comparatively scantily populated, owing to its aridity. In the ’seventies, after a succession of wet seasons, and again in the ’eighties, settlement was pushed far westward, beyond the limits of safe agriculture, but hundreds of settlers—and indeed many entire communities—were literally starved out by the recurrence of droughts. Irrigation has made a surer future for limited areas, however, and the introduction of drought-resisting crops and the substitution of dairy and livestock interests in the place of agriculture have brightened the outlook in the western counties, whose population increased rapidly after 1900. The early ’eighties were made notable by a tremendous “boom” in real estate, rural and urban, throughout the commonwealth. As regards the distribution of religious sects, in 1906 there were 458,190 communicants of all denominations, and of this number 121,208 were Methodists (108,097 being Methodist Episcopalians of the Northern Church), 93,195 were Roman Catholics, 46,299 were Baptists (34,975 being members of the Northern Baptist Convention and 10,011 of the National (Colored) Baptist Convention), 40,765 were Presbyterians (33,465 being members of the Northern Church) and 40,356 were Disciples of Christ. The German-Russian Mennonites, whose immigration became notable about 1874, furnished at first many examples of communal economy, but these were later abandoned. In 1906 the total number of Mennonites was 7445, of whom 3581 were members of the General Conference of Mennonites of North America, 1825 belonged to the Schellenberger Brüder-gemeinde, and the others were distributed among seven other sects.