Kansas is an agricultural State. It has no gold or silver, no iron, and
just coal enough to furnish fuel. It is the farmers’ and stockmen’s
State. Its development simply shows what good old Mother Earth, when in
her happiest vein, can do. “Agriculture,” says Colton, “is the most
certain source of strength, wealth, and independence; commerce, in all
emergencies, looks to agriculture both for defense and for supply.” The
growth and prosperity of Kansas afford a striking illustration of what
intelligent farmers, with a productive soil and a genial climate for
their workshop, can accomplish—what wealth they can create, what
enterprise they can stimulate.
It is difficult, however, to comprehend what the figures I have given,
showing the amounts and values of Kansas products, really represent.
When we read that Kansas produced, last year, 194,130,000 bushels of
corn, the nine figures set down do not convey any adequate idea of the
bulk and weight of this crop. But when it is stated that the corn crop
of Kansas for 1885 would fill 485,000 freight cars, and load a train
2,847 miles long—reaching from Ogden, Utah, to Boston—we begin to
comprehend what the figures stand for.
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.