USA > Kansas > Sedgwick County > History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas, past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county, Vol. II > Part 20
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URGES GROWING OF ONIONS HERE.
The following interesting paper was read at the last meeting of the Sedgwick county horticultural society by Richard Wilson : "This paper is especially prepared for onion growers, and I would say that there should be a dozen or more onion growers in the county than there are now, and each one should harvest each year from 1,000 to 1,200 bushels of onions. I had a talk
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FRUIT RAISING IN SEDGWICK COUNTY
with the produce commission men of Wichita, and I found that they can take care of about nine carloads each season. If our members could find in their hearts to start and grow this quantity, this would mean for Wichita $19,000 a year increase in produc- tion. I see no reason why people will not take this important plant life into consideration, any more than many other crops. Any normal crop of onions will clear any man $400 per acre.
"I would advise the people to get their seed ready, for the season for sowing will soon be upon us. I find that the best time for sowing onion seeds is the first of April. Plow the soil evenly, then harrow it well, then go over it with a leveling board. Sow the seed with a drill in rows about twelve inches apart, and sow from seventy-five to eighty pounds per acre. Now comes the important part of weeding. Run the hoe through the patches three or four times during the season, and then hand-weed them all twice. Personally, I perfer boys to do my weeding I can get as good service out of boys during onion weed- ing as I can out of a man. I prefer feeding boys five times a day, as six hours is too long for any boy to work in the sun and drink cold water. If you want to see a pleasant smile on the face of mother's boy, take him a piece of pie and a drink of tea about 10 o'clock in the forenoon, and repeat the same about 3:30 in the afternoon.
"You can save lots of time and money by always keeping ahead of the weeds. Pull the onion sets as soon as they are large enough and before the tops die down too much. The rea- son why I mention onion sets only is because in this country they bring twice as much money as large onions. Any man who has any gumption can afford to buy ten acres of land and pay $200 per acre for it, and own the same in two years by putting three acres into onion sets and the other seven acres in other vegetables, as the onions sets will easily net him $1,000 per year. One onion set grower is getting the price of $1.75 per bushel. I have given you what I consider a fair setting forth of onion growing. Onions are something we can not do without, because they are good for the physicial system. They can make the hardest hearted people in Sedgwick county shed tears; they have a strong taste and a strong odor, and above all these, a strong money flavor. Much of the soil of Sedgwick county is adapted to the raising of onions."
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HISTORY OF SEDGWICK COUNTY
THE FROST METER IN SEDGWICK COUNTY.
Many people and among them many of our old settlers have grown sceptical about Sedgwick county being a successful fruit raising district. We have the trees and they are mature enough to bear, but the bloom comes so early that the trees are subject to the late frosts. This has been repeated so often that our people have largely lost faith in fruit prospects, but those who travel abroad have discovered that the successful fruit raisers of the Hood river country in Oregon, and the best fruit regions of Colorado and Washington, raise fruit each year and they do so by the simple device known as a frost meter. Each orchardist has a meter which is simply a thermometer, and it is usually set at 40 degrees ; when the mercury falls to this point, the little machine rings a bell, usually stationed at the head of the owner's bed, and thereupon the orchardist calls up his wife and children and with handy torches all prepared, the smudge pots scattered about the orchard are lighted and as a result the temperature is so regulated in the orchard that the fruit buds escape the frost and hence it follows that the fruit is saved. The smudge pots are loaded with crude oil, which is an inexpensive fuel for this purpose; the expenditure of a few dollars at the proper time has saved hundreds and thousands of dollars' worth of fruit in Sedgwick county. Enterprising orchardists like Frank Yaw, J. F. Fager, Albert Kuncle, Ed. Hoover, Ed. Cooley, Steve Balch and other well known fruit raisers in Sedgwick county, have this past spring adopted the smudge pot system and the result has been most satisfactory to them. This system has been in use for years in the Grand Junction (Colorado) orchards, and those people raise fruit each year. It is also a well known fact that the temperature in an orchard is the lowest about 4 a. m. Any system that will make the moisture into dew instead of frost saves the fruit. It has also been discovered by careful scientific tests that the velocity of the wind may be ten miles an hour outside of the orchard and only two miles per hour in the orchard; as the currents of air are being controlled, and as the weather is being foretold, and the rainfall predicted, so the coming of the frost and the fall of the temperature can be predicted to a nicety. Careful research, and the application of good judgment to the growing of fruit in Sedgwick county, will in my judgment make it an abundant success.
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FRUIT RAISING IN SEDGWICK COUNTY
KANSAS CROP FIGURES.
Sedgwick county, rich as it is in agriculture and all the other essentials of an independent and prosperous community, is but a small portion of the great commonwealth of Kansas, much of which is equally fertile and productive. In a large measure the prosperity of Wichita and Sedgwick county is due to this same thrifty and fortunate condition of the state as a whole, for into this city as a gateway to the markets of the world, pour the products of the farms and ranches in half a hundred counties, adding to the volume of business here and helping to enrich all concerned.
Some idea of the enormous crops of Kansas may be obtained from a report recently issued by F. D. Coburn, secretary of the state board of agriculture, regarding the products of Kansas farms during the past twenty years. This report shows that the farms of Kansas last year produced nearly one-third of a billion dollars' worth of crops and live stock. Counting the population of the state at two million, this gives each man, woman and child in the state $154 to add to their bank account for the year, just from the farms alone. Although in point of quantities pro- duced last year, the crop was not the greatest in the history of the state, the money value of it exceeded that of any other year's crop by thirty million dollars. The following table shows what Kansas did in the way of crop and stock raising last year :
Products.
Quantities.
Values.
Winter wheat, bushels
80,226,704
$ 75,338,255
Spring wheat, bushels.
732,036
602,935
Oats, bushels
23,588,220
10,254,230
Corn, bushels
147,005,120
83,066.905
Rye, bushels
355,807
256,491
Barley, bushels
3,786,455
1,724,530
Emmer ("speltz.") bushels
1,448,601
581,185
Buckwheat, bushels
4,187
4,148
Irish potatoes
7,026,896
5,008,739
Sweet potatoes, bushels.
553,228
461,219
Castor beans, bushels
90
90
Cotton, pounds
18,750
815
Flax, bushels
354,647
383,550
Hemp, pounds
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HISTORY OF SEDGWICK COUNTY
Tobacco, pounds
4,245
424
Broom corn, pounds .. ,
17,094,535
1,181,868
Millet and Hungarian, tons.
424,943
1,966,914
Sugar beets, tons
102,462
512,310
Sorghum
3,766,195
Milo maize, tons
202,328
959,259
Kafir corn, tons.
1,776,155
7,150,081
Jerusalem corn, tons
8,775
36,169
Tame hay, tons.
2,052,927
14,343,933
Prairie hay
1,497,793
7,456,781
Livestock products
88,624,467
Horticultural products, etc
3,856,672
Totals
$307,538,165
This table gives the aggregate values for the past twenty years.
Winter wheat
$ 759,708,739
Spring wheat
11,011,802
Corn
974,633,144
Oats
141,355,959
Rye
17,383,520
Barley
20,241,415
Emmer ("speltz")
1,018,792
Buckwheat
216,336
Irish potatoes
63,440,953
Sweet potatoes
5,457,298
Castor beans
932,623
Cotton
170,881
Flax
21,224,970
Hemp
35,359
Tobacco
166,980
Broom corn
12,118,736
Millet and Hungarian
40,072,206
Sugar beets
1,213,440
Sorghum
57,934,754
Milo maize
2,987,087
Kafir corn
84,142,755
Jerusalem corn
1,128,430
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FRUIT RAISING IN SEDGWICK COUNTY
Tame hay
123,476,100
Prairie hay
117,558,915
Livestock products
1,261,780,555
Horticultural products, etc.
43,858,574
Grand total
$3,763,270,323
Annual average
188,163,516
YIELDS, IN BUSHELS FOR TWENTY YEARS.
Wheat.
Years
Win. and Spr.
Corn.
1890
28,801,214
51,090,229
1891
58,550,653
139,363,991
1892
74,538,906
138,658,621
1893
24,827,523
118,624,369
1894.
28,205,700
66,952,833
1895
16,001,060
201,457,396
1896
27,754,888
221,419,414
1897
51,026,604
152,140,993
1898
60,790,661
126,999,132
1899
43,687,013
225,183,432
1900
77,339,091
134,523,677
1901.
90,333,095
42,605,672
1902
54,649,236
201,367,102
1903
94,041,902
169,359,769
1904
65,141,629
132,021,774
1905
77,178,177
190,519,593
1906
93,292,980
187,021,214
1907
74,155,695
145,288,326
1908
76,808,922
150,640,516
1909
80,958,740
147,005,120
Totals
1,198,083,689
2,942,234,173
Yearly averages
59,904,184
147,112,158
Years.
Rye.
Oats.
1890
2,274,879
29,175,582
1891
5,443,030
39,904,443
1892
4,042,613
43,722,484
1893
1,063,019
28,194,717
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HISTORY OF SEDGWICK COUNTY
1894
978,658
18,385,469
1895
1,655,713
31,664,748
1896.
998,897
19,314,772
1897
1,661,662
23,431,273
1898
2,153,050
21,702,537
1899
1,754,406
26,046,773
1900
1,945,026
31,169,982
1901
2,955,065
20,806,329
1902
3,728,296
32,966,114
1903
2,962,392
28,025,729
1904
1,110,378
21,819,257
1905.
1,114,390
29,962,987
1906
711,118
25,560,919
1907
353,417
14,104,194
1908
361,476
16,707,979
1909
355,807
25,588,220
Totals.
37,623,292
529,254,508
Yearly averages
1,881,164
26,462,725
CHAPTER LI.
NATIVE FOREST TREES OF THE STATE OF KANSAS.
By G. W. COLLINGS, PRESIDENT OF THE SEDGWICK COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.
4
(Paper read before society.)
Mrs. Partington said that her husband knew all about hogs, because he had been brought up among them. By the same kind of reasoning I ought to know all about forest trees, because I was born and brought up in a country that was covered with forest trees. A great part of my early life was devoted to de- stroying forest trees and clearing the land of the trees so that it could be utilized for the growing of crops. We had too many trees. Trees were everywhere. Indeed I never saw an acre of prairie land until I was grown. When I was a boy I knew at sight all the trees that grew in the vicinity, and could give the names (the local names) of all of them. I could not do that now. But these were not the native trees of Kansas. About the Kansas native trees I do not know much. During the time that I have lived in Kansas my attention has not been especially directed to the trees. I have not been engaged in any business that called for any knowledge of the native trees. My travels over the state have been limited and so have had very little opportunity of observing the native trees even if my attention had been directed to them. From 1867 to 1870 I lived in the northeastern part of the state, in Brown and Nemaha counties. I know that native forest trees were at that time much more plentiful in that part of the state than they have ever been in this vicinity. I had a sister who came with her family to Brown county in 1858. I ar- rived there on the fifth day of July, 1867, and worked on the farm for my brother-in-law until time to begin the district school which I taught that fall and winter. A part of the work that I helped
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HISTORY OF SEDGWICK COUNTY
to do was to build a fence around a large pasture. The wire fence had not come into general use at that time and we built the fence of rails-not the old fashioned rail worm fence that I had been used to in Indiana, but we put in posts and nailed the rails to them. The rails used were oak rails which my brother- in-law bought of the Kickapoo Indians, his farm being near the Kickapoo reserve. At that time the Kickapoos were making a considerable quantity of rails to sell to the farmers. The rails were fairly good ones but of what variety of oak they were made I do not now know. A nephew of mine helped to make that fence. He is still living in that vicinity. He has been a farmer and land owner and has had a good deal to do with "The Native For- est Trees" Thinking that he would be able to give me some in- formation on the subject I wrote to him. In answer he says, in part : "First, I will say that forty-five years ago the residents of this part of the country did a good deal of work to protect the timber from prairie fires, thinking that as the country settled up the timber would become very valuable, but the expectations did not materialize; largely on account of the introduction of barbed wire. Now in the last twenty years the people have been getting rid of their timber. As land advanced in value they do not consider the timber a paying proposition. The more valuable kinds, such as black walnut, burr oak and white oak, have become very scarce, except in occasional groves of small young trees, that are not large enough to be of any value, except where poles can be used.
"As to the varieties : We have the white or water elm, red elm, black oak, some ash, a few sycamore, linn or basswood, cotton wood, box elder, honey locust, hackberry, white and shell bark hickory. I have two small groves of iron wood. I would say that not many cottonwoods or elms that are good enough to make lumber of are left, so that nearly all the timber that is left is only fit for fuel or some temporary work. As to the value of timber I do not know what to say. I do not think that any good culti- vating land with timber on it adds anything to the value of the land." I will add that during my residence in that part of the state I saw growing on the hills along one of the streams a large number of some kind of an evergreen. What particular variety I do not know. They were mostly small, many of them very small. I also saw growing there in the creek bottom quite a number of pawpaws, and in the forests two or three varieties
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NATIVE FOREST TREES
of haws and some wild plums-not the sand plum of this part of the state, but a very handsome tree bearing a very excellent red plum. A grandson of the sister that I speak of and who was born and raised in that part of the state has been for some years in the lumber business in Leavenworth. I also wrote him for information about Kansas ยท forest trees. Here is a part of his answer:
"In the part of the state in which I was raised the following constitute the principal native trees, and are given, the most plentiful first and so on down to those which are scarcer: oak, black and white; hickory, at least two kinds, one commonly called pig-nut, growing a small smooth surface, bitter meated nut, not good for anything that I know of; the other shell-bark, so called because of the shelly bark to distinguish it from the smooth barked pig-nut species, and is the one which bears the small hickory nuts which are so good to eat, but so small and hard to get out of the shells. Black walnut and eln, red and white, come next in quantity. Then you would find more or less scattered in various parts of the state a few sycamores, hack- berry, mulberry, wild cherry, cottonwood, box elder; and in this vicinity where I am now living there are occasionally a persimmon tree and a very few pecans. There is also another variety of oak known as the burr oak. This is the kind that has the big acorns and is such excellent post timber. Of coure, none of these appear in commercial quantities or sizes, although locally there is cut into lumber a little of the oak, elm, sycamore and walnut for farm building of sheds, etc. The walnut is the most valuable of them all and sells readily if found of any size, and in any quantity.
"The catalpa is being grown somewhat in some parts of the state commercially for ties and posts but so far as I know it does not appear as a natural forest tree, all that I have seen being put out by the hand of man.
"The matter of forest trees getting distributed over a treeless country presents a study in itself. There are many curious and strange, wonderful and interesting facts about it. In considering the matter we must premise that every tree that starts into life must start from a seed. But where do the seeds come from? I have seen an old cottonwood standing on a high point on the brink of a canon in Comanche county, standing alone, old and gnarled and knotty as if it was one of the old guard standing
-
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HISTORY OF SEDGWICK COUNTY
as a sentinel on the outpost of civilization. How did the seed get there from which it grew? It is true that nature has provided a means for the distribution of forest tree seeds, as well as other seeds, in the arrangement of the seed itself making it easily carried by the wind. We can thus see how seeds are distributed for short distances around the parent tree, but when the distance becomes hundreds of miles we are puzzled."
In 1884 I took up a pre-emption claim in Comanche county. There was a company of about a dozen of us that went together. My claim was located forty-five miles due south of Kinsley. Kinsley was our nearest railroad point and from there we pro- cured our supplies. At first we followed a trail around by Greens- burg, but this took us six or eight miles too far east, so we conceived the idea of making a trail of our own straight across the prairie to Kinsley. In the company was a young man who was a civil engineer. He procured a transit and one morning early a number of us met by previous agreement and proceeded to make the trail. The engineer got on a section line and with the assistance of the necessary flagmen started to run a line due north ; I followed him with a plow and we ran a furrow out across the prairie about twenty miles. Another man came along with a wagon to carry the lunch and other supplies and to furnish a way for us all to ride back when the work was done. All day, along that entire distance, was not a settler in sight. Now I am coming to the point. You all know that on an unsettled and an uncultivated prairie, the kinds of weeds that grow on culti- vated land are not found. I passed along this trail the next summer after it was made and found growing on the soil that had been turned out by the plow the entire length of the trail the same kind of weeds that grow on cultivated land, but you would seek in vain for one of them anywhere else on the prairie. Where did the seed come from? And how did they get there? When I went to my brother-in-law's place, as already stated, in 1867, there was a bit of ground-probably two acres-that sloped down towards the creek, and that was covered over about as thick as they could grow with hickory sprouts from six inches to five or six feet high, There were no hickory trees of a nut bearing size in the vicinity. I did not think anything about it then, but when I think of it now I wonder where the seed came from and how they got there, that started those sprouts. And when I wrote to my nephew, a part of whose letter I have given you, among other
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NATIVE FOREST TREES
things I asked him was in regard to these sprouts, and here is his answer:
"In reply to your last question, I will say that I do not know how the little trees that you speak of got started. They probably started a good many years prior to the time you speak of. They were burned off most every year by prairie fires until settlers provided fire guards to protect the young timber. The ground where they grew was full of large roots making it very difficult to grub and get in shape to plow. Those same bushes you speak of, where they have been let alone, are now thirty to forty feet high; and from six to ten inches in diameter."
We have recently been reading and hearing a good deal about forestry. Forestry has to do with the matter of growing and caring for forests-growing timber. Of late years the United States government has had a department of forestry and much attention has been given to the subject. Many of the states have departments of forestry. Kansas has two forestry stations, one at Dodge City and one at Ogallah. I know very little what they are doing, but from the little that I know I have formed the idea that they are inefficient and are doing very little. A few years ago a few of the people of the United States were awakened to the fact that our timber supply was being rapidly exhausted and that at present rates it would be but a few years until we would have no timber. I recently read a statement in some gov- ernment publication to the effect that the timber of the United States was being used twice as fast as it was being produced, and that the supply ahead would not last at the present rate more than twenty-five or thirty years. If any of you have been building you doubtless are painfully aware of the fact that the price of lumber has been soaring skyward. The great part that timber plays in our civilization, its use for building, for rail- road ties, for telegraph and telephone poles and for making of paper, and for the hundred and one other things for which it seems indispensable gives to the subject of forestry the greatest importance. It is something in which every citizen has a vital interest, and an interest that will grow as the years go by. We must either devise a plan to get along without timber, or we must devise a plan by which the increase of timber will keep pace with the amount used. We who have been brought up in the forest have a real veneration for forest trees.
A long time ago I went to see the play of "Rip Van Winkle,"
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HISTORY OF SEDGWICK COUNTY
and have ever since gone to see it whenever it comes around. You all know Rip Van Winkle as the drunken vagabond of the Katskills. After forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, his wife drives him out into a storm one night and he staggers off in his drunken way and is next seen in a splendid forest up in the mountains. The stage scenery shows the forest trees that sur- round him magnificently. He is sobered now. He looks around and recognizes the trees. He takes off his old and torn hat and bows to them, saying: "Here are my old friends. They do not drive me away! How are ye, old fellers!" And seeing his ven- eration for the trees you forget that he is a worthless, drunken vagabond.
CHAPTER LII.
THE LIVE STOCK INTERESTS OF THE INTERIOR WEST.
By THE EDITOR.
The herding of that now almost extinct animal, the American buffalo, in countless thousands upon the great plains of the West, and the growth of the most nourishing and nutritious grasses, led the first ventursome cattlemen to range their herds over portions of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas and the Indian Territory.
The valleys of the Platte, the Blue, the Republican, the Kaw, the Saline, the Smoky Hill, the Arkansas, the Cimaron, the Canadians and the Red rivers, with their tributary streams in Nebraska, Kansas and the Indian Territory, furnish as fine natural feeding ground for cattle as exist in the West.
The Indian warrior of the past, standing upon the banks of the softly flowing river, noted its countless herds of fat buffalo and saw no discontent for himself or his tribe. He was the original cattleman. His herd was a little wild, but it supplied his needs, and the market never worried him. He had never heard of the Big Four, or of any beef combine. When he wanted meat an arrow drawn to the very notch did the work, and his stock fed and watered itself. The fact that certain prairies of the great West were for years the favorite feeding ground of the buffalo, made them the favorite pasture field for the American steer.
The buffalo passed away, the Texas steer came with his slab- sides and his broad horns ; later came his half brother, a rounder, smoother, better favored animal. Closely following the intro- duction of the steer upon the prairies of the Great West, came the hog, ill favored at first, with a razor-back and a long snout, now a round, favored animal, a cross of the Berkshire, Poland China, and Chester White varieties and an animal which fattens rapidly. The western hog and the western steer go to market side by side, and often in the same car.
681
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HISTORY OF SEDGWICK COUNTY
As the western country was settled and opened out to culti- vation, at first grain growing was the fashion. It soon dawned, however, upon the western farmer, that the proper way to market his grain was upon the hoof. The successful farmer in the West is the man who feeds his grain to his own hogs and cattle, and thus takes it to market in the shape of fat hogs and cattle. Only such farming succeeds in the West. The farmer who has closely followed this rule has no mortgage on his farm.
From a small beginning this interest has finally grown to immense proportions. It is now a cause of wonder to the average Eastern man where all of the cattle and hogs come from. Take up any of the great daily newspapers and scan the market reports concerning the movement of live stock: One is astonished.
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