History of Howard and Cooper counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages : together with a condensed history of Missouri, a reliable and detailed history of Howard and Cooper counties-- its pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens, general and local statistics of great value, incidents and reminiscences, Part 84

Author: National Historical Company
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1198

USA > Missouri > Cooper County > History of Howard and Cooper counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages : together with a condensed history of Missouri, a reliable and detailed history of Howard and Cooper counties-- its pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens, general and local statistics of great value, incidents and reminiscences > Part 84
USA > Missouri > Howard County > History of Howard and Cooper counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages : together with a condensed history of Missouri, a reliable and detailed history of Howard and Cooper counties-- its pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens, general and local statistics of great value, incidents and reminiscences > Part 84

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But a few years ago, much of the outlying commons was covered with a luxuriant growth of wild prairie grass, of which there were more than fifty varieties, all of more or less value for pasturage and hay. Nearly all the natural ranges are now enclosed and under trib- ute to the herdsmen, and it is safe to say that their native herbage will put more flesh on cattle, from the beginning of April to early autumn, than any of the domestic grasses. With the progress of settlement and cultivation, however, they are steadily disappearing before the tenacious and all-conquering blue grass, which is surely making the conquest of every rod of the county not under tribute to the plow. Blue grass is an indigenous growth here-many of the older and open woodland pastures rivaling the famous blue grass

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ranges of Kentucky, both in the luxuriance of their growth and the high quality of the herbage. Now and then one meets a Kentuckian so provincial in bis attachments and conceits that he can see nothing quite equal to the blue grass of old Bourbon county ; but the mass of impartial Kentuckians, who constitute a large per centum of the pop- ulation here, admit that the same care bestowed npon the blue grass fields of Kentucky gives equally fine results in Cooper county, whose blue grass ranges are certainly superior to any in Illinois. This splendid " king of grasses, " which, in this mild climate, makes a Inxuriant early spring and autumn growth, is appropriately supple- mented here by white clover, which is also " to the manor born ; " and on this mixture of alluvial, with the underlying siliceons marls and clays, makes a fine growth, especially in years of full moisture, and is a strong factor in the sum of local grazing wealth. With these two grasses, followed by orchard grass for winter grazing (orchard grass makes a very heavy growth here), the herdsmen of fortunate Cooper county have that most desirable of all stock-growing condi- tions -- perennial grazing - which, with the fine grades of stock kept here, means wealth for all classes of stock growers. There is another essential element of grazing resource here, and it is found in the splendid timothy meadows, which are equal to any in the Western Reserve or the Canadas. These meadows give a heavy growth of hay and seed, both of which are largely and profitably grown for export. Red clover is quite as much at home here as timothy, and its cultivation is being very successfully extended by all the better farmers for mixed. meadow pasturage and seed. Here, too, is found a luxuriant growth of herds' grass (red top), which, during the past summer, has made fine showing, the low, " swale " lands and ravines pre- senting grand, waving billows of herds' grass, almost as rich and rank of growth as the " blue stem " of the wild western prairie bot- toms. With this showing for the native and domestic grasses, it is al- most, needless to pronounce Cooper county a superb stock country.

With millions of bushels of corn grown at a cost of sixteen to eignteen cents per bushel ; an abundance of pure stock water and these matchless grasses ; the fine natural shelter afforded by the wooded valleys and ravines ; the superior facilities for cheap transportation to the great stock markets, the mildness and health of the climate, and the cheapness of the grazing lands, nothing pays so well or is so perfectly adapted to the country as stock husbandry. Cattle, sheep, swine, horse and mule raising and feeding are all pursued with profit in this county, the business, in good hands, paying net yearly returns

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

of twenty to forty per cent on the investment, many sheep growers realizing a much greater net profit.

Cattle growing and feeding, in connection with swine raising and feeding, is the leading industry of the county, leading all other depart- ments of husbandry by seventy-five per cent. High grade short- horns of model types, bred from the best beef-getting stock, are kept by most of the growers and feeders, the steers being grazed during the warm months, after which they are " full-fed " and turned off during the winter and spring, weighing from 1200 to 1700 pounds gross at two and three years old, the heavier animals going to European buyers. These steers are fed in conjunction with model Berkshire and Poland China pigs, which fatten perfectly on the droppings and litter of the feed yard and go into market, weighing 250 to 400 pounds at ten to fourteen months old. These steers and pigs are bred and grazed by the feeders of their grass and corn-grow- ing neighbors, and will average in quality and weight with the best grades fed in any of the older states.

Horse and mule raising is a favorite industry with many of the farmers, and has been pursued with profit for years, a large surplus of well-bred work horses and mules going mainly to the southern markets each year.

Sheep raising has for several years been a favorite and highly profitable branch of stock husbandry here, many growers realizing a net profit of forty to sixty per cent on the money invested in the busi- ness. The wool produced in 1880 amounted to 143,770 pounds. This county is remarkably well suited to sheep growing, the flocks inereas- ing rapidly and being generally free from disease. There are many small flocks that give a higher per cent of profit than the figures above given, but even the larger herds make a splendid showing. Merinos are mainly kept by the larger flockmasters, but the hundreds of smaller flocks, ranging from 40 to 300 each, are mainly Cotswolds and Dowus, the former predominating, and the wool clips running from five to nine pounds per capita of unwashed wool.

Sheep feeding is conducted with unusual profit here, the mild winters, cheap feed, large " stocky" class of wethers fed, and the very cheap transportation to the great mutton markets especially favoring the business,

The extent of the industry in this county is only measurably indi- cated by the United States census of live stock for 1880, which gives the county a total of 7,638 horses, 3,418 mules, 19,999 cattle, 19,942 sheep and 62,529 swine. This statement, which is unquestionably

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

fifteen to twenty per cent below the real number of animals kept in the county, shows a large increase over the report for 1870. The live stock exports of the county last year exceeded 1,500 car loads of fat cattle, sheep, swine, horses and mules, worth in the home market at present prices considerably more than $1,500,000, and yet the busi- ness is comparatively in its infancy, not more than half the stock growing resources of the county being yet developed.

Dairy farming might be very profitably pursued here, the grasses, water, and near market for first-class dairy products all favoring the business in high degree. In 1880 there were 263,278 pounds of butter made.

Cooper county comes very near to being a stock breeder's para- dise, the demand for all classes of well bred stock always being in excess of the supply. In former years the local growers have mostly depended upon the breeders of the older neighboring counties for their thoroughbred stock animals, but of late many fine short-horns have been brought in, and superior stock horses have been introduced, and there are a dozen of good breeders of sheep and swine, whose stock will rank with the best in the country.

Stock breeding, grazing and feeding under the favoring local con- ditions is the surest and most profitable business that can be pursued in the west, or for that matter, anywhere in " the wide, wide world." Not a single man of ordinary sense and business capacity in this country, that has followed the one work of raising and feeding his own stock, abjuring speculation, and sticking closely to the business, has (or ever will ) failed to make money. It beats wheat growing two to one, though the latter calling be pursued under the most favorable conditions in the best wheat regions. It beats speculation of every sort, for it is as sure as the rains and sunshine. What are stocks, bonds, " options," mining shares, merchandise, or traffic of any character beside these matchless and magnificent grasses that come of their own volition and are fed through all the ages by the eternal God, upon the rains and dews and imperishable soils of such a land as this? If the writer were questioned as to the noblest calling among men, outside of the ministry of " peace and good will," he would unhesitatingly point to the quiet and honorable pastoral life of these western herdsmen. Stock growing in Cooper county, as every- where, develops a race of royal men, and is the one absorbing, enter- taining occupation of the day and location. If it be eminently practical and profitable, so too, it is invested with a poetic charm. To grow the green, succulent, luxuriant grasses, develop the finest

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

lines of grace and beauty in animal conformation, tend one's herds and flocks on the green, fragrant range, live in an atmosphere of delicate sympathy with the higher forms and impulses of the animal life in one's care, and to be inspired by the higher sentiments and traditions of honorable breeding, is a life to be coveted by the best men of all lands. By the side of the herds and grasses and herdsmen of such a country as this, the men of the grain fields are nowhere. These men of the herds are leading a far more satisfactory life than the Hebrew shepherds led on the Assyrian hills in the old, dead centuries ; they tend their flocks and raise honest children in the sweet atmosphere of content. They are in peace with their neighbors, and look out upon a pastoral landscape as fair as ever graced the can- vas of Turner. The skies above them are as radiant as those above the Arno, and if the finer arts of the old land are little cultivated by the herdsmen of these peaceful valleys, they are yet devoted to the higher art of patient and honorable human living.

The lands are cheap, the location exceptionally fine and the other advantages over the older States so great that the question of competi- tion is all in favor of this country. This country is admirably suited to " mixed farming." The versatility and bounty of the soil, wide range of production, the competition between the railways and great rivers for the carrying trade and the nearness of the great markets, all favor the variety farmer. With a surplus of cattle, sheep, pigs, mules, horses, wool, wheat, eggs, poultry, fruit, dairy products, etc., he is master of the situation. The farmers of Cooper county live easier and cheaper than those of the older States. The labor bestowed upon forty acres in Ohio, New York or New England, will thoroughly cultivate one hundred acres of these richer, cleaner and more flexible soils. There is little foul growth, few stumps and no stones to im- pede the progress of the happy cultivator here, and the long, genial, friendly summers never hurry or confuse farm work. Animals re- quire less care and feed and mature earlier ; the home requires less fuel ; the fields are finely suited to improved machinery, and it is safe to say that the average Cooper county farmer gets through the real farm work of the year in one hundred and fifty days.

Nature is so prodigal in her gifts to man, that the tendency is to go slow and take the world easy. Nor is this at all wonderful in a country where generous Mother Nature does seventy per cent of the productive work, charitably leaving only thirty per cent for the brain and muscle of her sons. It is only natural that this condition of things tend to loose and unthrifty methods of farming, and that

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

the consequent waste of a half section of land here, would give a com- fortable support to a Connecticut or Canadian farmer. It is in evidence, however, from the experience of all thorough and systematic farmers here, that no region in America gives grander sections to good farming than this county. There is not one of all the thorough, systematic, rotative and deep cultivators of the country who has not and does not make money. No soils give a better account of themselves in skilled and thrifty hands than these, and it is greatly to their honor that they have yielded so much wealth under such indifferent treatment. These Cooper and Howard county lands will every time pay for them- selves under anything like decent treatment. They are near the centre of the great corn and blue grass area of the country, where agriculture has stood the test of half a century of unfailing production, where civ- ilization is surely and firmly founded on intellectual and refined society, schools, churches and railways, markets, mills and elegant homes. The lands of these two counties will nearly double in value during the next decade. Nothing short of material desolation can prevent such a result. Everywhere in the older States, there is more or less inquiry about Missouri lands, and all the indications point to a strong inflow of intelligent and well-to-do people from the older States. Does the reader ask why lands are so cheap under such fav- orable, material conditions? Well, the question is easily answered. Up to a recent date, little or nothing has been done by the people of the State to advertise to the world its manifold and magnificent re- sources. Still worse, Missouri has, for two decades, been under the ban of public prejudice throughout the north and east, the people of those sections believing Missourians to be a race of ignorant, inhos- pitable, proscriptive and intolerant bulldozers, who were inimical to northern immigration, enterprise and progress. Under this impres- sion, half a million immigrants have annually passed by this beauti- ful country, bound for the immigrants' Utopia, which is generally laid in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Texas. This mighty army of resolute men and women, with their wealth of gold, experience and courage, have been lost to a State of which they unfortunately knew little and cared to know less. Under such conditions, there has, of course, been a dearth of land buyers. Happily, Cooper and Howard counties have been advertised by their local newspapers, their enter- prising real estate men and other agencies, and have perhaps suffered less at the hands of ill-founded predudice than many other sections. It is the good fortune of this beautiful county to have a more cosmo- politan population than any other portion of the State, and this fact,

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

together with the enterprise of the people in advertising their local advantages and resources, has given it a larger inflow of immigration and new capital than has fallen to the lot of any purely agricultural county in central and north Missouri.

The people of Cooper county - nearly 22,000 strong - are as intelligent, refined and hospitable as those of Ohio or Michigan ; forty per cent of them hail from the old free states, the provinces and Europe, and a more tolerant, appreciative, chivalrous community never undertook the subjugation of a beautiful wilderness to noble human uses. We have passed a year and a half in northern and central Missouri, visiting the towns, looking into the industrial life of the people, inspecting the farms and herds, reviewing the schools and carefully watching the drift of popular feeling, and are pleased to affirm that there is nowhere in the union a more order-loving and law- respecting population than that of Cooper and Howard counties.

" The life they live " here is quite as refined and rational as any phase of the social and political life at the north. Whatever they did in the exciting and perilons years of the war, they are to-day as frank, liberal and cordial in their treatment of northern people, and as ready to appreciate and honor every good quality in them, as if they were " to the manor born." That they are tolerant and liberal is proven by the elevation of well known union soldiers to positions of honor and trust.

A strong union sentiment is everywhere apparent. Many persons were strong union democrats during the war, never swerving in their fealty to the union, and the old flag floats as proudly in central and north Missouri as in the shadows of Independence Hall. All parties are agreed that slavery is dead, and that its demise was a bless- ing to every prime interest of the country. There is not a man of character in the county who would restore the institution if he could. A good majority of the people of this county hail from Kentucky and Virginia, or are descended from Kentucky or Virginia families, and have the deliberation, frankness, good sense, admiration of fair play, reverence for woman and home, boundless home hospitality and strong self-respect, for which the average Kentuckian and Virginian is pro- verbial. They have a habit of minding their own business that is refreshing to see. The new comer is not catechised as to social ante- cedents or politics, but is estimated for what he is and does. They don't care where a man hails from, if he be sensible and honest. They take care of their credit as if it were their only stock in trade. When a man's word ceases to be as good as his bond, his credit, business

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

and standing are gone, and the loss of honorable prestige is not at all easy of recovery.

Sterling character finds as high appreciation here as in any coun- try of our knowledge. The visitor is impressed with the number of strong men - men who would take rank in the social, professional and business relations of any community in civilization. Cooper county has evidently drawn largely upon the best blood, brain and experi- ence of the older states. In every department of life may be found men of fine culture and large experience in the best ways of the world, and the stranger who comes here expecting to place the good people of this county in his shadow, will get the conceit effectually taken ont of him in about ninety days. They are not a race of barbarians, living a precarious sort of life in the bush, but a brave, magnanimous, intel- ligent people, who, if their average daily life be sternly realistic in the practical ways of home-building and bread-getting, have yet within and about them so much of the ideal that he is indeed a dull observer who sees not in their relations to the wealth of the grain fields and herds, and the poetry of the sweet pastoral landscape, a union of the real and ideal that is yet to make for them the perfect human life. They find ample time for the founding and fostering of schools, the love of books and flowers and art, a cultivation of the social graces, and the building of temples to the spiritual and ideal. Cooper county raises horses and mules and swine, fat steers, and the grain to feed the million, but is none the less a generous almoner of good gifts for her children. She has eighty-six free public schools for white and sixteen for colored children.

Public morals are guarded and fostered by the presence and in- fluence of fifty churches, representing nearly all the denominations, and are nowhere displayed to better advantage than in the general observance of the Sabbath, and in the honest financial administration of county affairs. There are no repudiators of the public credit and obligation here. Every public promise to pay is honored with prompt payment of principal and interest. They have in high measure that singular and inestimable virtue called popular conscience, and make it the inexorable rule of judgment and action in all public administra- tion. It is as unchangeable as the law of the Medes and Persians, and though public enterprise has impelled the expenditure of a great deal of money, large sums have also been voted for the building of railways, for county buildings and appointments, and for bridges, with a liberal expenditure for incidental nses, all within little more than a decade ; every dollar of county obligation has been paid at ma-

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

turity, nobody has had the hardihood to even talk repudiation, and happy, prosperous Cooper will soon be out of debt, and the last dollar of her bonded indebtedness will be promptly paid. Better still, she has surplus cash in her vaults to meet the current expenditures on public account, and her credit is as good as that of the nation itself.

It is clearly no injustice to other portions of Missouri to pro- nounce Cooper one of the model counties. She has an untarnished and enviable credit, excellent schools, light taxes, a brave, intelligent and progressive population, and presents a picture of material thrift which challenges the admiration of all. There are a score of men in the county worth from $30,000 to $500,000. Half a hundred more represent frou $20,000 to $50,000, and a large number from $15,000 to $20,000, while after these come a good sized army whose lands and personal estate will range from $10,000 to $15,000. This wealth is not in any sense speculative, for it has been mainly dug out of the soil, and, in a modest degree, represents the half developed capacity of the grasses and grain fields. It is not in the hands of any specu- lative or privileged class, but is well distributed over the county in lands, homes and herds. It is one of the pleasures of a life time to ride for days over this charming region of fine old homes, thrifty or- chards, green pastures and royal herds, and remember that the fortun- ate owners of these noble estates have liberal bank balances to their credit, and are well on the road to honorable opulence.

Many a reader of this report will be inclined to wonder if it is an over-colored sketch of the country and people, and ask for the shady side of the picture. " Are there no poor lands, poor farmers, or poor farming in Cooper county - nothing to criticise, grumble about or find fault with in the ways of the 22,000 people within the range of the letter? " Yes, there is a " shady side " to the picture, and it is easily and quickly sketched from life. The scarcity of farm labor is appa- rent to the most superficial observer. The negroes who did most of the farm labor under the old compulsory system have gone almost solidly into the towns, and are no longer a factor in the farm labor problem. The average farm hand has acquired the easy slip-shod habits of the slave labor system, and is at best a poor substitute. Four-fifths of the farmers undertake too much, expending in the most superficial way upon 200 or 400 acres the labor which would only well cultivate 100 acres, and the result is seen in shallow plowing, hurried seeding, slight cultivation, careless harvesting, loose stacking, waste- ful threshing and reckless waste in feeding. The equally reckless exposure of farm machinery in this county would bankrupt the entire

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

farm population of half a dozen New England counties in three sea- sons. The visitor in the country is always in sight of splendid reapers, mowers, seeders, cultivators, wagons and smaller implements, stand- ing in the swath, furrow, fence corner or yard where last used, and exposed to the storms and sunshine until the improvident owner needs them for further use.

The exposure of flocks and herds to the cold wet storms of the winter, without a thought of shelter, in a country where nature has bountifully provided the material for, and only trifling labor is re- quired to give ample protection, is a violation of the simplest rule of economy and that kindly human impulse that never fails to be moved by the sight of animal suffering. The astonishing waste of manures, by the villainous habit of burning great stacks of straw and leaving rich half century accumulations of manure to the caprice of the ele- ments, may be all right in bountiful old Missouri, but in the older eastern country would be prima facie evidence of the insanity of the land-owner who permitted the waste.

The waste of valuable timber is equally unaccountable, if not really appalling. While economists in the older lands are startled at the rapid approach of the timber famine, and are wondering where the timber supply is to come from a dozen years hence, the farmers of Cooper county, and all north Missouri, are splitting elegant young walnut and cherry trees into common rails to enclose lands worth ten dollars to twenty-five dollars per acre; cutting them into logs for cabins, pig troughs and sluiceways, and even putting them on the wood market in competition with cheap coals, complaining the while of the cost of walnut furniture bought from factories a thousand miles away.

There are too many big farms here for either the good of the over- tasked owners or the country. No man can thoroughly cultivate 600, 1,000 or 1,500 acres of land, any more than a country of homeless and landless tenants can be permanently prosperous ; and the sooner these broad, unwieldy estates are broken into small farms, and thoroughly cultivated by owners of the soil in fee simple, the better it will be for land values, schools, highways, society, agriculture, trade, and every vital interest of the country. Such a consummation would vastly add to the wealth and attractions of this beautiful and fertile region, giving it the graces of art, manifold fruits of production, and universal thrift that attend every country of proprietary small farmers. There is too much speculation and too little work for the benefit of farming or economic living. Everybody is trading with his neighbor in live

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Author: National Historical Company Publication date: 1883 Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co. Number of Pages: 1198

Author: National Historical Company
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1198