122 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



AGRICULTURE 02T THE PLAINS. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



IN the February number of The Popular 

 Science Monthly was published an arti- 

 cle, by Stuart 0. Henry, entitled Rainfall 

 on the Plains. Mr. Henry claims that the 

 rainfall on our plains has not increased to 

 any appreciable extent since the first settle- 

 ment ; and he says that the general impres- 

 sion that settlement and cultivation traveling 

 westward have been attended by a gradual 

 increase of rainfalls is a " remarkable falla- 

 cy." He concludes that agricultural opera- 

 tions can never be successfully carried on 

 west of a line about the ninety-eighth me- 

 ridian, and that attempts to utilize the regions 

 named for purely agricultural purposes, with- 

 out artificial irrigation, will only result in 

 calamitous failure. Mr. Henry makes the 

 statement that " the reports of the Kansas 

 and Nebraska Boards of Agriculture will 

 show that, in the territory lying west of the 

 ninety-eighth meridian in those States, the 

 acreage of land actually under cultivation, 

 when compared with the whole area of that 

 territory, is almost insignificant." After 

 seventeen years of residence in southwestern 

 Nebraska, near the one hundredth meridian, 

 I am convinced that Mr. Henry is correct as 

 to the absence of an increase of rainfall ; 

 but his conclusions are very erroneous, and 

 must have been formed without informa- 

 tion as to the great growth in wealth and 

 population in the region west of the ninety- 

 eighth meridian during the last ten years. 

 The statement that the cultivated land west 

 of the ninety-eighth meridian in Kansas and 

 Nebraska is insignificant when compared with 

 the whole area of that territory may have 

 been true ten years ago, but at the present 

 time it is far from the truth. The writer 

 believes that no increase of rainfall has ever 

 been necessary to fit the country named for 

 profitable farming, but that the rainfall has 

 always been sufficient, and that the obstacles 

 to farming that have existed resulted from 

 the newness of the country, rather than from 

 lack of rain, and that these obstacles are 

 gradually disappearing as the country settles 

 up, and will wholly disappear when the coun- 

 try becomes as densely settled as are the 

 States of Iowa and Illinois. 



Mr. Henry's gloomy statements seem like 

 an echo of predictions made by sundry scien- 

 tific gentlemen twenty years ago concerning 

 the plains of Kansas and Nebraska ; and he 

 might be aptly compared to a modern Rip 

 Van Winkle, who has just awakened after a 

 twenty years' sleep, ignorant of the wonderful 

 growth that the country west of the ninety- 

 eighth meridian has made. When he penned 

 the lines quoted, was he aware that Jewell 



County, Kansas, which lies west of the ninety- 

 eighth meridian, is the champion corn-pro- 

 ducing county in the Union ? Was he aware 

 that nearly one half of the wealth and pop- 

 ulation of the State of Nebraska is to be 

 found west of the ninety-eighth meridian? 

 The report of the Nebraska Board of Agri- 

 culture for the year 1889 has not been issued, 

 but we have the report for 1888. The crops 

 in Nebraska in 1888 were not as good as in 

 1889, nor was there as much ground in culti- 

 vation. I give below some statistics taken 

 from the report for 1888 making a compara- 

 tive statement of the amount of wheat, corn, 

 and potatoes raised east of the ninety-eighth 

 meridian and west of that meridian in the 

 State of Nebraska. It will be admitted by 

 all that wheat, corn, and potatoes require as 

 much moisture as do any farm products. It 

 must be borne in mind that many of the 

 western counties are very new and their capa- 

 bilities not developed ; but enough is shown 

 to completely disprove Mr. Henry's state- 

 ments. In the counties of Nebraska that lie 

 west of the ninety-eighth meridian there were 

 raised in 1888 of corn, wheat, and potatoes: 



Corn 52,847.469 bushels 



Wheat 7,038.688 " 



Potatoes 8,626,145 " 



In the counties in Nebraska lying east of 



the ninety-eighth meridian there were raised 



in 1888: 



Cora 93,379,370 bushels 



Wheat 4,876,190 " 



Potatoes 2,724,996 " 



It will thus be seen that the counties 

 west of the ninety-eighth meridian produced 

 about thirty-six per cent of all the corn, 

 about sixty per cent of all the wheat, and 

 about seventy-six per cent of all the pota- 

 toes that were raised in 1888 in Nebraska, 

 and as a matter of fact a good portion was 

 raised west of the one hundredth meridian. 

 Reference to the same report shows that in 

 1888 there were 2,611,33V acres of improved 

 land in the Nebraska counties lying west of 

 the ninety-eighth meridian. These statistics 

 clearly demonstrate that the improvements 

 there made are far from " insignificant," 

 and, could the statistics for 1889 be had, we 

 would, without doubt, have a still more en- 

 couraging showing. A. E. Harvey. 

 Orleans, Nebraska, March 26, 1890. 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS AS AFFECTING CRIME 

 AND VICE. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Under the above heading Mr. Reece 

 presented some statistics in The Popular 

 Science Monthly for January, apparently 

 showing a high and increasing per cent of 

 crime in those communities where there 



