2IO KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



but two or three hundred miles away, condensing all moisture from 

 the western winds; that the vast area of utterly arid region to the south- 

 west could send nothing but siroccos, was not appreciated. The 

 country so fair to look upon in the freshness of spring gave hopes 

 that were almost invariably doomed to disappointment in the Sahara- 

 like dryness of summer. But experience has brought its bitter lesson. 

 Very few now believe that the western third of Kansas can ever become 

 an agricultural country by present methods. Within the past few years 

 there has been an exodus unparalleled elsewhere, save in the similar 

 regions of Nebraska. Houses and claims by the thousand have been 

 abandoned, and whole villages, which but a few years ago were 

 bustling with activity, stand almost deserted and uninhabited. 



Unfortunately, in learning this lesson, there has been incredible 

 suffering, both on the part of the actual settlers and on the part of 

 many thousand others whose means have been wasted and who know 

 and remember Kansas only to curse it. Hundreds of thousands of 

 dollars have been sunk in this gigantic and almost useless experiment. 

 And much of the blame lies at the doors of those corporations and 

 those men who knew better, but who used the opportunity to enrich 

 themselves at the expense of the ignorant. 



With the western boom that gathered force in 1886 and 1887 

 settlers flocked into western Kansas, the most in good faith, and 

 located hundreds of thousands of acres of the high, dry uplands. 

 Rude houses were made, towns were built, often on an extravagant 

 scale, costly public buildings were erected, bonds were voted and 

 railroads constructed in doubtful or useless places, and nearly all 

 with the promise to pay. Real estate agents reaped a bountiful 

 harvest. Money was poured in by credulous eastern lenders, and 

 agents were bribed to be dishonest or imprudent by receiving a com- 

 mission on the money they loaned. In ignorance or cupidity they 

 vied with each other in loaning the most money. T.and rapidly 

 obtained a fictitious value and nearly every place was mortgaged, 

 often for many times what it is now worth. Numerous cases have 

 come within the writer's knowledge where land has been deliberately 

 abandoned after getting a mortgage loan upon it. He has also 

 known instances where the gift of land has been refused which a few 

 years ago could have been mortgaged for from three to five dollars an 

 acre. It is the mortgagees, usually persons of limited means, who 

 now own the larger part of much of this western land. They are 

 carrying the almost useless burden of taxation upon these unproductive 

 lands, in the hope that something will be retrieved from utter loss. 

 Only a few years ago a costly, extravagant court house was built in 

 Clark county from borids voted by men nearly all of whom owned no 



