PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. Ill 



capacity and probable future of this most inviting agricultural 

 section on the continent of America. 



A large portion of Kansas is unsurpassed in fertility. It scared}^ 

 requires the rudest form of tillage to raise crops of nearly all kinds. 

 With appropriate care and moderate application of labor, however, 

 the capacity of the soil would be immense. Grapes and peaches 

 can be raised to any desired extent. My recollections of the gen- 

 eral character of the principal Avine regions of Europe, v/arrant mc 

 in predicting that a very large part of Kansas will yet become a 

 vast wine producing country. Lands in Kansas, rich as the most 

 ambitious farmer could desire, can be purchased for from five to 

 twenty-five dollars per acre, in the vicinity of cities, embryonic, to 

 be sure, when compared with those on the Atlantic seaboard, but 

 destined, at no very distant point of time, to become centres of 

 immense activity, population and wealth. Railroads are already 

 coursing in various directions over the beautiful prairies, and will, 

 beyond a doubt, wathiu a few years permeate all the States and 

 territories of the west. 



Yesterday I made an excursion into the country, thirty miles 

 from Omaha cit}^, to enjoy the spectacle of the virgin fields of 

 boundless extent which have never been disturbed by the plow or 

 the hoe. In fact a hoe may never be required. A farmer informed 

 me he raised fifty bushels of corn to the acre without ever med- 

 dling with the land after the seed had been dropped by a machine. 

 Everything which is required for the support of man or beast is 

 sought at the door of the producer, at good prices. Stock may 

 be raised almost w^ithout care. Cattle provide for themselves the 

 year round, as the buffaloes formerly did. All the Missouri steam- 

 ers are crowded with real or prospective imigrants and ti"aders ; 

 the incipient railroad lines are full, and hotels and all other dwell- 

 ings are made quite uncomfortable by the onward moving mass of 

 humanity. The gold mines beyond are magnets that are attracting 

 vast armies of miners, with their mule teams, in their direction. 

 Besides other inducements for leaving the over-stocked cities and 

 lands of the Atlantic States, coal, iron, lime and, in short, almost 

 every mineral invite the intelligent industry of man. If the Farm- 

 ers' club would lend its influence, how many impoverished, embar- 

 rassed and crippled landholders and laborers of the east might be 

 induced to move hither, and thus infinitely better their condition ! 

 Boys and girls from the various benevolent institutions would be 

 a blessing here, and grow up to be men and women under aupices 



