MARCH 3 
Various. 
FORT SCOTT KANSAS. 
It" Agricultural Circle and Its Unmoral Ad- 
TantaKPs for tlie Influx of all Kinds of 
Maiiiifacturinir. Bourbon County. 
MESSRS. HOLMES AND SWEETLAND. 
[Special Correspondents of the Rural New-Yorker. 1 
There is no State in the Union that has 
reason to feel prouder of its agricultural aud 
horticultural achievements tor the present year 
than Kansas. The reports for the year have 
been given for the State and the gist of them 
reiterated so many times that we will not dweLl 
upon them, but only say that the last has been 
one of the most successful, if not the most 
successful, year of her history. Taking the 
State piece-meal, we do not find any region 
which presents greater and more varied ad¬ 
vantages than tin 1 Southeastern portion, and 
Bourbon County may be considered as rich in 
agricultural lands, and as prolific in fruit yield 
as any in the State. It is to this county and its 
county seat, Forx Scott, that we will 
confine ourselves in this letter. The toi>o- 
graphy of this section is rolling, with some 
few rocky bluffs and bottoms of about, a mile 
in width, running back from the streams to 
the foot-hills. The area is 25x255^ miles, or 
very nearly square, and consists of 407,680 
acres, 85 per cent of which are susceptible of 
cultivation, while about 175,000 acres are al¬ 
ready improved. The population has increased 
from 6.100 in 1860 to about 25,000; there are 
about 40,000 acres of timber in the county, 
found principally along the streams, aud con¬ 
sisting of the numerous hard-wood varieties. 
The streams watering the county are the Os¬ 
age River, Marmaton River, Dry Wood Creek, 
Mill Creek, and five or six small streams 
tributary to them. The soil is a deep, alluvial 
loam with a clay sub-soil underlaid with lime¬ 
stone. The prices of lands, as given to us In- 
Messrs. Van Fossen and Wilcox, the oldest 
real estate loan and insurance firm in South¬ 
eastern Kansas, are from 35 to #112.50 per acre 
for unimproved, and improved fa nus from #10 
to #20 per acre, according to location aud im¬ 
provements. In this office we were shown 
an ear of corn, grown in the county, having 
1,105 kernels. The principal products are 
corn, wheat, oats, flux, all root crops and 
vegetables. About one-third of the county Ls 
underlaid with coal, the veins running from 
10 to 40 inches in thickness, and the quality 
both red and black bituminous. The red is 
used extensively for manufactory purposes 
and for domestic use. The existence of this 
large body of good fuel close at hand renders 
it remarkably cheap, and are there shipj)ed from 
the county over 15,000 cars annually. Large 
deposits of fire clay underlie the coal. 
There is an abundance of fruit of all varie¬ 
ties grown in this county, apples, peaches, and 
all the smaller fruits being reliable and pro¬ 
lific. The Work Nursery Company at this 
point own and control the most extensive 
nursery in the State of Kansas. The home 
nurseries are at Fort Scott, with a branch at 
Denton, Texas, and one at Famous, Kansas. 
Col. A. M. M. Work aud the gentlemen com¬ 
posing the company are prominent and ex¬ 
perienced nurserymen, and the success which 
they have made of their busiucss, ns well as 
the influence which it has had upon the devel¬ 
opment and propagation of the best quality Of 
fruit is sufficient to attest their merits. They 
own and lease fit HI acres of land, and propose to 
extend their business as far as it appeal’s feasi¬ 
ble to do so. Over #200,000 worth of nursery 
stock was sold by this Company in 1882, and it 
is expected that not less than #800,000 will rep- 
resent. their sales for this year. It is an im¬ 
portant industry for the city of Fort Scott, for 
the County of Bourbon, and for the State of 
Kansas, ns all institutions calculated for the 
improvement of agricultural or horticultural 
methods or products are certain to bo. 
The stock interest in cattle, hogs aud sheep, 
is large and constantly increasing. The climate 
is healthful and salubrious, becoming rather 
warm in mid-summer, and sometimes quite 
wet during port ions of the Winter season. The 
altitude is over 900 feet, aud the precipitation 
or rainfall ample for agricultural purposes. 
The cemeut, manufactured from rock found in 
this county, is pronounced superior to The 
Louisville. It seems that Nature’s endowments 
in diversity and abundance are equalled by 
few, and can be surpassed by no other county 
in the State. 
K(.)RT HCOTTi 
the county seat, had a population in 1880 of 
5,600, which has now increased to about 7,500. 
It is an important railroad center, having the 
main line of the Kansas City, Fort Scott aud 
Gulf Railroad, with three diverging lines, the 
Missouri Pacific, the St. Louis, Fort Scott aud 
Wichita, reaching westward to El Dorado. 
The Fort Scott road will bo opened to Mem¬ 
phis during the present year, aud will afford 
t > this- city and locality a very important and 
remunerative outlet for trade. The manufac¬ 
turing interests of the city are. considerable, 
and could be still more largely and profitably 
developed. There are two foundries, employ¬ 
ing about 135 men; three flouring mills, aggre¬ 
gating over 500 barrels daily; a hominy mill, 
manufacturing 100 barrels daily; a woolen 
mill, employing some 20 hands; a planing mill, 
a furniture factory, cement works, making 200 
barrels daily: a pottery; three broom lnann- 
factories; a tobacco manufactory, employing 
25 men; and also manufacturing institutions for 
carriages, wagons, drain tile and cement flues, 
baking powder and candy. There are four 
elevators, with a capacity of nearly 150,000 
bushels. The aggregate value of the exports 
from Fort Scott for 1882 was #2,292,000. The 
jobbing radius is to the west, southwest 
and southeast, and embraces a partial circle 
of some hundred miles. There are 17 jobbing 
houses. The permanent improvements for 
1882 foot up 8500 , 000 ; total commercial busi¬ 
ness, exclusive of exports, #2,802,000. There 
were 700,000 letters received; 500,000 mailed, 
with sales of #18,000 worth of stamps, and 
#250,000 in the money-order department. The 
post-office employs 10 clerks, receiving about 
#25,000 per annum. Two banks do the finan¬ 
cial business of the city, aud have au aggregate 
daily deposit of about #50,000. 
All the modern conveniences aud improve¬ 
ments for the development of cities have been 
taken advantage of in Fort Scott There is a 
building association; the Perkins system of 
water works, with ample capacity for any 
emergency, costing some #70,000; a street rail¬ 
way chartered; a telephone system; a volun¬ 
teer tire department, consisting of two hose- 
wagons and one book ami ladder company. 
The business streets are all macadamized, and 
National Avenue, commencing at the city 
limits aud extending a mile and a quarter, to 
the National Cemetery, Ls finely macadamized 
and forms an excellent drive. Sidewalks are 
being rapidly improved, in pursuance of an 
ordinance requiring the laying of stone. This 
is easily accomplished, as there are several 
quarries of superior quality of tlag-stouc, 
which is shipped from here as far east as St. 
Louis. The greatest need of the city at the 
present writing is a first-class hotel, and it is 
hoped i>nc will be built to meet the require- 
meuts of the place. 
There are 13 churches, and three public 
school buildings, with graded schools employ¬ 
ing 20 teachers. The value of the school build¬ 
ings is #70,000, and their present capacity is 
insufficient for their needs. The Kansas Nor¬ 
mal College is located here, Prof. D. E. 
Saunders being the proprietor and principal, 
assisted by a corps of seven teachers. The 
school was established in 1878, aud has a 
capacity for 800 to 350 scholars. Good board 
can lie secured in private families at from #2 
to #2.50 per week with room. The enrol lm ent 
for the season of 1882 was over 200, from 
eight different States. Scientific, classical, 
teachers’ and business departments (the latter 
embodying the features of commercial college 
tuition) exist. The total expeuse in any de¬ 
partment for one year, including tuition, 
board anti all incidentals, is from #180 to #175; 
expect to build a much larger building soon. 
Fort Scott is amply supplied with thorough 
and readable papers. The Monitor is a morn¬ 
ing daily and weekly, well edited: the Herald 
an evening daily and weekly, aud the Banner, 
u weekly. Messi-s. Van Passeti & Wilcox also 
issue quite au into resting paper, called the 
Kansas Record, quarterly, which contains it 
vast amount of valuable information regard - 
ing this portion of the country. It is sent out 
by them to every State iu the Union and to 
Eurojte, free of charge, and they desire us also 
to state that correspondence regarding auy 
interest of Kansas or Bourbon County will be 
cheerfully responded to by them. 
Cilttuti). 
THE STORY OF STONY BROOK FARM. 
HENRY STEWART. 
CHAPTER XXV. 
(Continued from jiaxe I’ll.) 
“ You see, Miss Emly, she’s to marry the 
young Boating doctor—an a smart young fel 
ler he is you bet, and 'll keep things lively; 
and the young square he'll I to married too 
pretty soon, l gticss, for I see him talking very 
confidential to Deacon Dawes’s daughter, an 
she’s as pretty as a pieter, and as good as she’s 
pretty, and the deacon’s as fine a man as you'll 
meet anywhere, au brings more milk here 
than any two farmers round. And the Jedge, 
he’ll bo in the Stony Brook house, and a Pro¬ 
fessor’s goin' to be in the Pratt house, to make 
a ‘station house’ of it; so I'm told: and th e 
Jedge’s goin’ to make a short cut and fetch 
the railroad through the vallov; so you see, 
.Josiah, we aint quite asleep here yet, if we are 
iu the East, 
" I’m glad of that Jaboz, the old place needs 
some stirring up; and a good many more 
places need the same. It’s not the place Jabez 
that’s at fault, its the men. If the men at 
home worked half as hard, ns they do when 
they go west, and lived as economically, and 
saved money as carefully, there would be 
less complaints about poor farms in the east 
than there is. The land is new and rich in 
the west, no doubt, but the trees have to be 
cut down and logged up aud bunted off, and a 
inau must plow among stumps for a good 
many years, and w r ork more in a year with a 
hoe than he would here in 10; or he has to go 
on the prairie where there Ls no shelter and 
not a stick for fuel or a fence, and suffer hard¬ 
ships that, he has no conception of before he gets 
there. But you see he has got to stick. He 
can't get back and is forced to do the best he 
otul; aud he does it, and does it well; and after 
a few years he has every thing he can wish 
for; and land for his boys; and his girls get 
good husbands and so there is no reason for 
families to part. But that can't last for ever 
either. In a few years there will be as much 
crowding there, as there has been, here, and 
the boys w-ill be coming back here again; glad 
to get one of these old farms and go to work 
on the fields, aud by skill and industry make 
them blossom again as you have been doing 
here.” 
** Now Josh you are talking sense. But 
arter all how would you a’ bin. ef you’d staid 
here a doctoring the habit's and the old folks. 
An how would young Merritt a bin ef he'd a 
staid making coal up to Goshen. And the 
Jedge he goes wfst too, and he makes a big 
fortin, and he comes here and sets things a 
goin’ lively; how's all this to happen if some¬ 
body dt m't go west. And how is it that it all [ 
comes out jest in that way too;” 
Now Jabez, I'll pay yon back in your own 
coin; just as you gave me awhile ago; you 
know any fool can ask questions which a wise 
man cannot answer. And you have asked 
one of those questions. And the nearest I 
can get to au answer to that, is what I have 
thought out many and many a time as I 
have laid out in the woods watching the stars 
through holes in my camp roof: and that is, 
that all we can do is to do the best we can: 
to do our duty wherever we are, honestly and 
uprightly; to fill our place in the world as we 
find it, and then every thing will come out 
right Don t you see .Talx*z if it had not been 
that Jonas Pratt made bis first mistake aud 
tried to cheat his cousin out of his rights how 
differently things would have gone on here? 
The old Stony Brook Farm would not have 
mine to grief; it wouldn't have changed 
owners; the owners would'ut. have died vio- I 
lent and unhappy deaths: that there would I 
have been a great deal of imhappiuess and mis¬ 
ery prevented; and a good deal of comfort and 
happiness would have heen created. And 
that, is the lesson the history of the Stony 
Brook Farm teaches.” 
“ Jest so. Josiah. You're right. But don't 
you thiuk the same lesson mought he lamed 
from a good many other farms too? I kinder 
thiuk that, way. Josh. An more than that 
when a man hez a good farm, and is doing I 
well on it, he should be content, an not try to ■ 
grab more than he kin hold outer; that’s 
what brings many a man inter trouble he 
never gets out on; anil he soon gets to the end. 
THE END. 
COAL MINERS AND MINING. 
MARV WAGER-FISHER. 
While spending some days recently iu 
Wtlkesbarre, Pa., a great coal region. I no¬ 
ticed night after night from the window of 
my room a column of light shooting up from 
a certain locality like an immense jet of gas 
fifty feet high perhaps. While not faraway 
from it, flamed another light which flickered 
and flashed like constantly recurring light¬ 
ning along the horizon. Upon inquiry I was 
told that the geyser of flame came from one 
of the collieries, an escape shaft for gas having 
boon made in the mine, and that this escaping 
gas having become ignited, hums night and 
day the year round. The other light came 
from a burning culm heap. When the coal is 
lifted from the mines, it is put into a machine 
called a “ braker,” from which it runs through 
a cylinder which sifts the coal that the coals 
of certain size full into heaps by themselves. 
But in this breaking aud sifting operation a 
vast amount of coal is broken into such small 
fragments os to bo unmarketable, and year 
after year, this refuse material, which is called 
culm, accumulates so that great hills of it are 
fomied at collieries. This culm is in fact, so 
l was told, the best part of coal, and if some 
method could be hit upon for compressing 
the particles into sufficiently large pieces for 
the purposes of fuel without too much expense, 
it could all be utilized and a vast amount of 
fuel be saved, as well as money. Visitors at 
the Centennial may remember having seen 
balls aud “ bricks.” of compressed coal, but as 
I have neither seen nor heard of it since l 
conclude that method of uti lizing culm proved 
to l>e a failure. It can be used (and probably 
137 
is by persons living in the coal regions) on the 
top of a coal fire that is thoroughly ignited, 
but of course it is too compact for separate use. 
It sometimes happens that a culm heap catches 
on fire accidentally, but it Ls sometimes fired 
purposely, and in either cast*, unless the fire is 
quickly discovered and extinguished it smoul¬ 
ders and burns for months, and defies the pow¬ 
er of rain, or snow. It not unfrequently hap¬ 
pens that a miner, or workman, will lie down 
on a burning culm-heap to be made warm, 
when all at once la* will sink down in the back 
inass and be roasted to death. 
Being so many days in the coal region, and 
having a wide-awake youngster with me eager 
to see how coal was obtained, my host came in 
one day with the announcement that the super¬ 
intendent of the largest and safest mine in the 
locality would place guides and all necessary 
facilities at our disposal the next day, for vis¬ 
iting the mine. Next morning as my hostess 
was driving us to the mine, and we were dis¬ 
cussing the dangers that beset visitors as well 
as miners, she declared emphatically that she 
w ouldn't go down with me for any money ! 
Presently we met the superintendent, who de¬ 
clared that there was not the smallest danger, 
and overwhelmed her with assurances of 
safety. His w ords must have had much effect, 
for when we reached the colliery, she laugh¬ 
ingly said, she believed she would make the 
visit, too. We first went into the office of the 
mine, when we were provided with guides, and 
asked to inscribe our names in the visitors 
book. I confess that bv this time I began to 
wish I were a thousand miles from a mine, and 
all its dangers were magnified to my aroused 
fancy. For my own safety I scarcely thought, 
but for the rosy, radiant boy, around whose 
life so many interests centered. 
What, if harm should befall him ? I wrote 
our names and address with detailed accuracy, 
so that in case we never again saw light, there 
would be no mistaking our fate. Of course, it 
seems comical now. but at that time while I 
tried to take it all gaily, I felt within me, as I 
have heard certain feelings described, an 
“ awful sinking,” and as we walked from the 
office up toward the colliery, black and loom¬ 
ing. I felt as if I were moving on to my execu¬ 
tion. Happily, just as we neared it, I felt my 
dress pulled at the hack, and my laddie stoutly 
remarked. *• I fink I won't go in the mine to¬ 
day, I'll go an never time, mamma.” and 
while he affirmed that he was not afraid, he 
still held to his original declaration to go an 
’’never" time. Considerable dissatisfaction 
was manifested that 1 did not oblige the child 
to make the descent, after the preparations 
had beeu made, and we returned to the office 
rather humiliated at the result. When there, 
the office-men were eager to take charge of 
the boy, and without giving Us any opportunity 
for respectably withdrawing from the under¬ 
taking. we were hurried back to the colliery, 
led to the *’ cage,” and in a twinkling were 
going straight down a black shaft in total 
darkness, being upheld by a single wire rope, 
until we were 300 feet underground, when 
suddenly we emerged into a large chamber 
dimly lighted by miner's lamps, and the glow¬ 
ing eyes of a steam-eugine—a most weird and 
diabolical-looking place. The head guide then 
led us to an apartment which he called his 
office, and whore we were fitted out with 
lamps, when we proceeded to explore the 
mine. From the central chamber into which 
we first emerged, radiated galleries in every 
direction, and at the end of these galleries the 
miners were at work blasting and taking out 
the coal. These galleries, dug out of solid coal 
—occasionally a layer of rock is encountered 
which is blasted through—are high aud wide 
enough for a railway track and engine, or 
mules, to draw’ the coal-cars which are filled 
at the extreme cud of the galleries, and 
brought to the shaft down which we came, and 
are lifted up on that same “cage” or platform 
to the top, where the huge masses are* thrown 
into the breaker, and the ear is sent down 
empty. On this same platform everything- 
comes dow-n into the mine—engines, huge 
timbers for props, mules, cars—all supplies 
for the mine, and 500 men daily. This plat¬ 
form is lowered aud raised by an engine, and 
the rope that bears this enormous weight does 
duty for about a year. Of course, one gallery 
is quite like another—coal, top, sides and bot¬ 
tom, and it is very soon seen. After we had 
roamed about for a quarter of an hour or 
more, the guide led us to what he called an 
" angle ” and where we stepped on another 
platform aud were lowered down an incline of 
45 degrees, to another depth of 350 feet. A 
single speck of light iu the total blackness at 
the bottom w-as the goal of that ride, which 
seemed a thousand times nun c perilous than 
did the first descent. This was the second 
fioor of the mine, aud w as being worked much 
like the first. Down a further desceut of 400 
feet, making nearly 1,000 feet, was the third 
floor or bottom of the mine, hut this we felt 
quite content not to visit. 
AVliile threading one of the galleries, w e met 
au engine drawing out a train of loaded ears, 
and crouching closely against the wall, to 
escape being caught in the train, vre wore 
nearly suffocated by steam and gas, which so 
filled the gallerv that the guides cried, “bow 
your hoods low to breathe,” and iu the density 
