summer temperature is high, averaging about 73° Fah.: and the winters are very cold, averaging at 26.° The State debt is $545,435; taxable property, $404,672,044; State tax on $100, 20 cents. Legal rate of interest, 6 per cent. Farm hands are paid an average monthly wage of $14.00 by the year, and $36 during the summer months, with board and lodgings. Female servants receive $9.50 per month. Working oxen cost, per pair, $120; horses, $125; mules, $146; milch cows, $40; and sheep, $2 each, in Iowa. Fare from a port in Great Britain to Des Moines :Steerage and emigrant train, £10, 15s.; steerage and firstclass train, £13. CHAPTER XVII. KANSA S. Area, 80,891 square miles. Population, 995,996. PERHAPS no State in the American Union has made more rapid and substantial progress towards material wealth and civilisation, within comparatively few years, than the heroic young commonwealth of Kansas. Internal strife and even bloodshed preceded its admission into the Federal compact. The question in dispute, and cause of quarrel, was whether Kansas should become a free or slave State. Organised emigration was carried on from New England and the North, on the one hand, and Missouri and the Cotton States on the other, with the object of carrying the then Territory for or against slavery. Justice, according to law, was set at defiance by both parties in the conflict; the "Free Soilers" finally triumphed, and on the 1st of January, 1861, Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free State. This struggle was but the signal and forerunner of the great Civil War, which banished slavery from our midst and draped the land in mourning. Kansas (kan-zas) is an oblong, resting on the western slope of the Missouri Valley. It is drained throughout its immense domain' by the Kansas, Arkansas, and Neosho rivers, and their numerous tributaries. The characteristic features of the State are rolling prairies, rapid streams, and the absence of swamps, lakes, marshes, and mountain chains; and, except along the river courses, scarcity of timber. The eastern division is mainly composed of rich prairie soil, unsurpassed in the West for the growth of cereals. The plains are relieved by groves of timber, including black walnut, oak, maple, sycamore, white ash, locust, cherry, elm, and hickory bordering the rivers. In the western section wood is very scarce; and the extreme western counties fall within that sterile belt or desert which crosses the corners of Indian Territory and Colorado into New Mexico. The five tiers of counties lying westward of a line drawn from Norton county on the northern, to Clark county on the southern boundary of the State, are not desirable as the site of a future home. But the counties of Middle Kansas, lying eastward from the line indicated, contain millions of fertile acres suitable both for grazing and general agricultural purposes. Indeed, some of the best spring wheat and corn land in the State is to be found in the northern counties of Middle Kansas. The cultivation of winter wheat is confined to the south-eastern section of the State; the leading counties in this respect being Sedgwick, McPherson, Sumner, Dickinson, Cowley, Reno, Montgomery, Butler, and Harvey. The agricultural resources of Kansas have been rapidly developed within comparatively few years; and the importance of the State in this respect may be estimated from the following table : THE NUMBER OF ACRES, AMOUNT AND VALUE OF EACH PRODUCT OF PRINCIPAL CROPS OF THE FARM, FOR 1879. The area under cultivation, in 1877, was 5,595,204 acres. Last year, 1880, the area under farm crops was 8,967,564 acres; showing an increase in three years of 3,372,260 acres. The average yield of the various crops during 1878 was as follows: PRODUCTS. Average yield Average yield per acre. PRODUCTS. 11.60 bushels. Cheap land and rich grasses contribute to make Kansas a leading State in stock-raising, pork-packing, and woolgrowing. But both cattle and sheep require shelter and hand-feeding during the cold spells of winter; hay for the purpose is abundant. The live stock of the State, in 1880, numbered: Kansas has made remarkable progress as a pork-producing State. The number of hogs packed during the packing season of 1877-8 was 41,470; during the season of 1878-9 the number reached 132,346 hogs, as follows: Fruit-trees, such as the apple, peach, pear, and plum, seem to thrive and bear in nearly every county of Eastern and Middle Kansas. Apia culture, or bee farming, is also profitably carried on in the State. The price of Government land is $1.25 per acre. Improved land is of course worth more, and the price depends upon soil, location, improvements, and many other circumstances. There are millions of acres of excellent land owned by railway companies in Kansas; and these corporations offer it for sale upon advantageous terms. Perhaps $5 per acre is slightly above the average price at which this land is held. Moreover, the tracts offered to buyers by railway companies are contiguous |