Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1888 — FRESH FROM THE WIRES [ARTICLE]

FRESH FROM THE WIRES

A BUDGET OF VALUABLE AND INTERESTING INFORMATION. Kansas Corn in Better Condition than East Year—Rifling *Ue United States Mails A Mob Attacks the American Minister's Residence. [Topeka (Kan.) ape?ial.] The Hon. Martin Mohler. Secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, has submitted his report for the month of August. In view of the fact that irresponsible reports have been circulated as to the total failure of crops in Western Kansas and of a consequent alarming exodus from that section of the State, this report of Mr. Mohler’s will be read with an unusual degree of interest. He says: While crops have been greatly damaged in certain localities in Middle and Western Kansas there will be sufficient crops harvested to supply the wants of the settlers. For tha August report we have asked our correspondent s for information only in relation to corn. The questions submitted were: First, what proportion of the area, planted will be harvested? "tecond, what is; the estimated product per acre of com on the; acreage harvested? Third, does listed corn| show any better results than that put in with planter? If so, what per cent? Nearly 601 correspondents, representing acout every county in the State, have responded to the above questions and have developed the following facts in regard to tills important crop: First, that of the total area planted to com in our State 74 per cent, is considered worth harvesting ; that in the eas em portion of the State, as far west in the nor ih tier of the counties as Republic County an 1 east of a line bearing eastward to Chautauqua County, on the south line of the State, the com area will nearly all be harvested, and, with the exception of a few counties, will be a full average crop. In some counties the yield will be much above an average of bushels par acre, and nearly all the counties north of the Kansas River, within the prescribed) limits, report from forty to fifty bushels per' acre. Many counties south of the Kansas River also report a high average down to the second tier of counties from the south line of' the State. These counties, with the exception of Chautauqua and Elk, report a considerably lower average. A belt of territory from Jewell and Smith Counties on the' north, stretching southward and bearing eastward to the south line of the State, with Ellsworth County as a center, seems to be the worst burned district in the State. West of this great central belt, in which the com is generally raised, there are in nearly all the counties belts of t rritory in which there is some good com, with large intervening belts in which' there is no com. Even Hamilton County—a county bordering on the Colorado line in the, southwest—has good com, a sample of which was brought in a few days ago. The north half of all the counties in the ncrth tier and the. south h If of the second tier have fairly good corn, while the intervening belt, over thirty, miles in width, has but little.’ The average yield per acre on the acreage worth harvesting is estimated at twenty-eight bushels. The total area planted to com in the spring, as shown by assessors’ returns, is 6,970,070 acres ; 74 per cent, of this, or 5,157,780 acres, is reported as worth harvesting. Thesestiinated average yield per acre on this gives a total com product for the State of 141,427,841 bushels, which is almost double the product es last year and 15,417,000 bushels more than the product of 1886, but, is-lass by 46,452,840 bushels than the product ofi 1884, which was the greatest in the history ot Kansas. Many, however, have hod an exc llenfl crop of wheat and a fair crop of oats, and all will have an abundance of feed for stock in com fodder, millet, sorghum and hay, so that the situation is an improvement on that 6f last year. "