Mild, open winter in this the central part of Kansas. Very little cold weather. Wheat and rye looking fine, and very large acreage sown the past season. Stock doing finely; but little fodder used as yet. In about ten days plowing will begin.
We need more settlers of energy and thrift to fill up the large scope of unoccupied lands. No homestead lands here but plenty railroad lands yet for sale. The price ranges from $4 to $8 per acre on long time, with a discount for cash or short time.
We have good water and grass, and plenty of the finest limestone building rock.
This is a good place for a man of small means to get a home. Having been here six years I know whereof I speak.
In THE PRAIRIE FARMER of January 5, 1884, I noticed an article on Meadow Oat Grass, by J. W. Robson. I would like to know where the seed can be obtained.
—We presume you can get the grass seed from all our reliable seedsmen. In a few days THE PRAIRIE FARMER will doubtless be favored with plenty of their advertisements.—[ED.
Secretary W. A. Armstrong reports that all the kinds of commercial fertilizers applied to the alluvial soils cultivated by members of the Elmira Club proved in every instance to be “practically worthless.” The best that can be said is that “some of them used on uplands in which clay is a constituent, have fair probability, at least, of yielding satisfactory returns.”
At the Mississippi Valley Cane-Growers’ meeting at St. Louis, delegates from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Michigan gave their experiences in growing cane and making sirups. In Illinois, Kansas, and Nebraska good results were generally obtained, but the season was bad in other States and expectations were not realized. All concurred, however, in the belief that the cultivation of sorghum was a good thing, and would yield handsome profits.
The New York Tribune: The animated discussion of the subject at the recent meeting of the Connecticut Board was unfavorable to ensilage. Exhibition of a sample of clover put in a silo when wet called out the query whether it was fed to cows to make Limburger cheese. One reporter says it “fairly howled” through the City Hall, echoing and reverberating a fearful smell. President James A. Bell, of the State Agricultural Society, is quoted as declaring that the free talk of the occasion “will save the farmers thousands of dollars by keeping them out of the silo system.”