known as the Sunflower State. It comprises an area of 82,144 square miles, extending 400 miles from east to west and 208 miles from north to south, practically all arable land. Its area is 60 per cent. greater than that of England and 175 per cent. larger than that of Scotland. New York and Maine together, or Indiana and Ohio united, would not equal its area, and it is larger than all New England, with Delaware and Maryland added.
History. With the exception of a fraction in the southwest corner, Kansas was a part of the Louisiana Territory, sold to the United States by Napoleon in 1803, and then inhabited by Indians. The white pioneers endured great privations, hardships and peril. To protect the frontiersmen the government established military posts, the first being at Cantonment Martin, Atchison County, in 1818. Fort Leavenworth was established in 1827, and later Fort Scott and Fort Riley, the first and last still being among the most important of the country's military posts.
Kansas became a territory and was formally opened for settlement in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and anticipated the extension of slavery on American soil. It was specified, however, that the electors of Kansas should decide whether it be a free or slave state. The friends of freedom and adherents of slavery at once inaugurated a vigorous campaign to settle the question according to their respective views. At the outset fraud and illegal methods characterized elections, turning the battle of ballots into one of bullets and changing the situation to one of violence and fierce contention. The bitter strife continued, increasing in intensity, and with the admission of Kansas to the Union on January 29, 1861, carrying a provision in its constitution for the prohibition of slavery, the great conflict of arms between the northern and southern states was begun. When war was declared, Kansas showed her loyalty by furnishing soldiers in excess of her quota and greater than the total of her voters. Thus it was that, as a territory and during the first years of statehood, Kansas was involved in almost continual warfare. This, with the hostility of the Indians and other vicissitudes, greatly retarded development, but the return 01 peace and the homecoming of the surviving veterans, with the immigration of other settlers attracted by the state's possibilities, marked the beginning of epoch-making progress.
Surface and Climate. The surface is a gently undulating plain, having a gradually increasing altitude from 750 feet at Kansas City on the Missouri to 3,906 feet at the western or Colorado border. In soil there is much diversity; from the dark, deep loam of limestone land, common in the eastern third, to the "plains" and sandy formations further west. Their comparative fertility is an unsettled problem.
The climate is without tropic heat or arctic cold. Extremes in weather, when occurring, are of short duration, and farm operations as a rule may be comfortably pursued almost without interruption throughout the year. The average temperature of December, January and February for 20 years has been 31° F.; of the three summer months 74°; and the annual average 53°. The average rainfall in the eastern third of the state for 20 years was 35.66 inches annually, gradually decreasing further west. For the whole state the annual precipitation has averaged 28 inches.
Agriculture. Kansas essentially is an agricultural state. The western portion for years was largely given over to grazing purposes, and in the early days it was not regarded as adapted to other uses, but as the population increases it is being more thickly inhabited, and general farming there has advanced materially and steadily pushed the line of reliable productivity to the western limits. These developments have come about through the increased skill of the farmer, whose general intelligence has been enlarged by the judicious agricultural educational system maintained and liberally supported, largely by the state. An element in this is the state's Board of Agriculture, with offices in the
