Danger of an Utter Failure of Crops—Prospect of Famine—Dismal Forbodings.
The New York Times, June 16, 1860
Lawrence, Kansas, Wednesday, June 6, 1860.
The one topic, more absorbing to us than all others, is the distressing drouth that prevails in Kansas, and probably in some of the States. When I wrote you some two weeks ago, I little thought we should be thus long sweltering in this arid region without a drop of heaven’s gentle rain. Here we still linger, with hopes more forlorn than ever before. Every day is now adding torture to despair. I have never witnessed so sad a people. Almost every man we meet exhibits the same depression of spirits, and it is only the few emigrants who arrive that can carry anything like the usual cheer of a placid, quiet countenance. The salutations most usual have now become changed to—”Any rain in your country yet?” “Can it ever rain in Kansas?” “Does your country burn yet?” “How much longer can we endure this?”—or others pertaining in some way to this unparalleled want of rain.
When strangers arrived it was once our habit to gather around them and fill their ears immediately with the story of the new Italy. Now we take the other extreme, and studiously shun the presence of all such seekers of new homes, and no one likes to be questioned upon a subject, the very thought of which is pain. Day after day and week after week, the same sultry heat continues; some days the thermometer ranges from 90° to 95°, and not even a genial dew at night is granted us. No dew whatever has fallen thus far this season, and the native prairie grass is dying out in many places for miles. Whites who have lived among the Indians of the Territory for fifteen years, say that no serious drouth was ever known before in the Spring, but that they have always occurred in July and August. When I last wrote you there was hope of a partial crop of Spring wheat, but now all is gone; not a kernel will probably be harvested in this county, where thousands of bushels were sawn. For several days our only hope has been in having a partial crop of corn and potatoes, provided it should rain immediately. But now every sun rolls us nearer the brink of certain famine. It may do to plant corn for ten days yet, and potatoes for twenty days; but beyond that, all is hopeless. Our chances seem as one in a thousand, for never has rain appeared more distant than to-day.
The older States can endure a one-year’s famine without extreme suffering, for they have stores of all of earth’s products on hand—they have good houses, money, clothing for the future, personal and public credit, with many other things unknown to a majority in Kansas at present. Our all was depending upon the next crop. Of that we are about to despair, and where are we? Thousands of miles from friends without money or any other means of getting away from here. Not one in twenty of the country people can get away. For their all is in their land—that is usually mortgaged for the preemption money at a high rate of interest, and nobody can now be found who will make any offer whatever for land, or scarcely any other real estate.
Thus we are chained to the wheel of fate, and every revolution causes us to gaze upward with most breathless anxiety. At times it looks, for a few hours, as if rain in abundance was at hand, but a hurricane of wind and dust is the poor apology we are compelled to take. One week ago to-day it rained a little, probably half an inch on a level, and that is the most we have had for nine months. New courage was universally infused, and gardens that were planted the middle of March were swiftly replanted, and all seemed to believe the rainy season had came, But Sol was soon at his old post again, and ere sunset the strong winds were raising the dust as before. A vain hope—born for sudden disappointment. Our gardens are again like ash-heaps—not a weed even is in sight, except in the dotting circlets along the strawberry and other beds, where germination has been made possible by artificial watering.
I have learned to day that the Marias des Cygnis River has ceased running, so that not a stream now runs in the Territory south of the Kansas, unless possibly the lower Neosho continues a small ripple. Grass, too, is destined to be a failure, in most parts of the Territory, and in some localities, where stock-raising has been the chief pursuit, I hear more complaints on that account than any other. It will be a scanty subsistence, while the producing season lasts, and nothing will remain for a Winter’s supply. Not only man, but beast, must therefore suffer.
There is a supply of old corn in this county, and perhaps in a few others, sufficient to nearly supply the people with meal the coming year, if it is all preserved for that purpose; but it is the habit here to feed immense quantities to horses and other stock, until it is hardly possible to keep them now without their daily supplies, As a consequence, the price of corn has advanced from 20 and 25 cents to 30 and 38 cents per bushel already. Now, what will follow? Not one half of the people who will be obliged to buy corn can pay any price for it.
The news came, to-night, that the bill for our admission had been postponed in the Senate, but it creates very little surprise or comment There are other subjects nearer our stomachs, as well as hearts, now. We have withstood all the thunderbolts of the Administration Party for six years, and now we hardly turn our heads to give them a side look, when the din of the cry for bread is so imminent. Still, amid all our prayers for the reviving rain, we would not accept for a moment the reign of DOUGLAS.
RANDOLPH