around. Hundreds of horses are bought at round prices, while the soldier
trade has sent Junction City, four miles west, ahead of all competitors
in Central Kansas for volume of business and population. Naturally,
Kansas is glad to see Fort Riley a permanency, and hopes that it may be
made the Government's chief Western post.

Kansas has been spoken of as the most wonderful State in the Union, and
in many respects it is fully entitled to its reputation in this respect.
It has had enough discouragements and drawbacks to ruin half a dozen
States, and nothing but the phenomenal fertility of the soil, and the
push and go of the pioneers who claim the State as their own, has
enabled Kansas to withstand difficulties and to sail buoyantly through
waves of danger into harbors of refuge. In its early days, border
warfare hindered development and drove many most desirable settlers to
more peaceful spots. Since then the prefix "Bleeding" has again been
used repeatedly in connection with the State, because of the succession
of droughts and plagues of grasshoppers and chinch bugs, which have
imperiled its credit and fair name. But Kansas remains to-day a great
State, with a magnificent future before it. The fertility of the soil is
more than phenomenal. Kansas corn is known throughout the world for its
excellency, and at the World's Fair in 1893 it took highest awards for
both the white and yellow varieties. In addition to this, it secured the
gold medal for the best corn in the world, as well as the highest awards
for red winter wheat flour, sorghum sugar and apples. Indeed, Kansas
soil produces almost anything to perfection, and the State, thanks
largely to works of irrigation in the extreme western section, is
producing larger quantities of indispensable agricultural products every
year.

The very motto of the State indicates the early troubles through which