AN OVERDOSE OF PROSPERITY

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9651, 3 January 1910, Page 3

AN OVERDOSE OF PROSPERITY

The town site of Shipton, Kansas, a village ruined by prosperity, was sold at auction the other day. it was the singular fate of Shipton to be abandoned because better conditions and the growing wealth cu the rorai communities that once supported it had nullified its former mission. And there are a dozer other villages in Kansas and others of -the prairie States even at this moment threatened by the same fate—too much farm opulence. The motor oar and the extension or the rural free delivery system are responsible. In earlier days, when -travelling was entirely by waggon and the poor condition of the roads generally in that section made trips to the larger towns from the more distant farms a labour which requited an entire day, smaller towns sprang up ia numbers to accommodate the trading of the farms in more immediate radius. They provided the shipping points for grain and cattle, the post office and the express offices where the farmer called every day or two for his letters or parcels, and they supported a general store where most of the general shopping was done. But the mission of the village has gone. Mail la now delivered at the gates of the farms twice daily in most of these communities, and the great amount of mail-order trading done formed the original assault on the prosperity of the village stores. Now, especially in Kansas, so many farmers own motor cars, that the long trips to the larger towns, where there are bigger and more attractive shops, are no longer an obstacle, It is the prosperous farmer, whose trade was worth while to the village store, that owns an automobile, and thus transfers his trading to the larger town. The little merchant in the village has given np the struggle. Thirty years ago considerable amounts of Eastern money went into the Kansas boom, and soma of the bonds ol towns that passed in the hot winds and grasshopper piagues are still present in Eastern pigeon-holes and safety-deposit boxes. Many another Easterner sought the country for his fortune, and returned within the year, humbled by drought and insect pests. Kansas was a State without a future. One may go through the State at this late day and see old courthouses monumenting cornfields and remnants of deserted cities of those times in pastures. These _ are the memories of other conditions. To-day these self-same farms have made their owners wealthy enough to ruin the town of Shipton, and probably many another.