Present plans also include an increase in the number of soldiers stationed at Fort Riley to 3,000.  If the proposed increase in the standing army is carried out, there may be more than that.  The Government evidently has faith in the location of the fort.  While it has abandoned and consolidated other stations, it has all the time been increasing its expenditures here, and the estimates for the next year aggregate expenditures of over $500,000, provided the Appropriation Committee does its duty.  There are plans of still further beautifying the grounds, and the addition of more turnpikes and macadamized roads.

The State of Kansas, and especially Geary and Riley Counties, in which the fort is situated, reap a considerable benefit from its location.  The perishable produce of the commissary department comes from the country 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.