Meat packing has held first place among the manufacturing industries of Kansas for a number of years. Kansas City, the second greatest packing center in the United States, is the chief market for Kansas live stock, but there are several packing houses in different parts of the State. Creameries, canning factories, and pickling works represent other industries that have been developed to make use of our agricultural products. =The Mineral Industries.= Although Kansas is not one of the great mining states, it has a number of valuable mineral resources, the chief of which are coal, lead, zinc, oil, gas, salt, building stone, and gypsum. These resources form the basis of an important part of the industrial life of the State. The coal and gas have made possible a number of manufacturing industries. =Coal.= As early as the Territorial period it was known that there were coal fields in Kansas, and small amounts of coal were mined in Crawford and Cherokee counties. Immediately after the Civil War the settlers in the southeastern part of the State gave much attention to the digging of coal, some of which lay so near the surface that it could be uncovered with a plow. Within the next few years coal was found in Osage and Leavenworth counties and in the vicinity of Fort Scott. These places produced large amounts, but Crawford and Cherokee counties soon came to be the leading coal districts of the State. At the present time about nine-tenths of the Kansas output is mined in these two counties. The importance of the coal fields of Kansas lies not only in the value of the coal, but in the stimulation of the growth of manufactures. Many industries can be carried on only by means of large amounts of fuel to supply power. The development of a number of such industries in Kansas has been made possible chiefly by the cheap and abundant supply of coal. =Lead and Zinc.= Before Kansas was organized as a Territory lead mining was an important industry in southwest Missouri, but not until 1876 was it discovered that the lead and zinc field extends into the southeast corner of Kansas. Prospecting began at once and thousands of people were soon on the ground. Although zinc was found in abundance with the lead, but little attention was paid to it. Within a few years, however, it was found that the abundance of coal made the smelting of zinc profitable, and zinc soon assumed the leading place. For a number of years much more zinc than lead has been produced. A large amount of ore from the Missouri mines is shipped to the Kansas smelters, and the smelting of lead and zinc, but particularly of zinc, has come to be one of the most important of our mineral industries. The development of the gas field furnished a cheaper and more abundant fuel than coal, and much of the smelting was soon being done where gas could be used. In later years gas is less abundant and there is a tendency to return to the use of coal.