Children in Russia hand-picked the first seeds of famous winter wheat for Kansas as Mennonite colonies prepared to emigrate from the steppes to the American prairies. Originally a peace-loving sect from Holland, the Mennonites had gone to the Crimea from Prussia in 1790 when Catherine the Great offered free lands, military exemption, and religious freedom. They prospered until these privileges were threatened in 1871. Three years later they emigrated to Kansas, where the Santa Fe R.R. offered thousands of acres on good terms in McPherson, Harvey, Marion and Reno counties, and where the legislature passed a bill exempting religious objectors from military service. Within a month after landing in New York, the Mennonites planted the red-gold grains their children had selected. The harvest was the first of the great crops of hard Turkey Red and its derivatives that made Kansas the Granary of the Nation.