Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1877 — The Biggest Farm in the World. [ARTICLE]

The Biggest Farm in the World.

During the night we passed through the property of Messrs. Muller & Lux, the most extensive real-estate owners in the valley. Here is a farm seventy-three miles in length by twenty in width. If a poor man owned 160 acres of it, it would be worth nothing to him, as part of it is swamp land about Lake Tulare which he could not drain, and part of it is a desert sand, which he could not irrigate. But to these capitalists it is valuable, because they can cause the two unproductive parts to fructify each other by means of canals. At present, while engaged in this enterprise, they content themselves with raising a few thousand acres of alfalfa, and with the pasturage of their 85,000 head of cattle and 40,000 sheep. One single straight fence on this property is seventy-three miles long. Now, this has the appearance of “gobbling up land.” But when the small number of inhabitants and the vast area of territory in the State are considered, and especially when the result of this speculation is inevitably division after improvement, preparatory to cultivation, it will be seen that the gobbling is for the general good. Consulting the early history of New York and New England, find that the territory was ceded by the crown in patents to a few individuals. Property there has been divided and subdivided, until 100 acres is considered to be a large farm. So in the future it will be here. —California Cor. JS y ew York Evening Post.