Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 142, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1910 — Rensselaer Doctor Gives Monticello Editor Automobile Ride. [ARTICLE]

Rensselaer Doctor Gives Monticello Editor Automobile Ride.

Monticello Journal. As the guest of Dr. F. A. Turfler, C. E. Newton, of the Journal, had the pleasure Thursday of making a trip through eastern Jasper county and western Pulaski, going as for east as Winamac in the doctor’s Maxwell runabout. The first stop after a run through the onion lands and a part ot the Gifford marsh was made east of Kniman, at the Doctor’s ranch, which he is carving out of the swamp, having, turned the first furrows in it last autumn. Now he has thirty acres of corn that is as good as any other to be seen on the road and five acres of potatoes that can’t be beaten. The soil is of prairie muck intermixed with coarst sand on a solid subsoil. He used commercial fertilizer with the potatoes. A run was made through the oil field of Jasper county. All rigs are standing idle and many tanks and pumping outfits are dismantled and abandoned. In one place enough oil was seen in the ditch by the road side to have oiled Harrison street from end to end. Thousands of dollars have ffeen spent there in a fruitless endeavor to secure oil in paying quantities. Evidently the true basin has not been located yet. After a splendid dinner at Medaryville a run was made to Winamac to talk over the hemp and peppermint propositions that are now occupying the minds of many farmers and business men of that section. The growing of hemp is a new idea for northern Indiana, the first experiments having been tried near Kouts and North Liberty only last year. The pioneers met with a splendid success, receiving an enormous return on their money invested. Mr. C. W. Riddick, of the Winamac Republican, who is branching out as a farmer, became interested in the proposition through a relative, who is connected with a big fibre company and proceeded to talk the matter up with both the community and the company. Finally he succeded in getting an agreement out of the company that it would plant from 800 to 1,000 acres, renting the land for cash and taking all the risk themselves. It proved to be a difficult matter to employ enough teams to plow the land and sow the crop, but they succeeded so well that it is thought the 800 acres will all be seeded by today. Great hopes are being put on land that is very low priced and of practically no value for corn or wheat, being too mucky. The person driving east from Medaryville to Winamac now for the'first time can scarcely be convinced that he is going over country that fifty years ago was considered so wet or so sandy that it would scarcely product a disturbance, let alone a crop of grain or vegetables. Today the big dredge ditches have drained off the surface water and the land begins to look like one big garden. Lateral tile drains running into the big open ditches are now being laid all through the country and the land is steadily growing solider and being brought up in producing powers. There is plenty of land there that brings S7O to SBS an acre that was bought fifteen years ago for from $7 to $lO per acre, and it has cost no big fortune per acre to drain and improve it, either. Jefferson township, once the laughing stock of Pulaski county, is becoming the center, not only of the county geographically, but also of the same as a wealth producer.