Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 184, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1910 — Chicagoan to Start an Electric Farm [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Chicagoan to Start an Electric Farm

Chicago. —The shades of Ben Franklin and the near shades of Thomas Edison are about to fall upon the fertile fields of Lake county. Thanks to the enterprise of Samuel Insull, who has several considerable vegetable patches In the county adjoining Cook, the garden fields are to have an electric treatment. When not working on his turnip patch, Mr. Insull Is president of the Commonwealth Edison company. He has also much'to do with Lake county electrical enterprises. They have electricity to burn. This may have something to do with the experiment in gardening which the Insull friends, and they are legion, declare he is about to perpetrate on a county whose

farmers have always been respectably conservative. You see, to the president of an electric company the light* ing juice is cheaper than fertilizer. Think what it means ta Chicago diners If the Insull plan bears fruit,; Bill of fares will feature electric rads ishes, incandescent onions, which may] be odorless; pies from 10,000 candle power pumpkins; kilo-watt potatoes and alternating current cabbages. In the wake of this eating may corns electrical sprees. The somber citizen after dining on an electrified potato salad may glow like a lightning bug and warble a few bars of “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now.” Each green pea may contain an electric shock and the result of eating a single portion may be shocking. If this comes to pass just blame Mr. Insull. There are three kinds of farming, as you probably don’t know, unless you have had a fling at It The first grade is the common or garden variety as practised by our forbears. Then there is the up-to-date, rotation-ln-cropa, ap-plied-chemistry brand.