Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1911 — A GARDEN IN A COAL MINE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A GARDEN IN A COAL MINE

WHOEVER heard of a luxuriant garden flourishing in the bowels of the earth — a subterranean paradise, where beautiful, sweeticented flowers bloom and tasty vegetables for the dinner table mature while icy winds and Jack frost reign with despotic power on the surface above? Whoever imagined that the soil of a dark, damp coal mine—after its black treasures of carbon had been exhausted to keep factory wheels in motion and houses warm —could.be utilized for flower raising and truck gardening? It has remained for an enterprising Indlanian —a Hoosler —to at least experiment, with a measure of success, along floricultural and horticultural lines in the bowels of the earth, at a depth where sunshine and rain never penetrate. Frank B. Posey of Posey--ville, Posey county, Indiana, is the man who rivals Burbank the wizard, and who has triumphantly realized a life-long dream. These namhs of city and county in the extreme southwestern corner of the rich and fertile Hoosier state, along the noftE bank of the Ohio river, stand as the immortal tributes paid to the Posey family by the hardy pioneers who braved the scalping “redskins” to cultivate the Indiana wilderness more than a century ago. Mr. Posey is a worthy descendant of thft sire of mysterious lineage for whom Posey county and Poseyville were named. He has won renown on his own account and accumulated ten talents by Judicious use of the one his progenitors bequeathed him —foresight. The location of the Posey innovation in floriculture and gardening is between Poseyville and Boonville. It is an abandoned coal mine that had been given up as serviceable only for the habitation of green lizards and other slimy denizens of dark, damp recesses. During the winter of 19091910 the Posey plants thrived in the old colliery. Did Mr. Posey desire a tulip or a carnation with which to add a touch of nature to the decorations of his drawing-room, he merely went to the lift of his mine, decended and picked the blossom. If his appetite needed a stimulant he brought up a radish, a green onion or a dainty bunch of lettuce, endive or celery, crips. Juicy and sweeter than any ever grown in a hothouse. Does this seem like an improbability? Origin of the Mine Garden. And how did the mine garden come about? It is an interesting little story. Several years ago Posey, having arrived at the conclusion that "Asia is for the Asiatics and China for the Chinese,” began to wonder it Indiana should not be to the Hoosters. It took him only a short time to decide that question for himself. Then Posey got busy and soon was hard at work with some laborers. He cleared away the ruins on the surface, erected a frame building over the shaft and Installed heating apparatus. He put in simple ventilating machinery, constructed a small elevator and descended to complete his exploration of the mine and begin the laying out of his “garden.” Far below the surface lay the base of the shaft, enlarged to the size of perhaps a fourth of a city double lot. Giant oak and maple timbers, rough hewn, stood upright, formed a solid wall gfclrood around this big room, except where the tunnels, whence the coal had been extracted, branched off in several directions. The natural rock of the "room” was supported with huge wooden beams to prevent tbe fall of slate. Away from the shaft ran tbe caverns, dark as pitch, for miles, perhaps. Cross sections, dug with mathematical precision, led into rooms 26x100 feet In dimensions,

where thousands of tons of coal had been mined. "Fine!” cried the subterranean gardener when he observed how the miners had left tbe “rooms” Intact with supporting columns and walls reenforced by heavy timbers. If he had dug into the burled treasure house of a grandee of Pompeii or Herculaneum he could not have been more delightel.. In those "rooms" stretching side by side, he knew not how far, he believed he could ultimately cultivate enough flowers jmd vegetables to make It—so far as concerned vegetation —eternal spring and summer in the homes in the big western and northern cities. But he planned only to experiment on a small scale at first. He would attempt to raise Just a few things for his own use. Posey selected one of the smaller chambers sad transformed it Into flower and vegetable beds, laboring In the atmosphere of summer, but without having a blistering sun beating down on bis hack. Over his head was an eternal cloud —- thousands of tons of earth and rock. All that Posey needed was artificial light, water and something to stir tbe air. It was easy enough to get the water through a hose and make it fall like rain on the planted beds. It was also easy to keep the air in any kind at circulation he desired. An electric fan, capable ol whirling in 1,000 or 3,000 revolutions a minute, solved that problem. How to provide a substitute for the sun was not so easy a task. But the experimenter got the substitute. Acetylene gas provided tbe beneficent rays that made the seeds swell up till they burst and the sprouts shoot out. The underground farmer put in a small acetylene gas plant in the "room” and an ranged it in each a way that the beams of light would fall evenly on every poruon of the garden. Fbr his experiment in growing he selected such varieties of flowers and vegetables as he knew grew best by artlfl-ciallight-some of these having already been named. He planted bis crop and adjusted the gas plant so as to produce “days” in tbe mine of a length equal to tbe natural days above ground In toe sprouting reason of spring, although it was in reality winter on the surface. Not to his surprise, but to his infinite delight, Posey soon saw little green shoots thrusting their tiny way up through the soil of his underfertile. Besides that, the plants drank in every bit of the fertility of tbs spil, for there were no foul weeds in that garden. Cultivation tie plants needed, and they got it. Rain they needed, and they got that, too, through a sprinkling device. Acetylene gas gave the nearest artificial approach to sunlight that Is known to modern science. It seemed to fulfill all the requirements of the growing plants. In fact, it almost outdid the.sun In developing the plants to maturity. A Orest Success. Within little mors than half the time usually needed. Posey’s tulips and other flowers were blooming, fill vegetable crop grew with like rapidity, and before his friends discovered that be was a midwinter farmer ho was giving a few preferred ones sotn% of the choicest, most toothsome vegetables they had ever tasted, all from the subterranean garden. His own table was often supplied, not only with the edibles, but with beautiful and fragrant decorative blossoms as well. Posey, to quite a satisfactory do gree. proved his theory and maflis# his dream. Meanwhile be planned te extend his subterranean flower and vegetable growing to undertake map kettng In the fatwm, /, “There's no limit to the posaibll Itiee and the profit." he told Ms tib tlmate friends.

SUMMER ATMOSPHERE WITHOUT THE SUN