Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1913 — Where Farming Is on a Big Scale. [ARTICLE]

Where Farming Is on a Big Scale.

E. W. Howe of Atchison, who is globe-trotting again, writes from Melbourne: “In the washroom of the sleeping car, early this morning, I met an American, a Boston man, who has been a gentleman farmer in Australia for 12 years. He told me he owned 52,000 acres of land, and that, whereas he came here with nothing 12 years ago, he would not take >1,500,000 for what he owns now. He originally visited the country on business,thought he detected great possibilities, and came here to live. He didn’t know corn from barley when he began, but applied business rules to farming, and has succeeded. I expressed surprise as to his large land holding, whereupon he told me that in the interior there are sheep farms 500 miles square, or as big as the state of Kansas. This land is leased from the government at a penny an acre. Artesan wells 3,000 feet deep are being bored, and these wells are greatly benefiting the arid district” —Kansas City Star.