Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1902 — The Marsh. [ARTICLE]

The Marsh.

Thayer-Shelby News. It has been customary with the former and present residents to refer to the land within a radius of twenty miles east and west of this point on the north and south of the Kankakee river as the “Marsh.” We wish the readers of the News to consider the present outlook and conditions of the south townships of Lake county and the north townships of Newton and Jasper counties. We ask the question. Do you know of any traot of land that holds out better inducements than this same Marsh does at present time ? The many needed improvements, such as drainage which have detained the progress of the farmers in the past are rapidly being perfected. The further construction of the Singleton dredge ditch and at the present time the Brown ditch to be opened to a width of forty feet which will carry the overflow water away in the spring of the year, also the many ditches and waterways on the south side of. the river have brought wonderful changes in the appearance of this tract of land called “The Marsh.” There is at the present time being planted a solid corn field on both sides of the Indiana, Illinois and lowa Ry. Co., from the state line of Illinois to a distance of eight miles east. The Brown ranoh, the Adams the Nelson Morris ranch and many owners of small tracts of lands, which were used almost entirely until within a few years as grazing land for stock, are now under cultivation of nearly every cereal grown elsewhere. The soil is pronounced excellent for the cultivation of all kinds of fruit and vegetables and today many hundreds of acres of this same land are rented for a much larger sum per acre than it would have brought if offered for sale a few years ago. Owners of this tract of land have declined the offer of fifty dollars per acre, in many instances, by would-be-buyers who have investigated the future for the people on the Marsh, “the garden spot of the west.”