Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1894 — WHAT “OLD-MAN-ON-THE-CORNER” LANDIS THINKS OF NORTHERN JASPER. [ARTICLE]

WHAT “OLD-MAN-ON-THE-CORNER” LANDIS THINKS OF NORTHERN JASPER.

Delphi Journal. - X was up into Jasper county last Week, at DeMotte, a small place in the northern part of the county. DeMotte is situated in the Kankakee valley. The little town is on a sand ndge hut all around is black loam and rich promise. Ten years ago that whole country was a swamp. It is rapidly being reclaimed and the time is not far distant when the lowest places will be drained. And then the people of Indiana willeuddenly awake to a realization of the fact that the stretch of swamp extending from South Bend to the state line, averaging in width from eight to ten miles, and comprising over a million acres, has suddenly been transformed into the most productive territory in the state. The reclamation of this land is rapidly going on. Dredges are working out immense channels that carry off the water rapidly. I saw land last week that could have been bought by the mile for one dollar per acre ten years ago that is now worth $25 per aere. Then this land was covered with water. Now the corn on it is up to a horse’s back. Shrewd speculators gobbled up this land at a mere soDg. One man owns 18,000 acres in one stretch.

The Kankakee valley will some day do the gardening for Chicago. The soil is adapted to gardening. Plow it up and harrow it and it is just like a large garden that has been carefully raked. It is a black, sandy loam averaging from one to six and eight feet in depth. The soil is much the same as that in Holland and the valley is attracting ands of people from that country. They are the very best class of immigrants. They are industrious, thrifty and law-abiding. They come to this country to make it their home. They settle down to business. They work and save and accumulate. They obey the laws as they find them. They are natural gardeners. I predict that in a very short time the Kankakee valley will be a succession of beautiful farms and gardens, that a railroad will run its entire length and that special garden trains Will carry to Chicago early every morning the fruit and vegetables of that section. And after it is all over the people who have been going to the Kankakee swamps to hunt and fish will wonder why on earth it never occurred to them to pick up one or two sections of that land when it was cheap. Ten years hence a section of land on the Kankakee will be considered a fortune.

There is a canning factory at DeMotte. Jacob Troxell, who lives there, who holds the scales of justice and who is a valuable citizen generally, took me out to look at a few of their tomato and potato patches. There are fields of from ten to twen ty acres that are now waist high. There are acres of onions and cabbages. The canning factories will be busy this summer. And think of the canning factories there will be along this rich and fertile valiey ten j’ears hence. Think of the wealth, of the gardens, of the farms, of the homes along this valiey. Think of its beauty and richness and glory and think how proud the Hoosier state -willbeof it all. And ten years ago they were almost giving this land away 1 It waS then synonymous with frogs, dog fish, snakes, water lilies, reeds and rushes. I don’t know of" any people who are getting more out of life than the people up around DeMotte. They all seem to be happy. The families are large, are well clothed and have lots to cat. They are all patriotic. You ought to have seen them turn

out on the Fourth. —They came to town in delegations from the country with horns tooting and flags waving. They sang, they cheered, they fired the old anvil. They listened to the speaking, and when everything else was over they cleared the platform that was carefully laid, an orchestra appeared and the young people wound up the day’s festivities with the dance. I don’t know how long they danced, but at two o’clock in the morniDg when 1 happened to “come to” for a second the strains of a “quick and devilish” tune came floating through my window and I heard the caller sing out, “all join hands and circle to the left.” I imagine it was “sun up” when that orchestra played “Home, Sweet Home.” , I like to go to the country on the Fourth. There it is plain, unaffected patriotism without any side issues. And after all, the fields and farms, dotted with school houses and churches, are the safeguards of the republic.