Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1894 — A Great Enterprise. [ARTICLE]

A Great Enterprise.

THE GREAT WOBK BENJAMIN GIFFORD IS DOING IN J HE SWAMPS OF JASPER COUNTY. Mention has been made, from time to time, of the great work still in progress, of draining and reclaiming the great tract of swamp land, formerly known asHaddick’s milk-pond. In 1891 Berij. Gifford, of Kankakee, Hl., a man of great wealth, and of great * experiences in draining swamp lands, purchased about 10,000 acres of this swamp, and to which original purchases he has continually added, until he now owns some 18,000 acres, all in one more or less contiguous tract, making him the largest single land owner in the county, and perhaps in the state. • Soon after the land was bought he put first one, and then a little later, another large steam dredge at work, cutting immense ditches through the tract. —These dredges, of which one is still at work, have cut abjut 50 miles of large ditches. Eleven miles of main ditch, averaging 35i feet wide and 12 feet deep; and thirtynine miles averaging 25 feet wide and nine feet deep. But the drainage of the country was only a part of Mr. Gifford’s enterprise. As fast as drained and made habitable and tillable, it is divided up into farms of moderate size and rented on fair terms to tenants. Before this can be done, houses and other improvements have to be provided, and during a large part of the present year he has had constructed 30 or 40 new houses, employing 12 gangs of carpenters, two gangs of plasterers, two lathing gangs and two well boring outfits. The houses are well built, comfortable, and of good {size. They are all about alike, or exactly so, are 16 by 30 stet, with a wing 16 by 16 feet, and all 16 feet high. Good barns, 28 by 40, are built with each house. Also deep wells, down into btd-rock, and good water has been found in eve ry case. All houses completed are already occupied, and as a result of this enterprise, 40 new families have already been added to the population of Jasper county.

This year was the first that any of these new farms have been cultitivated, and the results have been most encouraging. The corn raised was very fine, and Mr. Gifford says, the best sod corn he ever saw, and for a man f< miliar with the wonderfully fertile lands bf central Illinois, that is saying a great deal. A thousand acres of corn were raised llrs year. Much more of the land will be under cultivation next year, as during the present fall, not less than sixty plows have been turning over land that never knew a plow before. Mr. Gifford has already invested $250,000 in this great enterprise, including, of course, the purchase price of the land. It is one of the largest drainage enterprises ever carried out in Indiana, and the • largest enterprise of the kind ever carried out by a single individual, in the United States. It is the fifth and far the largest, big drainage woik carried out by Mr Gifford. He has received some financial contributions from owners of neighboring lands benefitted by his ditches, but he says that all that he has received from this source, would not pay for the lubricating oil used on his dredge engines and machinery, during the time they have been at work. The farms contain from 160 to 400 acres. All that are ready for occupancy are already rented except one or two. / Including the tenants of the farms, their families and assistants, and the builders, dredgers, well borers, wood choppers Ac, about 300 persons are on the tract, and many of them have I been there three years, and it is a | remarkable evidence of the healthfulness of the locality, owing largely no doubt, to the excellent water from his deep wells, that in all that time there has been so little sickness that Mr. Gifford says ha has heard of only one case serious enough to require a physician. Improper and deficient core of the scalp will cause graynesa cf the hair and baldness. Escape both by the use of that reliable specific. Hall’s Hair Bene wee.