Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1900 — LARGEST GARDEN IN THE WORLD. [ARTICLE]

LARGEST GARDEN IN THE WORLD.

The lands that were considered the most woithless. under 'bis system, have become the most valuable. Those sections that were covered by water are found to be nothing but muck—the blackest soil one ever saw, composed entirely of decayed vegetable matter, and so combustible that great care has to be taken not to let it catch fire. It is thirty, and in some places fifty, feet deep and would even raise door-knobs if planted. When his plan of drainage is completed he will have over 20,000 acres of these muck lands, and it is Gifford’s dream to convert this great acreage into the greatest vegetable farm in all the world. With that in view, he is building his railroad and is pushit thiough to Chicago. He intends to deliver vegetables in Chicago on his own cars. With such a garden, and with hie own railroad into one of the greatest vegetable markets of the world, Mr. Gifford or his heirs can lay claim to a richer gold mine than Cripple Creek ever produced.