Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1906 — About Kankakee Drainage and Marsh Hay. [ARTICLE]

About Kankakee Drainage and Marsh Hay.

Farmers says the Chicago Journal, along the Kankakee river have gone into the.trust basting business. They have joined a movement for the draining of the Kankakee marshes. They intend to make the marshes into fertile farms. Oa these farms they plan to grow potatoes, corn and other valuable products. And that means the death of the marsh “hay trust,” which will be put out of the way without help from president Roosevelt.

For scores of years the Kankakee river bottoms have produced nothing but marsh hay. This hay is not good for feed, but there is a ready market for it among glass and queens ware manufacturers, use it for packing their One grade of hay grown in the marshes is called “rope” and ig used by pipe manufactures as core, making the hole in the pipe stem during the process of casting.

The farmers along the Kankakee both in Illinois and Indiana, endeavored for many years to get the water off their land and grow profitable crops, but without result. The Kankakee river, which has been called the eroockedest stream in the world, refused to carry the water away. So the farmers had to be content to cut the]marsh hay and sell it for the best price they could get. Horace Marble, a Wheatfield, Ind., banker, saw the value of the hay. He bought it from the farmers for a low price and sold it to the business men who used it for packing for a high price. He started a bank and loaned the farmers money, generally getting an option on the next hay crop as part of his interest Gradually he controlled the Kankakee valley hay output and came to be called the king of a * hay trust.”

The farmers were paid from $3.50 to $4 a ton for their hay, above half the price of timothy. They had to cut and bale it and deliver it for shipment. The majority of the farmers were in debt, with no prospect of getting out, but were going further in, Two years ago some Indiana farmers started a movement to make their farms something more than marsh: Jeremiah Smith, a government surveyor, in 1834 tried to find the level of the marshes, but reported to Washington that it’was impossible to drain them. He called the Kankakee a Styx, but the farmers diden’t think he knew it all. They sent to Washington, to the department of Agriculture, and asked for aid. M. H. Downey and Prof. C. G. Elliott investigated the marshes for the bureau and said it would be possible to shorten the course of the Kankakee and lower its bed so that the crooked stream would drain the marshes and leaee the land dry for cropraising purposes.

The farmers took heart. The price of marsh land went up and companies were formed. One company bought 23,000 acres from Nelson Morris of Chieago. The farmers organized and raised the money for straightening the river. The crooks were cut out and the bed was lowered. In one place a dredge reduced the length of the stream from forty-five to 16.92 miles. Soon in Starke and Laporte counties, Indiana, the water disappeared and fine crops took the place of the marsh hay. Porter and Jasper (counties then got the water from Starke and LaPorte counties. The farmers of Porter aud Jasper met and decided to keep up the dredging work. Marble head of the “hay trust,” owned much land in these counties and he is said to have protested at a meeting against the improvemen work. But the farmer decided to go ahead. Now more dredges and morelaboreis are on the way to the Kankakee marshes to reclaim thousands of acres oi land which have for many years been the chief asset as the “hay trust.”