The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-04-13
BowERsocK ON CATFISH
The Proprietor of the Kaw River Herd
Replies to an Anxious Inquirer.

lola Register: J. D. BoWerSock, the
millionaire Lawrence miller and owner
of the dam across the Kansas river also
prominent candidate for congress, has
been long pursued by Fred Vandegrift,
with good natured gibeS and jokes
about his catfish" pond, One of these
Jeering paragraphs, al1uding to Mr..
BOwerSock'S herd of cat fish" attract
ed the attention of an enterprising lola
youth. He didn't know why a herd of
cat fish was not a good thing to have,
and he thought the leosho river was
as good a breeding ground as the Kaw,
and so he addressed a letter to Mr..
Bowersock, inquiring as to his methods
in breeding and raising the fish.
Here is the answer:
April Z. 1885,
Dear Sir: I have yours of the 9Th. If
I had personal acquaintance with you,
I should conclude at once that you were
endeavoring to play joke upon me in
reference to the fish matter. Excepting
in the imagination of my friend, Fred
Vandegrift, of the Kansas City Star, I
am not a colonel-even in the Kentucky
sense of the word-nor have 1 any eX-
elusive right in any herd of cat fish nor
does my name appear in the Kansas
Herd Book.
Vandegrift used to live in western
Kansas, think, where he edited a coun-
try newspaper. presume he at times
went fishing somewhere along the Re
publican river, and he failed to
catch anything, instead of attributing
II TO MS handsome lace NWIl1Cn, ny Tie
way, would brighten any intelligent cat
fish he no doubt laid the blame entire
ly upon the fact that l had an obStruc-
ton called a DAM" across the KaW
river at Lawrence, Kan, and although
I had erected a stairway leading to the
top of said dam in order to enable the
cat fish to reach Vandegrift'S neighbor-
hood, the fish obstinately refused to
climb the stairs and congregated in
shoals CVandegrift says herds) below
my dam.
Seriously, I am now fishing for men
and not for cat fish, and if l have any
such herd of fish as Vandegrift so fire.
quently refers to, and were to give ad-
vice as TO how to own and control
similar herd, it would be as follows: Ac-
cumulate a reserve fund of $4,000 or
else be in such good credit as to be able
to borrow the same, find stream sim
liar to the Kansas river and at a place
where the stream is 500 feet in width,
build q dam % feet in width, 10 feet
high and 600 feet long, then, if your
stream is in Kansas and really has wa
ter in it connecting with the Missouri
river then below the dam referred to
the cat fish will congregate and be
yours, provided you catch them. The
cat fish in the Kaw river here, Vande-
grift says, are all branded with a capt.
tai "B" just back of the left ear.
AS soon as I can catch some small
preserves and is carrying away a
string of cat fish-if he is a very small
boy-I propose to capture one of the
fish and send by express C. o. d. to Van
degrift If you really were in earnest
in your letter, having been deceived by
Vandegrift's effort to be funny, L will
send you the first mess 1 can get under
the above conditions, by express, paid.
You will infer from the above that
the only way to raise cat fish, that I
know anything about, is by a hook and
line. or else by the vertical stairway
hereinbefore referred to. Yours truly,
J. D. BOWERSOCK.