The age-herald., 1901-12-30
Fine Farms from Swat1ps,


 l From the Chicago Record-Herald.
 When Capt Benjamin J. Clifford of Kankakee, H., as a boy of eleven plowed the corn in his fathers farm in northern Illinois, he noticed that the stalks in the swales were always taller and thriftier than those on the ridges. That set him to thinking, and his study has led to many remarkable results during the fifty years since These are some of his achieve ments:
 He has transformed an Indian swamp into a farm of 5000 acres.
 He has dotted it with 200 houses and as many barns.
 He has built twenty-seven mile rail- road through the middle of the farm to carry its produce to market and is head ing the road for Chicago.
 | He has seven town sites with railroad stations on his farm, to say nothing about wells producing an oil used in making asphaltum. -t
 He has 100 miles of ditches cut in his farm. and has a dredging machine busy year after year keepirg them in good l condition.
 With only one-half of the farm under cultivation during the past season, the
 crop included 250000 bushels of corn 12,OOO l bushels of oats, 15,000 bushels of rye. 12- 900 bushels of potatoes, and 10000 bushels
 of onions. These enterprises involve an | investment of nearly S1,000,000
 Signing for new worlds to conquer the
 captain has been trying to buy 25,OO0 acres of marsh land owned by Nelson | Norris the late Chicago packer, but they l ha al A. But these facts are only the culmina- l ton of Giffords unique and successful career. His previous feats included the l building of an independent railroad in Illinois and its unloading upon Jay Gould l at fancy figure, besides the redemption of many thousand acres of marsh land | in the Prairie State. All in all Captain 1 Clifford is a remarkable character. The early settlers of Illinois took up homesteads along the timbered banks of 1 the streams, and the captain was born on such a farm in Kendall County. At | the age of years he asked his father to | buy for him a government tract of eighty acres, a mile and half from his home. proposing to repay his father when he grew up. The father declared the prairie land mile and half from timber was worthless, except for grazing. And that ended the negotiations says the veter- an land buyer, with chuckle, in re- counting the incident.
 Leaving home at the age of 12 to make his own way in the world young Gif- ford soon learned the value of an edu- cation. Pafts of the succeeding eight years were spent in teaching school and doing farm work to assist him in carry ing on his studies He went to seminar ies at Mount Morris and Aurora and was planning to go to college when the war broke out. He had already bought low land farm in Lee County, Illinois, but he expected to be back in three months. He served four years, and in 1863 was commission captain of Com pany l, Fifteenth Illinois Infantry. Too old for college, after the war; he aban- doned that dream and took up the study of law in Kendall County.
 After getting his sheepskin he started South along the Illinois Central Railroad on a trip of exploration. He had long before concluded there would be hand some profit in buying marshy land and draining it, because the slit and muck of the ages made such soil richer than high land. He found his field in Cham paign County and hung out his shingle at Rantoul. As fast as he earned money he bought swampy acres. By lSi3 he had acquired about 12O0 acres of land, and built up a practice worth $4000 a year. Then he built his first railroad. That was the result of spasmodc indig- nation,' the captain explains. Sought Revenge. A committee sent to the railroad off, cials to ask for lower rates on farm pro- duoe was 'insulted" by a curt refusal, and the hot headed young lawyer thirsted for revenge. He figured that the farmers of his section were being bled enough on an ordinary crop to build short railroad to a connection with some competing line, and he organized a company for that purpose. Starting paper with his own name and liberal sum after it. he got subscriptions for $20O,000 worth of stock. Then he built seventy-six miles of mar row gauge railway from Leroy, H., to West Lebanon, Ind.
 There were several other disconnected lines between West Lebanon and Toledo, which he hoped to combine in one trunk line. In Fulton county, Illinois, on the west, there was county seat fight Capt Clifford told the Lewistown people they could win if they would build a railroad through their town. The enterprising promoter was looking forward to a con- tinuous line from Toledo to Burlington, Iowa, to connect with the Burlington and Northwestern railroad, which had 56 miles of track in Iowa
 About this time General Corse appear ed in the field, organized Boston syndi- cate and bought up the lines east of Giffords roads. Clifford had gradually acquired most of the stock of his road and operated 1t for five or six years. He