The age-herald., 1901-12-30

consolidate or lease, and the young Illi- nois lawyer felt it was a fight to the f1n- ish. He at once invited the big roads crossing his line to bid on it. The Illi nois Central approached him first. His offer to sell the S20o,0 GOO for $100,O00 was spurned but he argued so strongly he convinced himself the prince was too low. '---#s-'
 To the next applicant he named s1250O0 as his price. only to have 1t refused. Again he convinced himself the figure was too low and he continued to raise the price $25, 900 on each applicant until he ap- preached Jay Gould with an offer to sell for $250. 900. The Illinois man was able to show that his road had earned S10oO during the previous year, with operating expenses of $5O,00O and bond interest of $21, 900, leaving s290oO to apply on floating debt or to pay dividends. He argued that Gould could not afford to let rival gob- ble up the road and cut the Wabash out of the rich Illinois territory Within half an hour the New YorKer had snap ped up the little railroad and the Illi- nois lawyer had made handsome profit That was in 1890.
 A New Venture.
 Corse's line went to St.~Louis instead of to Burlington and became a part of the
 
 bankrupted under Goulds management and is now owned by the Illinois Central
 New York friends then invited Clifford to join them in buying the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad. It had been built by Gen. A. J. Warner, the free silver agi- tator at a cost of $5.000,0GJ. but Gifrord's syndicate got 1t for $1.0O0,00O After man. aging the road for 8 year Clifford con. cluded to go back to his swamp land cnh nl ba I.t- He figured that the draining of marshes was one of the safest and best business ventures in America,
 In 1891 Captain Clifford cast his eve on Indiana for new worlds to conquer. He wrote several county clerks asking for information about swamp lands The clerk Of Jasper county wrote him details about the Iroquois, Kankakee and Waukarusha swamps and he added in- cidentally that there was a fourth swamp that had no value except to trade to somebody who had never seen it. The captain scented a good bargain and hastened over to see the worthless tract He had wanted only 4000 acres but bought 6700. The Indiana marsh being nearer his home in Kankakee as well as nearer Chicago, the captain in time con- cluded to sell his Illinois land which had become valuable for farming, and invest his money in the Indiana tract He soon bought about 30.OoO acres in an irregular square five or six miles each way near the center of Jasper county Outlying purchases, especially northward toward the Kankakee river, increased his hold ing to 33000 acres.
 Starting his dredge at the headwaters Of the marsh the captain dug a long main canal southward to the Iroquois river. Then followed a network of branch ditches all over the swamp-about 100 miles of canals in all. After ten years of dredging that work is practically all done but MT. Clifford will keep the dredging busy as long as he lives, for 1t would be suicidal to let the ditches be- come choked and transform the land back into marsh. It costs s60O0 year to run the dredge with one shift At first thought that may look like a burden some charge. but 1t represents only 20 cents an acre, which is only half busheI of corn at 40 cents a bushel