The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-07-28
PLAIN FARMER
MILLIONAIRE
MADE ALL BY THRIFT AID WORK
Believes That Railroads. Packing
Houses and Improved Appliances
Make Prosperity.

TARKI O. Mo, July 26.-David
Rankin of this city is more than three
times Il millionaire. but one never sees
his name in the metropolitan press
That may be because, in spite of his
great wealth, he is just a plain farmer
He made his money by thrift. an in
telligent application of hard earned
knowledge of agriculture, and dis
position to utilize every device OF
science to improve the quality and in
crease the quantity of his crops. He
never refused to use improved farm
machinery because what was good
enough for his father was good enough
for him on the contrary. whenever
anything new came out he gave it a
fair trial needless of the ridicule of
his neighbors He believes. for in
stance. that the railroads, implement
manufacturers, and packing houses
have made farmers prosperous and
that farmers should be ashamed to
abuse those institutions as they do.
He began his career in 1916 with
half a yoke of oXen-one bull. Today
he is worth $3.5O0.OOO. on his broad
acres $50 men are employed. He
raises 5000 acres of corn year.
yielding about 100000 bushels. one
thousand horses and mules are re-
quired to do the work of this vast
farm. and he buys $50 carloads of
feeding cattle at time. In one field
he has 5000 acres of corn the largest
cornfield in the world He has given
5000 600 to Tarkio college and regards
it as one of the best Investments he
has made. In speaking of this he
dwells on the Importance of an edu-
cation; says he needs more than he
has himself and wishes to make it
easy for boys and girls of the present
time to acquire learning. This mill
lionaire farmer raises more corn each
year than the nine states of Utah,
oregon, Washington, Arizona, Idaho,
Montana, Rhode Island, Wyoming. and
Nevada combined
Farmer from Boyhood.
Mr.. Rankin was born on a sullivan
county Undiana farm in 1925.
Through farming since he was big
enough, first for his father and later
for himself he is familiar with the
great changes that have come in the
agricultural methods and the manner
of rural life in three-quarters of a
century. His first home was a log
cabin sixteen feet square. In that
home the cooking was done in an
open fireplace, most of the simple fare
being cooked in a kettle set on the
logs, which had to be watched lest it
tip over. The bread was cooked in a
vi
Goals under it. When young David
was years old the family moved
from Indiana to Illinois, locating in
Warren county.
The only schools they had in those
days were little subscription schools
held in log houses. with windows of
CREASED paper. The principal studies
were reading. writing and arithmetic,
and the embryo millionaire had little
opportunity to acquire these.
At the age of II years he quit
school and went to work. The boy
was needed to help support the fam
lily. Money was so scarce that the
common people could afford shoes only
in cold weather. Mr.. Rankin recalls
that he went barefooted every summer
until he was % years old. But it was
the simple life. and, if it had many
disadvantages, Mr.. Rankin believes it
gave people stronger constitutions
than the strenuous life of today. Ger
tainly it had that effect on him. for he
is hearty and active at IS.
Difficulties of Old Time Farming.
Prosperous young farmers of today
whose greatest worry is that the bank
may fail will note by the prices preva-
lent in Mr.. Rankin's boyhood that
there were other causes of worry then.
In 1910, to pay a store debt for his
father he hauled dressed hogs to the
town of Oquawka, H.. on the Miss
issipp river. and sold the meat for 81
to $1.25 a hundred. Live hoge are now
worth IS per hundred pounds. And it
was harder to raise hogs in those days.
The corn they were fattened on was
cultivated with a single shovel pillow
and the ground plowed with a wooden
moldboard pillow. This wooden mold
board had to be cleaned with paddle
about every twenty rods, and an acre
a day was good work for a man and a
yoke of oxen. Good blowing is one
of the essentials of farming, and the
blowing with the old fashioned wooden
pillow was not thorough; the wonder
is that they raised as much as they
did. There was also q good deal of
hoeing of crops in those days. and one
of the old fashioned hoes weighed as
much as four or five of the modern
steel hoes.
Those were days of hardship en-
tirely unknown to the farmer of to-
day-the farmer with a bathtub in his
house and an automobile in his cleo
tric lighted garage. To get their -four
the Rankin family sent their wheat to
mill operated by horses hitched to
a sweep, and each patron had to fur
nish the power to grind his grist. At
one time young Rankin made seven
trips to the mill. a week apart, before
his grist could be attended to. going
fourteen miles each trip with yoke
of oxen. In the meantime the family
lived on potatoes and bread made frGm
wheat ground in coffee mill or corn
pounded out in mortar.
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