The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1910-06-17
::urain Grower Who Began
as Years Ago With Little
Except Hope.
MADE s15o.OOO LAST YEAR.
Now Has $4,000 Acres Of Land and
Will Plant It All in Wheat
Sowing and Reaping.


Thomas county, Kansas, sold last year
for $150,OO0. That farm embraced 1O,-
900 acres Of land. This year 1000
acres have been added to 1t and II
the crop is as large and prices as
good as last year the farm revenue
should approximate closely 100000.
And that, most any one will agree,
is pretty fair income for any down
trodden farmer.
But beginning with that kind Of a
statement is telling the story back
ward. To bring the real Kansas at
mosphere into a story one must never
speak Of the dollars first, the Kansas
City Star says. They always come, Of
course, in Kansas stories, but at the
last and plentifully. To tell 1t right,
one must start the story back twenty
five years, in this case, to the conven-
tional setting when pair of thin,
jaded, harness-scarred ponies draws
Into the landscape and outlines against
the setting sun dilapidated covered
wagon.
Bronzed by the sun, and with that
spring that ambition puts into the
young, the driver, Jim" Fike, springs
from the seat to the ground. From
under canvas he swings two chubby
babies to the thick carpet of buffalo
grass and turns to give his arm to his
wife, They are young and vigorous
and at once begin the making, on that
wide prairie, that which they have
been planning for years-a home.
There is the regulation routine, the
location, the trip to the land Office, the
filing Of homestead papers, the build
ing of the sod shanty, the like of
which dotted the prairies in thousands
In those days; the breaking of virgin
soil and the planting of the crops,
and -sometimes-th harvest.
Through all the years of drought and
hard times, through all the disappoint-
ments that come with the early set
tlement of country, through the
bountiful golden harvests, this man
toiled on, working harder and harder,
but always with the firm belief that
the country was destined to be great
country of homes.
Hope died in many breast these
trying times and many were those
who wended their way back to the old
home because they lacked the brave
heart to face the hardships. But Jim"
stayed. "Jim" he was to everyone who
knew him In those days, and Jim" he
still Is to every resident of Thomas
county. "Jim" Fike is one of the larg-
est and most successful wheat growers
In America to-day.
The average yield last year on his
10000 acres was about fiften bushels
an acre. The price paid for the wheat,
which was not sold in the usual way
but marketed in carload lots, was
within few cents of 81 bushel
A large portion of it was shipped to
the West, where millers were especial
ly eager to obtain 1t.
The Fike wheat farm does not all lie
contiguous, being made up of num-
Der of farms ranging from 320 to 2400
acres in extent. Harvest usually be-
gins about July /, but last year har-
vest was late. and all over Thomas
county the hum of the header did not
begin until about July Is. To cut this
10000 acres of wheat in fifteen days
requires intelligent and systematic
handling of the small army required
to complete the work before the wheat
is ruined In the field, Seven big steam
plows we're used in the fall plowing
for this seasons crop.