Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-11-15
AMERICAS RICHEST FARMER.
Rise of David Rankin From Poverty
to Wealth.

to wealth..
From extreme poverty to the biggest
and richest farmer in the world is the
story of David Rankin, whose life
work closed the other day on his great
Missouri farm.
The story of this plain, unassuming
mans rise from grinding want to the
ownership of the largest cultivated
farm in the world and millions In
profits, is one of the great romances
of this country, and an inspiration to
every barefoot boy dreaming his
dreams in the burrows as he follows
the plow.
The editor of the Weekly Georgian
feels that no more powerful sermon
on industry, application and possiblli-
ties of farming life in America could
be offered than the simple telling OF
David Rankin's history. 1t is not 10
| be presumed that every man has the
genius for organization and achieving
that he possessed. but nevertheless his
rise shows that tremendous opportu-
mites lie at the hands of every farmer
boy and youth in the land.
Here is the plain story of his llfe:
He began his career in 1S46 with
| half q yoke of oXen-one Dull. On
the 25,640 broad acres he leaves 25o
men are employed. He planted H.
| 600 acres to corn a year, yielding
about 100000 bushels. One thou,
sand horses and mules are required
to do the work of this vast farm, and
| Mr.. Rankin bought ESQ carloads OF
feeding cattle at a time, his freight
bills running as high as $4,000 for
one shipment. In one field he had
5000 acres of corn, the largest corn
| field in the world.
He gave 100000 to Tarkio college
and regarded it as one Of the best In
vestments he ever made.
In speaking of this he was wont TO
dwell on the Importance of an educa-
ton, saying he needed more than ne
had himself. and wished to make 1t
easy for boys and girls of the present
time to acquire learning. This mil
| lionarie farmer raised more corn each
year than the nine states or Utan,
Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Idaho,
Montana, Rhode Island, Wyoming and
Nevada combined.
| He did not sell his corn, but fed 1t to
cattle and hogs holding that the latter
were nearly all profit. Thou shalt not
sell corn" was one Of his maXims. He
did not pay much attention to nitrogen,
phosphates or potash In the SOILS
holding that his land was ineXhausti-
bly, fertile, but he favored agricultural
schools and the new farming He
was worth about $4,000,000.
Mr.. Rankin was born on Sullivan
county Qndiana) farm in 1879.
Through farming since he was big
enough, first for his father and later
| for himself, he became familiar with
the great changes that came In the
Agricultural methods and the manner
of rural life in three-quarters of a CEN
tury His first home was 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 Dutch oven,
with Goals over it and Goals under II.
When young David was nine 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 eleven years he quit
school and went to work. The boy was
needed to help support the family.
Money was 50 scarce that the common
people could afford shoes only in cold
weather. Mr.. Rankin recalls that ne
went barefooted every summer until
he was 2S years old. But it was the
simple life. and, If it had many dis
advantages, Mr. Rankin believed it
gave people stronger constitutions than
the strenuous life Of today.
Prosperous young farmers of today,
whose greatest worry Is that the bank
may fail, will note by the prices prev
alent in Mr.. Rankin's boyhood that
there were other causes Of worry then.
In 1S40, to pay store debt for his
father, he hauled dressed hogs to the
town of Oquawka, ILL.,, on the Mis-
sissippi river, and sold the meat for
81 to $1.25 a hundred. Live hogs are
now worth about 50 a hundred
pounds. And it was harder to raise
hogs in those days. The corn they
were fattened on was cultivated with
single shovel plow and the ground
plowed with wooden moldboard
plow. This wooden moldboard had to
be cleaned with a 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 es-
sentials of farming and the plow-
| ing with the old-fashioned wooden
plow was not thorough; the wonder is
that they raised as much as they did.
| There was also a 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.
| Tlo.o ,,o,o Jo,,. of l,ordsIipo on
| tirely unknown to the farmer or to-
day-the farmer with a bath tub in
his house and an automobile in his
electric lighted garage. To get their
flour the Rankin family sent their
wheat to a mill operated by horses,
hitched to a sweep, and each patron
had to furnish 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 a
yoke of oxen. In the meantime the
| family lived on potatoes and bread
made from wheat ground in a coffee
mill or corn pounded out in mortar
In 1864 Mr.. Rankin attained his
majority, and he had TO decide what
he should do-and then do it-and
right there he came near to making
a vital mistake. His boyhood and
youth had been years Of hard labor
and deprivation, and he had often
sighed to be rid Of it all. In his eyes
a clerkship in a country store meant
a life of ease and affluence, so he de-
cided to become a clerk. But nobody
would hire him. The storekeepers
didn't seem to have much faith in his
ability to measure out sugar and cof-
fee and molaSseS SO it was back to
the farm for young Rankin, and it
is scarcely necessary to say he never
regretted his choice, even if it was
forced upon him. Mr.. Rankin, begin
ming his career with one bull as
assets, purchased another to complete
the yoke, paying SIS in work for the
animal. A new plow point cost Sc,
and he had to go in debt for that and
couldn't get it until he found a friend
to go his security.
In 1S47 Mr.. Rankin drove a bunch
of cattle to Chicago, across the prairie
so they could feed as they travelled.
There were no regular packing houses
in those days, except in the winter.
They were all closed in the summer,
as there was no such thing as cold
storage and refrigerating plants.
t.,