The Holbrook news., 1910-06-24
Kansas Grain Grower Who Began $ Years Ago With Little
 Except Hope.
EADE S15O,OOO LAST YEAR.
How Has 12,OOO Acres of Land and Will Plant It All in Wheat
 Sowing and Reaping.

The crop of wheat from one farm in
 Thomas county, Kansas, sold last year
 for S150,000 That farm embraced 10,-
 00C acres of land. This year 2,00O
 acres have been added to it and if
 the crop is as large and prices as
 good as last year the farm revenue
 should approximate closely S200,00G.
 And that, most any one will agree,
 is a 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 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 it right. one must start the story back twenty five years. in this case, to the conven- tiCnal setting when a pair of thin, jedeC. harness-scarred ponies draws into t:le landscape and outlines against the sr ting sun a dilapidated covered WagC T.
 BI cnzed by the sun, and with that spring that ambition puts into the yo, '. the driver, "Jim" Fike, springs fron. the seat to the ground. From unGcr a 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.
 i1 ho hn location, the trip to the land office, the fling 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 Ile crops, md then-sometimes- harvest. Through all the years of drought and hard times, through all the disappoint ments that come with the early set tlement of a country, through the bcuntiful golden harvests, this man toiled on. working harder and harder, but always with the firm belief that the country was destined to be a 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 a few cents of $1 bushel. A large portion of it was shipped to the West. where millers were especial ly eager to obtain it.
 The Fike wheat farm does not all lie contiguous, being made up of num- Der of farms ranging from 32O to 2,40O acres in extent. Harvest usually be- gins about July l, but last year har- vest was late, and all over Thomas county the hum of the header did not begin until about July 15. To cut this 10 ,0O0 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 blows were used in the fall blowing for this seasons crop.