The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-06-01
BETS ON WEATHER
Jim Fike Makes Huge Wagers
on Rainfall.
Stands to Win Quarter of Mil
lion Some Day.
HE INCREASES STAKE
Never Loses Good Nature When
Losses Hit Him.
Will Plant 10000 Acres of
Wheat This Fall.

Colby. Kan. June Jim Ffke is
trying to get rich betting against the
weather.
Last August he staked $4,000 on the
months.
If it had rained, as he bet 1t would,
he would have made quarter OF a
million and got his $4,000 back, too.
But it didn't rain. The weather is
freakish thing out on this high plateau
and Fike will be mighty thankful II the
$50, 900 is returned to him SO he can
have it to take another flyer against
the weather this year.
F'ike calls his method of fortune hunt
ing, Gambling against the weather"
He has been at 1t now for five years
and has never won.
But" he says. "ru make the big
killing one of these years, just as
sure's shootin'. and when 1 do I'll put
on patent leather shoes and go to the
seashore.''
Bets Every Year.
Fike has staked $4,000 in five years
on the chance that there would pc
enough rain and seasonable weather TO
give him bumper crop of wheat. Eacn
year of the five something went wrong
either 1t didn't rain enough to start the
wheat right, or it didn't freeze enough
to give it q good stand, or the hlgh
winds blew most of 1t out of the ground,
or the drouth hindered 1t from matuf-
ing, DuC LneIG WAS SlOuS u q Ivy IL
the worst of the five years to return
him nearly all he had ventured, and IN
several of the years he made pront
of a mere $4,000 or so.
The thing he is after is crop that
will average Is or 35 bushels of wheat
to the acre. If ever he gets that he
may go to the seashore sure enough.
or to any old place. And it Is sure
thing that he will get it if he stays
with the game, for in 1908 thousands
of acres of wheat in this county yielded
AZ bushels to the acre and many fields
cut 35 bushels and better.
Fike sat scrooched down in his Office
chair in this town the other day. an
old SLOUGH hat pulled down over MS
eyes. the black collar Of his black cot
ton shirt showing the white lining
where the edges had frayed out by rub
bling against the stubble on his throat,
his muddy boots up on his desk, and
he looked through the window at the
drizzling rain.
Rain Comes Not.
pity that rain didn't come last fall,
Jim said one of his neighbors who
was warming his back at the sheet iron
"Y-a-a-s," Fike drawled. But it
didn't
If this rain had come last year you y,
could have gone to Europe this fall'
said the man at the stove.
YES or any dam place., answered
Fike, still gazing out at the rain.
We'll" said the man at the stove,
shifting his body to the heat, guess
you could go now if you wanted to-.
he lifted his hat by the broad brim and
laughed, deep, hearty laugh, as pc
came a man of six feet, which he is
Then he explained his method.
Its a gamble" he said. We've
struck five poor years. In a bad year
IT, IaI1ShalS n the
and barely pull out. In a good year
it's easy to cut % to 35 bushels here
In that kind of a year, with the rains
coming right, raising wheat in TINS
country is like shooting fish in a bar
rel. That's the kind of a year I've
been fgurin' on getting If I once get
it I'll tell old Rockefeller to go chase
himself But it's been a scrap. I've
been increasin' my acreage faster than
rye been gettin' wheat. fair year
with, say $1,000 acres in would make
me better than 100000 clear profit. and
a. ringer that's what I'm waitln' for, a
ringer, I'll clean UP good quarter or
a million in one crop"
He's a Good Loser.
One regularity of Jim" Fike is that
he is never in the least bit discouraged
no matter how it goes. He is just as
good natured and free with good stories
and picturesque oaths when the weather
wins the bet as he would be If gold
dollars nodded at the heads of his mil
lions of wheat stalks.
Fike owns several hundred acres of
fine alfalfa that will keep him on the
right side of the poorhouse door even
if it never rains again in Thomas coun-
ty for that crop is on the creek bot
tom and the roots go down to ever
lasting water. The way he eats up
money is caution. Last summer when