The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-07-23
(St. Louis Republic.)

~ IONa@
The worlds biggest sport is a Kan
san. His name is Jim Fike and he
lives in Colby. Thomas county. His
real purpose in life is gambling with
nature. He raises whea as a means
TO accomplishing this end. He gam
bles with the wind, the sun and the
rain.
Out in the wheat country they call
him the Wheat King" lie is entitled
to the title. He calls himself Just a
plain farmer" but he outgrew his
along about the period when he out
grew his political ambitions and set
tied down to the more fascinating
game of winning thousands of dollars
on a Kansas rainfall.
This yea he won about $50, 900.
Quite a little cleanup. Last year the
wind, the lack of rain and too much
sunshine all but broke" him. He has
nearly 10000 acres of Kansas soil in
wheat this Year. If the wheat is har-
vested he vim big" Any way it goes
now he is ahead of the game.
He figures that his initial bet was
$4,000, even money. that he would
win. He made his gamble last year
in August and September, when the
wheat drills started in his field of TO-
900 acres. He has won his bet. He
really won it back in the last days of
May. when Kansas was visited by an
old-fashloned, notwithstanding, gully
washing, clod-melting rain of two
inches of water on the level.
Now it is only a question of how
much wheat he will thrash in order
to estimate the money that is coming
to HIM on his ticket. Fike never had
such wheat in all his wheat-raisins
career as he has this year.
The gambling table that Fike haunts
is his 10000 acres of Kansas dirt. He
plays the game with whole townships
of wheat land and the yield Thereof.
Miles of wheat is the stake that he
puts up against the whims of the
weather. If he suesses right he makes
a fortune. IT he guesses wrong he
loses from $4,000 to 3 0.O00.
Fike is the biggest wheat grove in
the United States, and therefore of the
wheat-raising world. Companies and
corporations grow more grain tina
Fike. but he plays the biggest lone
hand of n man in the wheat game
He has been plunsing in wheat for
five years.
He has been losing lately. Three
years g he won 100000 in his gam
BILE with old Mother Nature. Two
wears age the luck went against him
and he lost nearly everything he had.
He put in 10000 acres of wheat last
season. and the WELD was not suffi-
Gent to replace his seed.
Kansas is tied for first place with
Minnesota as a wheat state. but rain
is needed in Kansas TO make the
wheat grow. Jim Fike simply gam
bles that the rain will fall at the
proper time for him to make a for
tune. When it doesn't he loses and
takes it samely. When he wins he be
gins looking for more land to SOW in
wheat. He believes in letting his bets
ride
Last July Fike threw his first mon
ely on the table. He started his four
acknowledgements steam ploWs and
his TWO tWenty-horse-power gasoline
ploWs to tearing up 200 acres of dirt
daily. Behind them followed a swarm
of harrows. packing the dirt and get
ing the soil ready for the drills.
This was to be a big SAMPLE with
Fike. Wheat was selling in the inn
mediate neishborhood oil a dollar IA
bushel, and every bushel he could pull
out of the soil at harvesting time this
Year would be worth 100 cents. lie
took no chances.
Fike went down to the agricultural
college of Kansas. located at Manhat-
tan. and declared himself in the mar
ket for about all the seed of the Rus
'is'ii -h1Vi - = WV iIt'l IVY ltlli IN
stitution. He cot il. When he went
back to Colby he started his plows at
a depth of five inches instead OF three
inches, as he had been blowing in the
past. He wanted to make 1912 the
Year of his big killing"
Then the drills started along in Sep
TENDER. He was in the fields seene
the work we'll done. He had toe
much at stake to be anywhere else
While the seed was going i'm the
ground. The fall rains came at lust
the right time. Kansas has never
known such a winter in all her stormy
history as the one. There was snow
on Fixes wheat lands from November
until April /. The local weather OBJ
server at Colby reported hfty-seven
inches of snow in that tine.
BY the time the snow went off
there was no need to worry about
spring rains. The late winter had
pushed the wheat over that particu-
lar dangerous place. The wheat grew
as wheat has never grown before in
Kansas. 1t looked like made-to-or-
der weather for Jim F'ike all through
April. In May the rains ceased. Rath-