The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-07-23
the BEST SPORT UN THE WORLD
HIS NAME is JIM FIKE AND HE CANDLES ON THE sun, WIND
AND RAIN,

IF it rains by the 10Th of May"
said l k Il win. It's bound to come
some time and 1 am going to be
mighty happy when it gets here. If
it hits right this year 1 will clean up"
1t rained on May 10. There had
been two or three little showers be-
fore that time. just enough to keep
ed to little Us rainfall. But on May 10
1t fell in bucketsful. tanksful. reser-
voirs full, all over the northwestern
part of the state.
Kansas and Jim Fike are feeling
better. The rain INDICATED h state
as a wheat region and at the same
time indicated Fixes Judgment. All
over the northwest counties the farm
ers are smiling. They win when Fike
wins and a good many of them fol-
low his lead and gamble with wheat
lands Just as he does.
II am going to make a real clean
up yet" Fike said as he watched the
rain come down in horizontal sheets,
and when l do l am going to take
my family and have a look at Europe.
After we have see everything we
care to see. we will come back home
and 1 will try to outsuess old mother
nature some more"
1t is plain gambling. this %plunging
NC III L lS ldhil poPdtaI Sat
in that land of buffalo wallows. He
has worked out a system n bets his
money on it in the form of seed wheat,
hired men, steam plows. gasoline gang
plows and the whole machinery of the
biggest wheat farm in the northwest.
He expects to keep on gambling till
he breaks he bank" That is, until
he makes a few hundred thousand
dollars and is inclined to take his
gambling easy for a while.
His last big winning was back in
1903. He made more money than the
whole of Thomas county h a year
with a bumper wheat crop. Turkey
red No. 2 Russian and all other varie-
ties of winter wheat are his ammuni-
ton in the fight. He makes a bust
ness as we'll as a gamble out of farm
ing. and he can chaperon a horde of
gang plows as we'll as any nan be-
tween the two oceans.
Back in the whiskered populist
days Jim Iike vas elected railroad
commissioner of the state of Kansas.
1t was in the era when a railroad
was anathcma and signal for trouble
in the Sunflower state. Fike forgot
the railroad situation long since, ex-
cept that there are times in late sum-
mcr when he urgently demands cars,
and a whole lot of them so that he
can get his wheat to the market. He
has spent the last ten years in his
fall statistics of Kansas.
Fike may win $12O. 600 on his wheat
gamble this a This compares very
favorably with the best killing" made
by h men who sell wheat in the
grain pits while it is still growing in
the fields. If he makes any such sum
as that mentioned he may put into
effect his long cherished plan of tax
ing his family over to Europe this
winter.
Fike is not so important a farmer
that he can neglect looking after his
end of the wager himself. He is in
the fields most of the year. Since
1908 he has had more thar 5000 acres
of wheat in the ground every season.
His failure in 1911 was the worst re-
verse he has eVer experienced. Last
year he had sambled l6. 200 acres of
good wheat land against the whims
of the weather and old dame nature
won,
lie has made two things his especial
study. They are wheat growing and
the yaearies of Kansas rainfall. This
Year he wins more than he had fig
ured. as the last winter was ideal from
the wheat growers standpoint. The
harvest is now well-n1gh over and his
luck has been with him.
In fifteen Years of wheat growing on
a big scale he has had but one hope
less failure. That was in 1911, and
his winnings for this year will make
up for two such reverses. He was
laughed at when he first came into
Thomas county and took up the prop
osition of growing big wheat crops.
He grew discouraged for a while and
went into politics.
Now Colby and all of Thomas coun-
ty pin their faith to Jim Fike. His
example has helped to make wheat
growing q scientific thing in the north
west section Of Kansas. He has all
the latest machinery and the best seed
he can procure in his gambling against
the weather averages.
The coming of one shower or its
failure to come may make or mar the
fortunes of the wheat king There
are periods in wheat growing when a
single shower at 4 certain time would
be worth more than a whole weeks
rain at another time. Every time Fike
CANDLES all the money he has and all
he can borrow on a wheat crop he is
betting that this one shower will
] come along at the time when it is
needed. Gambling on the weather is
Fixes idea of having a pleasant and
profitable time. It is this kansan's
method of hunting down the dollar.
Last fall his awful losses on the
seasons crop handicapped Fike to such
an extent that hA was unable to sow
more than 10000 acres. The year be-
fore he had seeded 10000 acres.
, 1Tike ives a few miles out of Colby.
and does his travelling in a motor car.
He is a believer in the kind of farm
ing thai calls for gasoline and steam
engines. He has a horde of these
iron horses on his big farm. When
ANYTHING new in the way of an inn
plement that will help him get wheat
into the ground n little faster or a
little better appears, Fike is one of the
first purchasers.
This fall he will either go to Europe
or make his plans for the biggest
killing in his ten years of weather
gambling.
Il had rather buck old Dame
Weather than n game l know re-
marked the wheat king last fall as
he watched the black smoke from his
four steam plows trail across the prai-
RTE. 1T is a mans size game, and has
poker, faro, roulette. horse racing and
every other game of chance skinned
forty ways"