The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-08-20
He IS THE BIG GAMBLER.
u,xsAs "WHEAT KING" WHO
,,,,rc ON THE WEATHER AND
SELDOM LOSES.
HF CllTVATES 10000 ACRES

Plunger Stakes Everything Oh VIC
coming of Rain at Certain Time
Node S12O, 900 Last Year. Big
aos+ Individual Wheat Grower.
The worlds biggest sport is Kan
con His name is Jim Fike, and he
1 1;Tos in Colby, Thomas county. His
-ooI nurpose of life is gambling with
.otnre He raises wheat as a means
- accomplishing this end. He gam
HES with the rain, the sun and the
wind
He had 10000 acres under wheat
this wear, and will clean up about
s12O 600. In fifteen years of wheat
rowing on a big scale he has had
INIT one hopeless failure. That was
in 1911, and his winnings for this
YEAR will make up for two such re-
verses.
Plays Biggest Lone Hand.
Fike is the biggest wheat grower
in the United States and therefore of
the wheat raising world. Companies
and corporations grow more grain
than Fike, but he plays the biggest
lone hand of any one man in the
wheat game Throughout the West
he is known as the wheat king"
In July of last year Fike started
his four 30-horse power gasoline
blows to tearing up 200 acres of
dirt daily. Behind them followed a
swarm of harrows Getting the soil
ready for the drills. He is a believ-
or in the kind of farming that 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 implement
that will help him to get wheat into
the ground a little faster or a little
better appears Fike is one of the
first purchasers.
Sees Work Well Done.
He started his drills along in Sep
TENDER. He was in the fields seeing
the work we'll done. He had too
much at stake to be anywhere else
while the seed was going into the
ground. The fall rains came at just
the right time. Kansas has never
known such winter in all of her
stormy career as the last one. There
was snow on Fixes wheat lands
from November until April 1. 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 particular danger
GUS place The wheat grew as wheat
has never grown before in Kansas.
Plain Gambling.
1t is plain gambling, this plunging
that Jim Fike is making popular out
in the land of the buffalo wallows.
He has worked out system and 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
il the Northwest.
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 certain
time would be worth more than
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. Gam
bling on the weather is Fixes idea
OF having a pleasant and profitable
time
''Pd rather buck old Dame Wealth
er than any game I know" said the
wheat king last fall as he watched
the black smoke from his four steam
plows trail across the prairie. ut
is a mans game and has poker, faro,
roulette and horse racing and every
other game of chance skinned forty
ways"