Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-06-18
BETS FORTUNE ON SHOWER.
wassred $4,000 to $4,000 That

Wasered $4,000 to $4,000 That i
Would Rain and it Did. 4
"Jim" Fike, the Kansas wheat king.
bet $4,000 during August and Sep
tember last year that rain would fall
on his 1000 acres Of wheat in north
west Kansas before the middle or
May, says a Topeka special.
And he has won, almost to 1, and
his winners may be or to 1. Fike
never had such a wheat prospect In
Is years as he has at the present time.
If he has only the average Kansas
yield Of wheat he stands to clean up
more than $4,000 on the one wheat
crop. If rains continued through May
and the early part Of June, he stands
to beat this by $4,000 to $4,000.
For four years Fike has been plung-
ing in wheat and he is now the big
gest winter wheat grower in the couh-
l. try. Three years ago he had 10000
acres Of winter wheat that averaged
eight bushels an acre, and he made
$50, 900 profit. Two years ago he SOW
ed $4,000 acres of wheat and lost
every cent he had put into 1t. He did
not harvest enough wheat to get seed
for the crop that offers so fine a pros
pect at this time.
Gambling on the weather has been
Fixes method Of chasing the festive
dollar for years. He was once Kan
sas railroad commissioner. elected
during the Populist days. He has bet
more than s25O,OO0 in the last 10
years that rain would fall at the prop
er time, and he never lost entirely
until last year. He had a bumper crop
on 1000 acres in 1903, and a crop that
earned him $4,000 in 1908. Since
that year he has not had less than g.
900 acres in wheat in any year. But
last year, after the most disastrous
season he had ever experienced. Fike
was forced to cut down his wheat
acreage Just half that of the former
Iyear.
Last summer Fike put in his wheat
with extraordinary care. He bought
the best Russian hard winter wheat
seed he could get on the Kansas Ag-
ricultural college farms. He plowed
two inches deeper than ever before.
He has four 30-horsepower steam
blowing engines, and two 2O-horse-
power gasoline engines to plow MS
fields. He plowed five inches instead
of the usual three inches. and USED
two sets of harrows to smooth the
grounds after each plowing.
Every one in Kansas has been
watching the rain reports from the
western part of the state. Kansas
people are interested in Fike and his
weather gambling. They want him.
to win and make a big killing
Everybody is pulling for him. There
were so many calls In the Topeka
newspa per offices as to whether there
had been rain at Colby, where F1Ke
lives, that the correspondents there
were directed to wire rain stories for
every shower. The Rock Island rail-
way general offices for Kansas direct
ed its agent at Colby to report spe-
officially every day on rain, and the
government weather offices loaned
the railway agent some rain gauges.
Fike Is like the chap playing the
faro bank. He has worked out his
system and just keeps on gambling
until he breakes the bank. Fike has
not made a real killing since 1903.
although he made lot Of money In
1908 and has made some money eacn
year until 1911. But this year he Will
hit the market in a way that Kansas
will be talking about it for years. In
cidentally there are a lot Of other
Kansans who will make a lot of mon
ey from their wheat fields.