The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-01-13

Brighter Future Da7uns Boone County Pioneers Rural Po7ce,
BY ARCH sTEINEL

- curtains over Boone
County farm homes.
On State Road No. so,
just as on every wagon
rutted trail in the agricul-
tural section of Boone
County, a buxom, jolly farm
wife trims the wick of a
ccal-oil lamp.
"It's smoking again." she ex-
claims angrily as she flicks a
match to the kerosene smelling
receptacle.
The family settles to that quiet
hour in farm homes when the
dining room table becomes the
reading room and debate ground
of myriad questions from the collie
of Aunt Susie's baby to the post
hole and fence-fiXing of their
neighbor down the road a piece"
Il see by the piece in the paper
that they've got the first electric
pole up in Lebanon for OUR elec-
trio light line" vouches the fam
lily head with eyes raised over
Spectacles.
AIODS of enthusiasm greet the
4 speakers words. Mother
runs the mental gamut of the
household and what electric cur
rent will do for her.
Now there's the gasoline engine
for the Washer-that'll be replaced.
The electric iron we got for
Christmas from Mary-Ann can be
used. There's the electric pad for
Grandmas rheumatism-and-"
And" broke in the heavy
jowled farmer" there's lights for
the barn, blooder, a new water
System-and-."
But the lands" go on piling up
with the uses to which Boone
County farmers will put the power
to be provided them in the first
rural identification project of In
diana.
A project that is to have its first
161 miles of electrically lighted
farms by May l.
CLIP few miles up the road
~ from Lebanon to State Road
No. At and the farm of Sumner
Leckrone and then into his cat
tie and lamb barn.
I,eckrone's almost steel-cut smile
sharpens his ruddy cheeks as he
bends over a milk pail and tries
by the smoky simmer of the
lantern that squats askeW and
dangerously on the straw floor of
the barn to guide the spray from
his COW into the pail.
Electricity on my farm will see
all this go. This barn will be
lighted. I won't have to give my
lambs their bedtime feeding by
moon, by lantern, and by guess.
Therell be no more lanterns
kicked over in the cow-barn," he
said in words as soft as the down
on his chicks in a nearby out
building.
Mr.. Leckrone is a man who'd
always be called by respectful
surname, and more SO by his
neighbor, for he's Republican
farmer who took foreclosed acre
age during the depression, after
renting through the good farm
years, has nearly paid his first
$1,000 mortgage to get title to his
1T acres and says he'll finish the
job within the next few years.
And he was a radical Repub-
lican," declare his women-folk in
the farm home.
"THIS rural electriflcation
l. means O. lot TO the farmer"
says Mr.. Leckrone as the milk
sings with a swish" into the
pail.
Now I've got it figured out that
I can use it to grind my own fod-
der. Thatll save lot I can feed
it and not waste it as in the past
when I fed it raw.
And I'm raising lambs. I give
them an extra feeding at night,
about 9 o'clock. The electric lights
will light the barn. The chicken
house, on chilly nights, can be
heated by electricity and the
chicks kept warm throughout the
day.
But that isn't all. My wife and
mother will not have to break
their backs pumping water. Well
have good light to read by. The
radio can be turned from a bat
terry set to an electrically operat-
ed one," he said as he shifted the
lantern from the target of a
champing Holstein hoof.
This farm of mine was bought
at $73 an acre. figure that by
putting in electricity and being on
a state road that the price of the
acreage will jump at least to al
most $780," he declared.
=
TIE did not give credit to his
i i own improvement of the one
time foreclosed farm upon which
another farmer caught in the de-
preston coils was forced to re-
linquish to an insurance company.
The fact that the window-lights
of his farm home were broken,
that the fences were dilapidated.
and he repaired them we're not
credited by Mr.. Leckrone for the
increased price of the acreage.
His establishment of a sugar
camp on the farm and diversified
ton of his livestock with lamb
feeding did mot figure in his
mental. picture of an increased
value of his acreage.
He sang only the naean of a ma