BIGGEST FARM ON EARTH.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12679, 26 October 1909, Page 4

BIGGEST FARM ON EARTH.

— . 4*k One million sterling is the estimated valne of tlie fnnm of Mr. D*t *.*)•! Bankin, of Tarkio, in the United States. Forty years ago there seemed little likelihood of a railway coming near the place. In fact, he nas told that no railroad would ever so near the Missouri lands. Nevertheless, be sold his farm at Illinois, ancl bought all the land he conld at Tarkio, which was going at five shillings an acre. Altogether he bought .nearly 26,000 acres, which ho cultivated aoid fanned, and when a railway was built through Tarkio the price of land went up by leaps and bounds. A means of transit being thus placed at his disposal, Mr. Rankin went in for farming on a large scale, and a recent inventory showed that he possessed 12,000 fattening hogs, 9000 cows and bulls, 800 horsos, and more than 100 cottages, in which the employees of his big farm are housed. "Thoy say I'm the biggest farmer in the world," Rankin says, "and I guess it's true. Lots of men have more land than I, but they use it for cattlo ranches only. Mine is a farm. Rankin never raises cattle. He buys the raw steers from the plains, and fattens them until wortii twice what he pays for tho "feeders," as they are called. He never sells corn, because by feeding it to cattle, according to a .minute calculation of his own he gets more ample returns. Mr. Rankin is Sootch-IrisJi. Ho was born in Indiana iv rural poverty, and made his start trading a colt for calves and .raising ths latter into steers. To-day he owns an implement faotory, a municipal water system, a telephone company, a bank, and other enterprises, in addition to his farm. When a notion takes him he adds £10,000 or so to the endowment of Tarkio College, a Presbyterian school in his own town-, which has known his generosity to tho extent of £50,000.