84 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



Then enter the Illinois farmers who had 

 sensed opportunity close at hand. They en- 

 tered by twos and threes, so as not to arouse 

 suspicion. They began buying land. They 

 offered ten, fifteen, twenty-five, finally fifty 

 dollars an acre for the duck pond. A fair pro- 

 portion of the natives swallowed hook and 

 sinker. They had got their land for a few 

 cents or a few dollars an acre, and the cur- 

 rent quotations seemed to discount prosperity 

 beyond posterity. 



But a good many of them held on, and 

 for a few years more ate quinine and watched 

 the toothing steam dredges. 



Six years passed and still there was nothing 

 extraordinary in the appearance of the duck 

 preserve. There was just as much water as 

 ever. Nestling against the river wall, half 

 way down toward Burlington, however, there 

 was a low-lying house of cement. Duck- 

 hunters with sufficient curiosity to peer in at 

 the windows would have seen a lot of queer- 

 looking machinery standing knee-deep in 

 water. That collection of machinery consisted 

 of two three-hundred-and-fifty-horse-power 

 engines calculated to drive two fifty-inch 

 pumps. 



