Probably the greatest financial co-op
erative benefit has been derived from
Insurance. Our fire relief association
started business la 1901, and the rate
sf premium charged has been about
one-half that charged by atock com
panies on farm property. Our compa
ny la carrying more than $100,000 In
risks, has paid all losses promptly and
has a balance of $5,000 In the treas
ury.”
Advertise in The Observer.
' .. *
LARGEST FARM IN THE WORLD
Nearly 40 years ago an Illinois
farmer discovered that land on one
side of a State line was selling for
I $20 an acre, while he might buy any
I amount on the other side of the im
j aginery dividing mark for less than a
third of tha amount. Apparently there
was no reason for the disparity other
than that the higher-priced acres lay
in Iowa and the others in Missouri,
j Real estate men told the farmer that
! no railroad would ever go near the
j Missouri land, but he sold his farm
in Illinois and bought all he could of
the despised land at $6 an acre. All
about him were marshes and forest
fringes, and the men on the Iowa
acres laughed. Some of them starved
a season or two and returned East,
but the venturesqme farmer stayed in
the wilderness.
Not long since, David Rankin took
an inventory of his possessions in the
neighborhood of Tarkio, Missouri. Mr.
