as formerly designated, but now known as the "Burr Oaks Farm," originally
40,000 acres, situated about 100 miles south of Chicago, on both sides of
the Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad. The property passed into the
hands of an assignee, and, on Mr. Sullivant's death in 1879, came into
the possession of Mr. Sibley. His first step was to change the whole plan
of cultivation. Convinced that so large a territory could not be worked
profitably by hired labor, he divided it into small tracts, until there
are now many hundreds of such farms; 146 of these are occupied by tenants
working on shares, consisting of about equal proportions of Americans,
Germans, Swedes, and Frenchmen. A house and a barn have been erected on
each tract, and implements and agricultural machines provided. At the
center, on the railway, is a four-story warehouse, having a storage
capacity of 20,000 bushels, used as a depot for the seeds grown on the
farm, from which they are shipped as wanted to the establishments in
Chicago and Rochester. The largest elevator on the line of the railway
has been built, at a cost of over $20,000; its capacity is 50,000
bushels, and it has a mill capable of shelling and loading twenty-five
cars of corn a day. Near by is a flax mill, also run by steam, for
converting flax straw into stock for bagging and upholstery. Another
engine is used for grinding feed. Within four years there has sprung up
on the property a village containing one hundred buildings, called Sibley
by the people, which is supplied with schools, churches, a newspaper,
telegraph office, and the largest hotel on the route between Chicago and
St. Louis. A fine station house is to be erected by the railway company.

Mr. Sibley is the president and largest stockholder of the Bank of
Monroe, at Rochester, and is connected with various institutions. He has
not acquired wealth simply to hoard it. The Sibley College of Mechanic
Arts of Cornell University, at Ithaca, which he founded, and endowed at a
cost of $100,000, has afforded a practical education to many hundreds of