The daily gazette., 1876-08-26
Scatterthwait's Truck and Fruit
Farm.

One of the most successful far
mers. truckers and fruit growers
in Pennsylvania, is Edwin Scat
terthwait, 81 binctou,B Bucks county,
whose establishment is about Il
mile cast of Jemkintown. Mr.. $
is known by reputation to the leac
ing fruit growers OF Berk s,andSF re
idcnt Of the Pennsylvania kruit
Growers Society, and tho author
of several valuable reports or
pomological subjects. The Bucks
County Mtel,gencr publishes an
interesting sketch of his history
and present operations. "Whcn q
man." says that paper, "Mr. Scat
terthwaiS was engaged in a store
in Philadelphia, but having a nat
ural taste for agriculture and hor-
ticulture, he moved out to his ma
tive neighborhood again and began
operations in his present line Of
business about twenty-five years
ago. He then had small place
of little over thirty acres. By
taking the best care Of this he was
enabled to obtain more, and his
property now contains about $50
acres of which all but ten is arabic
land. He has always attended the
Philadelphia market, standing
along the curbstone TO sell his pro
ducc for number Of years until
the modern market houses were
e.cctcd Since the great market
houses ut Market and Twelfth
streets was built Mr.. Scatterth.
wait has occupied stalls there, ,and
is one OF its most regular frequen-
tiers. Every week day in the year
large wagon load of articles
from his place in Abingdon is sent
into the city for sale. Mr.. S. him
self remains in the city most Of
the time to attend to sales, and
affairs on the farm are looked after
by his son, assisted by several
foremen. He goes down and u r
by the North Penn trains, while
the marketing is taken down the
pike. The scale on which bust
ness is transacted is enough to
surprise an ordinary farmer. He
usually raises 20 acres of potatoes
an acre each of carrots, ruta bagas
and parsnips, several Thousand
bushels ofturnips, thirty or forty
thousand cabbages, and as many
plants Of celery, which altogethe.
| furnish an enormous bulk Of pro
duce. From his 20 acres in pota
toes he has usually obtained six 0,
seven thousand bushels, worth as
many dollars in market. The las
syear however, fearing the ravaget
of the bugs, he planted only tel
acres, of which two acres, were
early ones, These yielded nearl,
half a crop. About the first o
August the bugs came in swarm
upon the rest Of his field. He di,
not resort to Paris green, but Sc
about a dozen men picking them
During the next six weeks a grea
many barrels of bugs were collect
ed and killed, and the tops looked
Vigorous and in good condition
But when the potatoes were du!
they scarcely cquallcd the seed il
quantity, Other roots and vcge
tables, however, did very well las
season. Mr., Scatterthwait ais
deals largely in fruit. His i'm
mence collection Of pears has mad
him famous among fruit-grower
all over the country. He bega
I taking an interest in this directio
fifteen or twenty years ago, an
j. now has,ovcr five hundred differen
. varieties of pears growing on hi
premises, Among so many kind
there are Of course some of II
y, great value-and there are vtr
few which he considers bettor fo
general purposes than the Bartlett
the Seckel and the Lawrence. III
is generally the largest eXhibito
b Of pears at fairs held in this pal
of the State. He has also a larg
collection OF apples but has settle
down on the Smiths Cider 9
the most satisfactory market fruit.
-Four years ago he planted 10
Cider apple trees, and last fall h
gathered about 100 bushcl of tn
finest fruit. From some oldC
trees, which came from the orig
nal stock near Pinevi.Ic, he had n
AVERAGE OF 40 bushels to each
Farmers within easy reach Of cit
he thinks, cannot do hclter tAau
plant plenty Of apple trees. II
sales during the last year ha,
: averaged at least y dollar p,
/ bushel. They are very lit
j., | t~.pl.l, n,J