The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-07-31
ANDERSON, S. G., THURSDAY MORNING. JULY 81, 1890

teen hands employed by the month,
The rest come from the city and work
by the day. Ho employs two white
men as foremeu or superintendent, and
they have great houses, to use the Vir,
ginia term, to live in. The negroesheve
to be looked after constantly, but gang
ofnegroes at IS cents day, with white
foreman, are much cheaper laborers, Dir.
BalIentine says, than the same number
of white meu at New York prices, for
farm help.
As to the CLIMATE, it need only be roted
that this is the sunny South, and that
the sun is tempered by tho sea and tue
bay. The climate is euch that If the
wild western boomers could only get
hold of it the vocabulary as laid down in
modern dictionaries would be insufficient
to sound its praise. :.
The crops of this region are all brought
to the piers in Norfolk, for even those
bound North by the railroad must cross
the bay in steamer. Mr.. Ballentine
carries his t. the piers in the market
wagons, but hundreds of farmers on the
western shore of the bay use sloops oi
about the size of the oyster sloops Of
New York harbor. When the great
steamers lie on one side of the pier and
feet of little sloops on the other, the
scene is one of intense animation, and
the sounds are beyond description. The
pier shed becomes bedlam, peo.
pied with scurvy black imps, and re:
sounding with such cries and yells and
shouts and songs and laughter as can be
heard nowhere else. Barrels and crates
are tossed up from the sloops by the
negro crews, grabbed by the negro roust.
abouts, and carried on the run across the
pier and tossed through ports in the
black sides of the ship to negro deck
bands in waiting, who instantly disap-
pear in what seems O yawning cavern.
BY 6 o'clock the ship is loaded-often
crammed so full of the stuff that only
the spaces reserved for working the
machinery remain empty between decks.
With that the darkies On the mosquito
fleet rush for the halliards and get on jib
and mainsail and cast off the lines that
hold them to the pier, and away they 60,
by the score, in such O race down the
river as would stir The soul of the most
ennuied spectator. No more enthusias
tic or capable sailors of sloops than these
darkies can be found, and with their
sweethearts perched on the little cabins
to urge them on, the negro pilots send
their little yachts driving down or beat.
ing up to windward, with relish for
7ictory and disregard for the rights
Of competition that are stunning to be-
hold.
Leaving Norfolk after an examination
of the truck farmers the Northern agri:
culturist should go to Durham or to Ok
ford, North Carolina, and look at the
tobacco plantations. 1t is in the regions
roundabout those towns that the very
finest tobacco in the world is grown.
North Carolina has o few gold mines,
and on a certain occasion last fall down
in Montgomery County, pocket was
found in the placer diggins on Tebe
Saunders's farm than panned out $780,
600 in week. But Tebe Saunders is
nowhere in luck compared with the man
who owns and knows how to cultivate O
stretch of the white sand of Durham or
Granville Counties.
For instance, there is Farmer F. R.
Knott, who lives near Oxford. Farmer
K. came out of the war without cent.
and what was worse he had no education
But be was shrewd man in one respect,
and he is now able to drawa check for
100000. He got hold of some of the
GRANVILLE sand, and began to raise
tobacco. For time the tobacco he and
others of the section raised was market.
ed at q very small profit. 1t went to
Richmond, and it was of the light golden
yellow, not then very we'll known as in
great demand in the market. But it was
as fine as silk-literally as fine as silk
and it made demand that is now world
wide. The market has shifted to the
towns in the section where it grows, and
railroads have been built to transport the
crop. On the market day the planters
bring in the stuff by the hogshead and
roll it of the wagons to wide floors to
warehouses built for the purpose. The
hogsheads are opened, the tobacco dump
ed out and assorted, and an auctioneer
gets up and wants to know how much be
is offered, and buyers from New York
and all other manufacturing centres tum.
BILE over each other in their anxiety to
answer the question. Forty cents a
pound is common price for the leaf,
and seventy is often reached for choice
lots. Last year Mr.. Knott had some
choice lots and 80 many of them that be
cleared $500 an acre from ten acres.
There were several other planters in
Granville County who did as we'll, while
a plenty of them made $500 an acre
the top profit made by MIR. Balleutine
on his choice lot of spinach on his truck
farm near Norfolk.
The tobacco crop requires intelligent
csre, but there is no Yankee farmer worth
a forkfnl of daisies who couldn't learn to
grow the crop in one season. The seed
is sown in specially prepared bed in
February. The plants are transplanted
to the field in May. From $500 to 4,S00
plants are put on an acre, and darky,
who costs the planter about S14 month
all told, keeps two and half acres in
prime order if he is looked after properly.
The yield is from 700 to 1000 pounds
an acre, and the money for it should be
in the planters pocket within ninety
days from the day the plants were set
out, after which he can go a fishing OF
zee his poor or rich relation or do any
thing else that pleases him.
If, after looking over such farms and
such profits as are actually made here,
the man who has been fighting potato
bugs about the headwaters of the Hudson
or dosing the hog cholera in the Missis.
sippi valley or willing under the hot
winds OF the Western country doesn't
think there is money in some kiuds OF
farming be is curious sort Of a farmer.
Not all farms nor all planters make such
profits, but there are grades in farms and
farmers in the North as we'll as in the
South.
Probably the first thing a Northern
farmer would ask about these Southern
lands is the price. Around Norfolk
farms that are we'll located cost 5000 an
acre. That will buy farm of good
truck land with good buildings, and il
properly managed it would yield SlOO
an acre in profits.