Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-21
SETTLE UP THE SUBURBS.

The value of these products was S45S, 065.
They were chiefly sold in the Northwest.
To this might well have been added straw
berries, blackberries, plums, squashes, Gu
cUmberS, English peas and sweet potatoes
enough TO fully make up the round half
million dollars. All these products are
raised on a radius of three or four miles
around the city.
Mobile is city not far from the same
size as Fort Worth, aud the lands upon
which this heavy truck farming is done are
vastly inferior in point of fertility to the
lands here; indeed, they are too poor to
raise any kind Of crops without heavy ma
urring. The truck farmers there would be
extremely glad to have Fort Worth soils to
spread upon their lands as fertilizer.
As L gardening locality, Mobile has not
one natural advantage over Fort Worth
while Fort Worth has decided advantages
in L superior soil. There is less than one
degree Of difference in the latitude of the
two places, and, as we have shown on
former occasions, late spring frosts affect
vegetation much more seriously at Mobile
kill all tender vegetation at Mobile leaves
tender vegetation unscathed at Fort Worth.
Mobile has heavier annual rainfall than
Fort WORTH but that rainfall is not heavier
III the spring season when truck is being
grown for the early Northern market.
Through the spring of this year drouth has
seriously affected the crops at Mobile,
while there has been no complaint in that
direction here.
Then, what's the matter that the sur
r0undings of Fort Worth are not contrib
uting half million dollars annually to the
Income of the locality (as are doing the
surroundings of MOBILIZE, and doing it with
far greater profit TO us, owing to superiority
Of soil, This is u good question for our
people TO get about asking themselves.
We cannot help specializing little on
what the answer TO this question will be.
They viii probably say Mobile could get her
truck on the early Northern markets sooner
than we could get ours on those markets.
We are not entirely sure of this, but adj
hitting it-how much sooner? Not above
one week, at most. Is it reasonable to sup
pose that the Northern markets for early
fruits and vegetable will close in one week?
IL one week after the first receipts they
will scarcely be open, for the very earliest
receipts are held at such high figures that
only the few take them, as luxuries. We
would ride in on the biggest wave of the
market, and if it should be that our coming
in would be week behind the earliest
time, we would be able to run a week later
than do our friends on the coast, and yet be
ahead Of the local supplies at the North.
Mobile don't ship all kinds of things
needed so long as there is market for
them. She raises her crops, one after an
other Just as the truck growers do in other
localities, and when one crop has been eX-
hausted she almost invariably leaves a
blank that could be profitably filled had she
the stuff with which to fill it. One
Of the most successful truck farmers
in the neighborhood of Mobile
was the late Capt. Iaaac Donovan.
He never pnt in an extremely early crop, but
a. Ways set his crops to come in on the
Northern market just after the main rush
Of shipments of particular products had
ended. His Irish potatoes, his cucumbers,
his radishes, his snap beans and SO on,
were always about two weeks later than
We're the same products of his neigh
bors, and he seldom failed of finding fair
market for everything he shipped.
The trouble with Fort Worth as trading
center looking to a supply of the early
Northern market lies in the simple fact
that she has not yet settled up her sur
roun3ings aud got the settlers into the
business. Twenty-one years ago when we
located in Mobile and took the same posi- !
hold on the Fort Worth GAZETTE, trucking |
was exactly the same there as it now is |
here There We're no truck farmers raising |
products for the early Northern market. |
i occurred to us that Mobile presented |
fine opening for that character of industry, |
aud so we went to ginning away in favor of |
i. NJ first not Il few laughed at the idea, |
but eventually others like oursef got to /
thinking the thing over, and finally some |
one made a test. The test gave satisfac- |
ton, and then somebody else tried it on a |
l-t'a larger scale, and thus it moved on,
step by step, until it is now bringing in an
annual income of half million dollars, as
already stated, and is still rapidly on the |
Increase.
As the case now stands with US the lands |
surrounding our city are exactly as so much |
dead capital upon which taxes must be
paid, and from which no interest can be
realized. They are simply a heavy weight |
10 be carried without pay for the carrying
Much rs we may value them for their in
triusic worth, they are nothing more nor
less than clog on the wheels of our prog
reSs. To hold on TO thing in the hopes
that il may sometime sell ut high figures is
not acting III accordance with true |
business principles. That thing should be
constantly paying reasonable interest on
is moneyed value, at least, especially
where. as in the case of our lands, that in
iercSt could in no way reduce the value of
The principal Half 4 million year dug
ont OF our surrounding lands would be just
That much TO be accredited 10 home produc-
ton from home materials now lying I'M
worked. 1t would certainly tell with
marked effect on the finances of our people
We talk of regions specially favorable for
truck farming, and as rule we base that
talk on what some particular locality is DO
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