Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-25
SETTLE UP THE suRuRBs.

crates of cabbage, 7S.9i2 barrels of Irish po-
tatoes, 46,11S boxes of snap beans, 1886
boxes of tomatoes and ID, Ss1 watermelons
The value of these products was S45s, 065
They We're 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 a 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
nuring. The truck farmers there would be
extremely glad to have Fort Worth soils to
spread upon their lands as a fertilizer.
As gardening locality, Mobile has not
one natural advantage over Fort Worth,
while Fort Worth has decided advantages
in a superior soil. There is less than one
degree Of difference in the latitude of the
two places, and, rs we have shown on
former occasions, late spring frosts affect
vegetation much more seriously at Mobile
than at Fort Worth. \ frost that would
xiii all tender vegetation at Mobile leaves
tender vegetation unscathed at Fort Worth
Mobile has a heavier annual rainfall than
Fort Worth but that rainfall is not heavier
in 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
roundings of Fort Worth are not contrib
Itng half million dollars annually TO the
income of the locality tas are doing the
surrounding of MOBILIZE, and doing it with
far greater profit to us, owing to superiority
Of soill This is a 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 Will 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 10 sup
pose that the Northern markets for early
fruits and vegetable VIII close in one week?
In one week after the first receipts they
viii 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 a 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 i
blank that could be profitably filed had she
the stuff with which TO ill it. One
of the most successful truck farmers
in the neighborhood of Mobile
was the late Capt. Iaaac Donovan.
He never put in an extremely early crop, bus
always set his crops 10 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 |
were 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 n trading |
center looking TO supply of the early |
Northern market lies in the simple fact i
that she has not yet settled up her sur |
roundings and got the settlers into the |
business. Twenty-One years ago when we |
located in Mobile and took the same posi- |
tian on the Mobile Register that we now I
hold on the Fort Worth GAZETTE, trucking |
was exactly the same there as it now is
products for the early Northern market.
II occurred to us that Mobile presented a
fine opening for that character of industry. |
and so we went 10 ginning away in favor of |
ii. At first not few laughed at the idea,
but eventually others like Ourself got to
thinking the thing over, and finally some
one made ! test. The test gave satisfac-
lion, and then somebody else tried it on a
little larger scale. and thus it moved on.
step by step, until l. Is now bringing in an
annual income of half million dollars. as
already stated, and is still rapidly on the
increase.
As the ease now stands with us the lands |
our city are exactly as so much
dead capital upon which taxes must be
paid, aud from which no interest can be
realized. They are simply heavy weight
20 be carried without pay for the carrying.
Much as we may value them for their in.
irinsic worth, they are nothing more nor
less Than Il clog on the wheels of our prog
ress. To hold on 10 a thing in the hopes
that il may sometime sell at nigh figures is
not acting in accordance with true
business principles. That thing should be
constantly paying a reasonable interest on |
its moneyed value, at least, especially |
where. Is in the case of our lands. that in
terest could in no way reduce the value of
the principal. Half a million year dug
out of our surrounding lands would be Just
that much to be accredited to home produc-
lion from home materials now lying I'M
worked. 1t would certainly tell with
marked effect on the finances of our people
IL I