The Daily Texarkanian., 1894-02-15
PARADISE OF FRUITS.
Arkansas and Her Resources as a
Fruit Growing Country.

dpplG crop III llllle lOI supper dHu
then goes to bed and dreams OF
watecmelons-all of them of the
finest and grown right here in Ark
al as.
The Commissioner was in a very
fruitful frame of mind yesterday,
when he was called upon by a Lit
tie Rock newspaper man. at his of
fee in the State Building, of the
Capital City AS it was little late
for bis strawberry time ard little
700 early for peaches, he spHt The
difference and talked about both.
Taen. to make good measure he
III 'ew in a talk on apples andwater-
melons.
'Tn tell you what" said be,
",hese people in South Arkansas
nave 9ot to change up. They have
wolu their land out with 7-cent
cotton and now they've got to raise
fax. Why, do you know that
down here on both the Iron Noun
tain and Cotton Belt is the finest
peach and strawberry country in
the world? It's a fact The coun-
try there is mild and the peach
crop is certain, The fruit ripens
cleac down to the core, something
it doesn't do in the Northwest. 1t
ripens earlier, and it is as delicious
as can be found anywhere. They
can put 100 trees on an acre; each
tree would bear from two to four
bushels of fruit shipments could
begin about May 81, and the grow
ers could get the way-up fancy
prices-$250 so to $3.50 per bushel.
See what that means? Cut the fig
ures in two and knock off one-sixth
for freight and then you'd have
clean $500 per acre-and it would
take 10 acres of mighty good cotton
land to bring that much income.
Talk about high freight rates
they wouldn't have them. 1t would
be like it was up in our country.
When small fruit growing began up
there the freight charges were
50. so per hundred in the express
cars; now they are 81 cents per
hundred in refrigerator cars, The
northwest is not suited for peaches
too uncsrtain, that's an apple
country"
Mr., Vincenheller talked about
Strawberries too, in very hard
sense way and gave some excellent
reasons for the faith that was in
him. Then he began to talk about
about watermelons.
'Do you know that down here
about Jefferson county they grow
the finest watermelons in the
world?-beat Georgia all to piecesI
And they can raise them earlier
and get them to market ahead of
the peanut people. was surprised
that they make no shipments of the
fruit. The can raise two car loads
of melons on every acre of ground
down there-that means from 500
to 800 melons They can get them
to market at a time when they will
bring 30 to 35c each-$2OO an acre.
And it would take five good bales
of mighty good cotton to get any
where near that. The railroads
would cater to that trade, for forty
acres in watermelons would mean
cars of traffic, while forty acres in
cotton doesn't mean over one car Of
traffic at the outside OF course
they would nurse that business,
Then, too, the farmers would save
their land which is now just about
'cottoned to death, "
Then the Commissioner showed
the reporter very handsome cir
cular issued by the Iron Mountain
Land department, of which Mr.. G.
A. A. Deane is the Commissioner.
This circular contains a clipping
from a st. Louis paper which tells
of Arkansas limitless resources,
and adds a few facts on its own
hook. "These people believe in ad-
vertising," said Mr., Vincenheller,
"and Mr.. Deane has just written
me for the addresses of the various
agricultural societies of the Union
He is going to send some of his lit
erature to each of them,
The foregoing interesting confer
ence took place took place between
the Commissioner and represen-
tative of the Little Rock Press, and
appeared in full in yesterdays issue
of that paper.
A Dramatic Success
"By Wits Outwitted, which will