The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-28
MILLIONS OF MELONS.
Georgia Finds More Profit in Them Now
adays.


This is the center of the watermelon dis
| trict, which covers an area of about 15C
miles square, including the southwestern
portion of this State and the northwestern
! portion of Florida, and when the season
! opens the freight department of the rail
roads in this section move their headquar
tiers to Thomasville and the telegraph com
| pany sends down five extra operators tC
| handle the increased business occasioneG
| by the purchase and shipment Of the crop
| The seasons lasts about two months, be-
| ginning with July and ending with August
and last year between 1000 and 5000 car
| loads were shipped outside the State, car
| rying an average of 1900 melons TO car
which makes total of about 100000 mel
ons contributed to the Northern and West
ern appetites.
That the crop of the approaching season
will be even greater than that of last year
is indicated by the amazing fact that 81, 00C
pounds of seeds have already been sold at
the single town of Monticello, and as my
informant remarked:
"That's right smart lot of them, when
you come to consider that a watermelon
seed don't weigh nothing"
| can obtain no complete report of the
4
| dealers here tell me the demand is greater
! than ever before, and one grocer claims to
nave sold $500 worth this month.
The watermelon business has become
systematized during the last three or four
years, and the profits are so great and so
certain that one would think everybody
would 90 into it. But there is a curious
conservatism among the elder planters
and prejudice against all innovations in
agriculture and everything else, so that
the old-fashioned people stick to cotton
even at cents pound and look upon
Misunderstanding as degraded Yankee
trick While it is true that few enter
prising Yankees taught these people the
profit in watermelons, great many of the
younger native farmers have gone
into the business and done equally well.
The first ripe melons that come in bring
prices that are comparatively enormous,
often 5000 car, or from Is to 20cents each !;
but as they get more plenty the rates come
down and about August l, at the height of
the season, farmers are lucky to get $25 a
car, although there is a fair profit even at
that rate. The average for the year is
about $50 a car, and as an acre of good
ground will produce several carloads it
viii be easily seen that there are few more
profitable crops. No agent will buy
melons weighing less than eighteen
pounds. The small ones, called ''culls, I"
are sold in the local market and fed to
hogs and cattle, and hundreds of thou
sands of them are left to rot upon the
ground,
The greatest item of expense in raising
melons is to carry them to market. All
the cultivation necessary is to pillow the
ground and plant the seeds and keep the
weeds down by going over the soil two or
three times during the season with a small
pillow or a harrow, and then "pull' the
melons when they are ripe. Fifteen OF
$40 an acre is ample to cover all possible
expense, except the hauling, but they are
SO bulky and light that it takes several
wagon-loads to fill car, and most of the
farms are considerable distance from a
railway station.
1t is a curious fact that the soil abso-
lutely refuses to furnish two crops OF
melons in succession, and it never pays to
plant the same field oftener than once in
three or four years. The wisest farmers
alternate between corn, cotton and water
melons, making the latter crop every three
years.--Thomasville (Fla.) letter to Chicago
Record.