The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-11-07
DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIES.
That is What Caused the Increase Oh
Tax Values I'm Duplin County.

"You will probably be surprised said
State Auditor Furman yesterday, Ito
know that among other counties, Duplln,
q strictly agricultural county, has re-
turned values higher thanolast year.
A few moments later, meeting A ID.
Ward, ESQ, ex Representative from Du
pin. who is attending the Supreme
Court. he was asked how it was that
Duplin, which had no large town or city,
showed an increase, while Wake, Neck
lenburg and Durham, with big towns,
showed a decrease.
'Tt is all due,n said Mr.. Ward, ''to di-
versifed; and, in same instances to new
industries. The increase is confined to
those townships bordering on the Allan
tic Coast Line, and trucking, tube rose
bulbs, and otherI such industries have
caused it. A few years ago that land
was as cheap as land in other portions OF
the county. The celebrated truckers,
the Westbrooks, bought some land at
Falson, and began to grow strawberries.
In few years the neighboring farmers
saw that the Westbrooks were getting
rich shipping strawberries, asparagus
and other early truck to market, Wnlle
they were getting poorer raising cotton:
They began to plant strawberry beds and
asparagus, and now almost every two
miles there is a station from which truck
is shipped. Rose Hill has been station
on the railroad forty years, more or less,
but warehouse was never needed until
now, and new one, made necessary by
the big truck business, has just been
completed.
lone result of this new industry is the
effect upon the price of land. 1t has
gone climbing up. Twenty years ago an
excellent piece of trucking land (before
people knew anything about raising
Strawberries sold near Rose Hill for
5000. Last year one-half of that land
sold for So $50, and many believe in a
few years it will be worth $4,000. /
know an old negro who planted one
third of an acre in strawberries, and
made $110 clear on it.
Magnolia, in Duplin county, is not
situated IN as good strawberry country
as some other portions of the county,
and they raise very little. But they
have quite as good revenue pro-
Queer. Magnolia has virtual monopoly
in growing tube rose bulbs for the north
ern and foreign markets. do not know
how much money comes into the coun-
ty from tube rose bulbs alone, but it
must be between $4,000 and $50, 900
every year. Most of them are shipped
to New York as the point for distribution.
They are: cured, then packed in barrels.
Perfume is made from them, though they
are mainly used for decorations and
by Conservatives. The farmers all
around, perhaps more than a hundred
of them, raise these bulbs, and it beats
cotton or any other crop heretofore
grown.
81 reckon more chickens and eggs are
shipped from Walbee than any other
point on the road, and the farmers get
very large returns from this source.
ssTurpentine2 Well, / would hardly
trust myself to estimate the amount de-
rived from turpentine and timber, but
| should say 5000 to 5000 people
get their main support from these two
things.
"Then there is another Duplin county
product for which our county gets very
little credit. Everybody talks about
Sampson Blues, but Duplin ships
almost as many as Sampson. / have
heard it estimated that $4,000 comes
into Duplin county from huckleberries
alone. And it doesn't cost dime to
raise the crop. 1t only has to be gath
cred"
Mr.. Ward continued by saying that
the people in Duplin are getting out of
debt-are making no new debts-are
building good houses and painting them,
and that while not on any great boom,
the people of Duplin county are going
forward, living well, and hopeful
of even better things. The Democrats
who were Democrats last year are dyed
in-the-wool Democrats, and will be
found with accessions at the next cleo
ton. They are too busy now develop
ing these new industries to give much
time to talking politics.
Is that the reason they are spreading
out and showing wisdom in diversified
farming2