Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1899-08-19
WITH BRAINS AND ENERGY.

mites in every line of industry, which
for development, depend upon the en-
ergy and intelligence of the individual
rather than upon any shifting vagary
of chance. This observation is not in
tended to except any legitimate pur-
suit, and along with the rest it includes
agriculture.
The readers of The ENQUIRER have
been advised from time to time of diff
ferent important achievements of MIR.
c. H. Smith, who lives six miles south
of Yorkville. Mr.. Smith has been
mentioned in connection with success.
full pork raising; he is known all over
this section as producer of large
quantities of fine celery, and although
an unusually good farmer generally,
he has of late been giving his espe-
cial attention to truck gardening, with
which there is reason to believe he
Will make 3 SUCCESS.
On the assurance that there would
be found something of interest to write
about, the reporter, few days ago,
took occasion to visit Mr.. Smiths
farm. The trip was both pleasant and
profitable, for Mr.. Smith is able to
show some lines of progressive devel-
opment, the equal of which is proba-
bly, not to be found on another farm in
this section of the state. The reporter
saw great deal in the space of three
or four hours; but will confne his
story principally to recital of what
good common sense, energy and perse-
verence has done in the way of re-
claiming a worthless piece of bottom
land and making it productive gar
den. '.. .
Mr.. Smiths plantation consists of
about $50 acres. He got possession OF
it about 1883. Much of it had been
worked for years before that time; but
like all of the Turkey creek country,
it is fearfully broken, and for lack of
proper management it had been butch
cred into desert. There are so acres,
of creek bottom on the place. This
had been cut to pieces by freshets,
and so overgrown with canes, briars,
vines and shrubs as not to leave as
much as single unbroken acre in one
body. 1t was just such a prospect as
many another has found on his plan
tation 25 years ago, and which be has
left in the same shape until today.
In fact, how these acres looked then
can best be judged by the appearance
of the acres on the same creek for
miles above and below now. Almost
the whole length of the creek-Mc-
Clure's-is a wild jungle, with only
an occasional small patch under cult
walton.
But on the Smith bottoms, energy
and intelligence have told another
story. One ofthe first things that Mr..
Smith did was to cut q straight chan
mel for the creek through the bottom,
a distance of more than half mile.
Then one. by one he damned the
sluices with poles, so that each freshet
would help to fill them up. Next he
constructed brakes of poles across the
low places, and gradually, year after
year, the numerous gullies and holes
were filled to an even surface, in which
for hundreds of yards there is hardly
depression enough to hide rabit. And
there is no more washing or tearing
of the land by freshets. When the
creek gets out of it's banks the water
spreads oyer the long wide bottoms,
and the carefully arranged system of
brakes controls the current to pla.
cidity that can best be compared to
that of an ordinary mill pond.
1t is on this beautiful garden spot,
created after so many years of patient
perseverance, that Mr.. Smith is now
making his most successful agricultur-
al experiments, and developing the
same, year after year, to more i'm
portant proportions. At the highest
point at the head of the bottoms, some
years back, Mr.. Smith made a fish
pond. After that he constructed an
other. Later on, the leveling up of
the bottoms and the fall that could be
secured from the fish ponds, suggested
the idea of irrigation. The logical
development of this idea was truck
garden, and one who now sees the