The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1899-11-09
A SUNFL0WER SECRET.
MILLIONS OF POUNDS USED. BUT
FOR WHAT IS A MYSTERY.

Record writes as follows from Law
renceville, ILL.,:
A man down here is advertising for
100000 pounds of sunhower seed.
He has bought three-fourths OF mil
lion pounds Of sunAower seed and ex-
poets to ship 5000, 900 pounds.
Practically all of this crop raised in
the world goes out of Lawrence
County. This same man who is now
buying the seed by the trainload got
rich by raising such things on his
rented farm, going into the market
for strange aud unusual things, while
his neighbors stuck to wheat and corn
and hogs. His name is w. r. Crack
ell aud he is both shrewd and inquisi-
tive, but while supplying the world
with what sunflower seed it needs he
has never been able to find out what
the world does with it. This sunhower
seed industry is not only an art ex-
hibit and a poem, but one of the
greatest mysteries as well.
A good many people here are en-
gagged in it now, but it is not 30 prof
liable as it was to the grower. Farm
er Crackel sold his first big crop for
nine cents . a pound; the next year
his neighbors put out good deal of
land in sunhowers, and sold the pro-
duct for eight cents O pound, which
was some hundreds of dollars per acre.
Then came the deluge. Everybody in
Petty township planted sunfowers in
stead of corn, and the farmers accom-
plished their own undoing. One
township III this county broke the
market from eight cents to two cents
by causing an overproduction in the
worlds supply. Then many went
lack to corn aud wheat, and now
things have settled down to a basis
that pays well enough, but does not
make rich men.
NEEDS LITTLE CULTIVATION.
The sunhower is grown from the
seed and twenty-acre field soon after
it comes up looks like patch of
ground much neglected to the weeds.
The plants are cultivated somewhat,
but in the rich soil of the island,
where Crackel started the industry
and where it still fourishes, the sun
flower grows to unbelievable proper
tions with little care. Early in the
season the field takes on the color OF
the soft, rich green peculiar to the
leaves of the plant, and little later
blotches of deep yellow appear all
over the green palette, as one by one
the flowers stick themselves above the
general level like township commit
teemen at political meeting. The
Il II l.. Il A. l..
rail fence is one plane, the plants be-
ing interviewer with their long, broad
leaves intermingled in what seems to
be perfect amalgamation.
The flowers that first appear are not
much larger than saucer and are
light yellow in color Each day more
of them can be counted, every one on
tall upshoot and bending its head in
the most dignified way imaginable,
making the field look like crowd of
tonsured courtiers saluting their king.
They bow toward the sun as general
rule, bending to the east in the morn
ing, the south at noon and the west
in the evening.
AS late summer comes, no view is
richer than forty or eighty acres of
sunfowers. The color tone is yellow
then-a rich, deep yellow-with just
enough dark brown for harmony and
a little of dark green for contrast
High stand the stalks and each is
bowed low with its weight of flower,
but still reaching far above the fence
and the corn in the adjoining field.
HOW CROP is HARVESTED.
The narrow, yellow petals wither
and fall away, or turn brown aud sere,
and then the harvesting of this most
unique crop begins. The heads are
cut off the stalks by hand and thrown
into wagon. After being carefully
dried they have lost all their beauty
and are dark, angular, ugly things
that impress one most with their size.
Some of the flowers are as large in
diameter as six columns of news
paper is wide and the brown tonsure
ameter after the petals have fallen and
it is dried. The seed is separated by
running the heads through an ordin-
ary thrashing machine cylinder, which
knocks the seeds from the pockets in
which they were imbedded. The
operation of cleaning is rather crude
yet, there being no special machines
for the purpose.
The yield per acre varies greatly. A
field of flowers only as large as des-
sert plate will not have half the amount
of seed az a field of flowers as large as
a half-bushel Almost any kind of
land with slight attention will yield
600 pounds to the acre; and crops of
1600pounds to the acre are not very un-
common, although they are the result
of extra attention by growers who have
studied the habits aud needs OF the
sunhower and who also have very rich
land. Just now the buyers are pay
ing from 81. 25 to $1.50 per hundred
pounds for the seed delivered at the
warehouse. The cost of raising an
acre of sunhowers is very much less
| than the cost OF an acre of wheat or
corn and the crop is much more GER
tain. This city is the great sunhower
seed market of the world, but small
quantities, comparatively, are bought
at Bridgeport, St. Franeisville, Sum
ner, Birds and others of the smaller
towns in this county, each station
sending ont several carloads in year.
The crop of 1899 is now being thrashed
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