The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-11-12
TONS OF SUNFLoWER SEED.
ONE ILLINOIS COUNTY PRACTICAL
LY SUPPLIES THE WORLD.

] A4e WoLil goes out OF Lawrence count y
This same man, who is now buying the
seed by the uainload. got rich by raising
such things on his rented farm, going into
/ Inc market fnr strange and unusual things
while his neighbors stuck 10 wheat and
corn and hogs. HIS name IS W. r. Crack
el and he is both shrcwd and inqdsiiive.
but while supplying h world with what
/ sunHOWer ed IL ne as he mas never b. en-
able to tind Qua what the world does with
| II. This sunflOWer seed industry is not
/ only an art exhibit and ! 0 m, but one Of
/ the greatest mysteries as Weu
good many people here are engaged
| IA II now, but il is not so profitable as Il
! was 10 the grower. Farmer Cracked sold
| his first big crop for . cents pound; the
| next year his neightors put out a good
! deal Of land in sunh0wers ana sod the
! product for cents a pound. which was
| some hundreds of dollars per acre. Then
| came the deiuge. Everybody in Petty
| township planted sunhowers instead Of
corn and the farmers accomplished their
own undoing. one township in this county
! broke the market from cents to cents
| by causing an oyer-production in the
worlds supply. Then many went back TO
corn and wheat, and now things have set
lied down 10 a basis that pays well enough
but does not make men rich.
Hhch View.
The sunhower is grown from the seed,
and a twenty-acre field soon after it comes
up looks like a patch of ground much neg
lected TO The weeds The plants are cuiu-
waited somewhat, but in the rich soil of the
island where Crackel started the industry
and where it stin iourishes the sunhower
grows TO unbelievable proportions with lit
tie 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 gem
eral level like township committeeman at
"a political meeting. The field on a level
with the top of the low rail fence is one
plane, the plants being interviewer with
their long, broad leaves interminging in
what seems to be a perfect amalgamatlon.
The flowers that first appear are not
much larger than a saucer and are light
yellow in color Each day more of them
can be counted, every one on a tail up
shoot and bending its head in the most
dignffied way maginable, making the field
look like a crowd Of tonsured courtiers sa-
luting their king. They bow toward the
sun as a general rule, bending TO the east
in the morning, the south at noon and the
west in the evening.
AS late summer comes no view is richer
than forty or eighty acres of sunfiowers.
The color tone is yellow then-a rich, deep
yHdON-Nlln just 6iOu5n dai n bIONh AL
harmony and a little of dark green for con-
trast. 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.
The narrow, yellow petals wither and fan
away, or turn brown and sere, and then
the harvesting of this most unique crop
begins. The heads are cut off the stalks
by hand and thrown into a 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 a newspaper
are wide, and the brown tonsure in the
center is often a foot in diameter after the
petals have fallen and 1t Is dried. The
seeds are separated by running the heads
through an ordinary threashing machine
cylinder, which knocks the seeds from the
pockets in which they are imbedded The
operation of cleaning is rather crude yet,
there being no special machines for the
purpose.
The Weld per acre varies greatly. A field
of flowers only as large as a dessert plate
win not have half the amount of seed as a
field of flowers as large as half bushei
Almost any kind of land with slight atten-
ton will yield 600 pounds to the acre, ana
crops OF LOCO pounds to the acre are not
| very uncommon, although they are the re-
| suit of extra attention by growers who
| have studied the habits and needs of the
| sunfower and who also have very rich
land. Just now the buyers are paying from
| 81 25 to $3.50 per hundred pounds for the
| seed. delivered at the warehouse. The
| cost Of raising an acre of sunflowerS is
very much less than the cost of an acre OF
| wheat or corn and the crop Is much more
! certain This city is the great sunfiower
seed market of the world but small guam
titles, comparatively, are bought at
| T3T,idger,ort St Franclsville, Sumner,
| t3irds and others of the smaller towns in
| This county, each station sending out sew
| eral carloads a year. The crop OF 1899 IS
| now being threshed and sent to market,
| and in this county will aggregate ABOUT
| s 100000 pounds, in the opinion or those
| most Interested. Small quantities OF sun
! flower seed are sent to market OCCASION
ally from widely separated points IN the
United States, but in no other place is the
seed raising made a business.
what does the world do with 100000
| Mounds of the seed of a plant commonly
associated only with an aesthetic craze!
| only A very few men know, and they
won't tell The secrecy which envelops the
whole matter of its use, like the hist OF
| stage burglar. suggests that II is an adul-
! terant 1t once sold readily at 10 cents
Mound, which was the equivalent OF nearly
! 50 a gallon for the oil, and what oil can De
|
The same man, Crackel who started the
whole thing here as a farmer, and now
handles nearly the whole crop as dealer
in grain, thought of all that. He is man
| who takes excellent care of his own busl-
| ness. and at the same time has philan-
| thropic interest in the doings of his neigh
bors down here, where everybody visits
evervbody else. Some other people had a
casual curiosity about the matter, but
| when they discovered that Crackel had to
| shame-facedly admit what he did not know
| and could not find out, they let it go at
| that Cracked found out that the oil was
pressed from the seed, and that was all.
Use of the Seed a Mystery.
After several years dealing with the
! Cincinnati firm who buys the Seed finally
| he took an excellent opportunity and made
! 1t clear that he thought he might now be
| admitted into the degree which enlght-
ened about what was done with the sun
flower seed. The senior member of the
firm acquesced, and after initiatory cere-
monies over an altar with a big mirror