Evening star., 1899-11-07
TONS OF SUNFLOWER SEED
One Illinois County Practically Supplies
the World.
Few Men Know What the Seed is
Used for and They Will
Not Tell.

Lawrencevle Ul.) Cores. of Chicago Record
A man down here is advertising for 600 =
600 pounds of sunflower seed. He has
bought three-fourths of a million pounds
of sunfower seed and expects to ship 5,00O,-
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 and unusual things,
while his neghbors stuck to wheat and
corn and hogs. His name is W. r. Crackel
and he is both shrewd and inquisitive, but
while supplying the world with what sun
flower seed it needs he has never been able
to find out what the world does with 1t.
This sunflower seed industry is not only an
art exhibit and a poem, but one of the
greatest mysteries as well.
A good many people here are engaged in
it now. but it is not so profitable as it was
to the grower. Farmer Crackel sold his
first big crop for . cents pound; the next
year his neghbors put out a good deal of
land in sunfioWers, and sold the product for
s cents a pound, which was some hundreds
of dollars per acre. Then came the deluge.
Everybody in Petty township planted sun
flowers instead of corn, and the farmers
ACCOMPLISHED their own undoing. One
township in this county broke the market
from 8 cents to . cents by causing an over
production in the worlds supply. Then
many went back to corn and wheat and
now things have settled down to a basis
that pays well enough, but does not make
men rich.
A Rich View.
The sunfower is grown from the seed.
and a twenty-acre field soon after 1t comes
up looks like patch of ground much neg
Iected to the weeds. The plants are cul
tivated somewhat, but in the rich soil OF
the island where Crackel started the in
dustry and where 1t still fiourishes the
sunf1ower grows to unbelievable propor-
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 a 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 committee
men at 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 intermngling 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
ca be counted, every one on tall upshOot
and bending it's head in the most dignified
way ina ginable, making the field look like
a crowd of tonsured courtiers saluting their
king. They bow toward the sun as gen
eraI 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 sunfiowers.
The color tone is yellow then-a rich deep
yellow-with Just enough dark brown for
harmony and 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 fall
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 threshing machine cylinder, which
knocks the seeds from the pockets in which
they are imbedded. The operation Of
special machines for the purpose.
This Years Crop.
The yield per acre varies greatly. field
of flowers only as large as a dessert plate
will not have half the amount of seed as a
field Of flowers as large as half bushel
Almost any kind Of land with slight atten-
tion will yield 600 pounds to the acre. and
crops Of 1 900 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 sum
flower and who also have very rich land.