The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-08-10
MR. CONES OBJECT LESSON.
he Has Built Splendid Roads Showing How
to Farm.

blowing Rock Cor. Charlotte Observer)
Mr. Moses Fl. Cone, owns hundreds of
mountains hereabouts and not one of
them is for sale. He has bought 5000
acres Of land, lying both north and south
of Blowing Rock, and a palatial home,
Flat Top Manor" crowns one of his
mountains four and half miles north
of Green Park hotel and over looking
Blowing Rock village. 1t stands 1900
feet above the sea, 300 feet higher. than
the village, and is of the same elevation
as Green HILL in rear of the Green Park
hotel. 1t appears as an anachronism-
this spacious mansion, pure white with
out and within, colonial in style, with a
vast expanse of verandas, green terraces
running down to an esplanade which
overlooks great amphitheatre-all in
the midst Of wheat was until recently a
trackless forest. Within this beautiful
house, which Is furnished with every
thing modern, even gas, is dispensed a
hospitality SO gracious and so easy as
to recall the finest traditions OF the old
Sout..
On. the sides of the great gorge which
the residence overlooks, suggesting the
amphitheatrical effect above referred to,
are planted thousands of apple trees in
various stages of growth. Here and
elsewhere on his mountain possessions
Mr.. Cone has set out 10000 apple trees
of these varieties: Ben Davis Albemarle
Pippin, Jonathan. Baldwin, York I'm
perial, Virginia Beauty, Improved Red
Limbertwig, Wine Sap, Magnum Bonum,
Arkansas Mammoth Black, Royal Linn
bertwig and Spitzenberg. Some of these
trees will bear commercial apples within
two years-others not in less than twelve;
and in addition to this fruit there are
on the different places a profusion of
peaches, pears, plums and grapes. This
is the home OF the apple; it grows to the
highest degree of perfection in Watau-
ga; but one is little surprised to find
perfect peaches grown here-peaches
perfect as to size and flavor
But it is not to fruit alone that Mr.
Cone is devoting himself. He is raising
hay of the finest quality, timothy, blue
grass, red top and clover, along with
corn, oats and cabbage. Cabbage is at
its best in this country. Corn does not
grow so tall as in the lower country,
but twenty-five bushels to the acre is not
unusual here. 1t looks odd to see oats
growing and not yet ripe when the crop
has long ago been harvested lower down
in the State. Fine cattle-the Hartford
breed the basis of the herd-are among
the sights OF this wonderful place. And
fish! In Mr.. Cones hatcheries are 75,-
900 young mountain trout and $4,000
black bass, and he is building great
lakes in which these young fish will soon
be placed. The dam of one of these lakes
no nd
the bottom.
But the chief glory of all these great
and useful operations are the roads On
his property here Mr. Cone has built
nineteen miles of magnificent and sub
stantial mountain roads, of a grade of
three feet to the hundred, one of these
roads winding by graceful sweep from
the bottom to the top of Flat Top Noun
tain, 1850 feet above sea level. Some
of those roads at points are blasted
through solid rock, and it is easy to see
miles of them are built at cost equal
to that of ordinary railroad building.
The traveller along them looks at times
on one side down deep precipices and on
the other at the mountain side rising
sheer above him; and the embankment is
of rock and topped with rock and not
with logs. On the summit of Flat Top
Mountain is a three-story observatory
and from its top Monday afternoon was
had such a view as l never had before.
1t is not to be believed that it can be
equalled in North Carolina or elsewhere
east of the Rockies. There had just been
a rain; the sun had come out brilliantly
and writer's words nor artists brush can
convey an idea of the beauty of the
panorama, with its changing tints, its
lights and shades.