The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-05-27
100000 CRATES OF STRAWBER
RES.

/
i The growth of the strawberry industry
in North Carolina is steady and gratifying
No progress in any nne in the State has
been so marked or has done so much to
encourage other profitable trucking. The
big success in growing berries for market
preceded the varied truck industry that
has come to be the chief business of many
counties in Eastern North Carolina. The
trucking industry of the State, which ag-
gregated only few thousand dollars in
1874, is now worth between four and five
million dollars annually.
Last December, when excellent straw
berries matured in Duplin and Pender
counties and were sent to the Northern
markets. thing never heard of before
there was apprehension that the regular
spring crop might be short. In view OF
that fear and the deep interest felt in
this great industry, the following resume
and figures as prepared by the Carolina
Fruit and Truckers Journal will be read
with pleasure by the entire State:
Since our last issue strawberry ship
ments out of this territory have been go-
ing forward at a rate I..tle dreamed of
when the season first opened now six or
seven weeks ago, and the end is not yet
in sight. To date the car load shipments
in refrigerator cars have been about 1872
car loads with the express shipments
reaching about 54.66S crates against Al,
259 crates last year
Beginning with April 10th there has
been daily a steady movement of any
where from Is to 125 car loads of straw
berries from the territory covered by the
East Carolina Truck and Fruit Growers
Association, for which Wilmington Is the
accepted head and center. In their dis
tribution these shipments have covered
all the leading cities and towns of the
Northern, New England and Middle West
ern States, and while prices were not so
high IN the beginning of the shipping sea
son as we have known them in past years,
nevertheless the general average has been
well nigh if not quite up to the standard,
and the aggregate volume has been fully
% if not IS per cent. ahead of any pre-
vious year. Up to this writing no less
than 100000 crates have gone forward out
of this territory, yielding the growers a
net sum of more than 81, 125,000, and still
shipments continue to go forward each
day. How long is a question that mankind
seems incapable OF determining-certainly
for another week or ten days.
THE crown berries have been moving
a1r nd 81
good average prices The fruit is beauti-
full to look at and is of an exceptionally
highly favored quality. ne berries are
free from dirt and trash, sound and well
developed and are good carriers. In some
sections few of the growers report the
outlook bright for a second crop to follow
close on the heels of the present crop. Not
a few of our readers will remember the
second crop last fall and winter, and the
apprehension felt for the early crop this
season from the same acreage The mild
winter crop, however, seems to have ex-
ercised no bad influences on the vines
and. many fields at different points in the
strawberry district are again white with
blossoms. This is, indeed, something new
under the sun, and what it will ulti-
mately develop into remains for the fu-
ture alone to divulge. Should it turn out
however, that this territory will produce
two crops of strawberries every year then
cur people will indeed have discovered a
Pandora's box for fact The Journal
has had accounts of innumerable growers
averaging anywhere from 500 to $3.50 per
acre on strawberries this season. and if
that is to be doubled why len we should
soon be the most prosperous and independ-
ent people on the globe.
'In the Chadbourn section, and at vari-
Gus other points on the Wilmington, Col
umbia and Augusta Railroad, the growers
have made good money this year, and of
the growers along the Wilmington and
Weldon, the Atlantic and Yadkin, and
Seaboard Air Line, the same is true to a
greater or less extent. The season has
been very nearly if not quite as long as
last year or of any in the history of the
industry, and the grand total of results
WI. in the end figure out something as
tonishing.
in the Norfolk section the berry
growers seem to have had an experience
no less gratifying this year than the grow
ers over this way, as will be seen by our
Taken all in all, the berry and vegetable
growers this season have had good year
of it. Potatoes, beans, peas, huckleberries
and blackberries; ETC., are already go
ing forward from this section in good
quantities and the returns therefrom are
quite satisfactory. Unless all signs fail
the first day of June will find the berry
and vegetable growers with more ready
cash than they have had before in years
To be added to this will be the cantaloupe
and melon crop, peaches, grapes and the
| fall crop of potatoes and vegetables.
! From points along the Seaboard Air
Line between Wilmington and Hamlet
esveral car loads of strawberries have
been shipped this season. and from the
same territory next year shipments will
be fully 100 per cent. in excess of this
year. At many points along the Seaboard
| Air Line the soil is peculiarly adapted to
the growth of strawberries of very high
order, and the experiment this season has
been attended with a degree of success
far and beyond the most sanguine expec-
tations of all. In the vicinity of Chad
bourn, Fair Bluff and Mullins, S. c.,