The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-11

berta peach. For awhile during the season, the Elberta was selling for 75 cents A crate and the Sloppey peach was bringing $1.75.
 Here about Evergreen 1t takes a fruit tree only two or three years to bear. The tree is usually good for one crate at the end of three years and at the end of five years with anything like fair conditions the trees will pro- duce three crates.
 While the Rumph orchard was the pioneer, the first to be planted, it Is not the largest orchard in this section. While the Rumph orchard has 15,00O trees, there is larger orchard at Red Level on the L. and N. branch road be- tween Georgiana and Andalusia.
 These orchards are planted on Owas- sa Ridge, which Is said to be excellent peach soil, location which not only gives the trees a firm soil, but 1t places them sufficiently high to give them the altitude that is said to be necessary for the growing of peaches.
 Great Orchard.
 Messrs. William Cunningham and Edward A. Beaven are going extensive ly into the growing of peaches. They propose to have an orchard of 50,0o0 trees, of which 15,000 trees have been planted and are a year old. The other 35,000 trees are being planted this fall. These gentlemen are showing their confidence in peach growing in South Alabama by investing $25,000 in that industry. Their orchard is located four and half miles north of Evergreen. They sent over to Arkansas, and se- cured the service of a fruit expert who is graduate of a school of technology and secured his practical training un- der McNair, the famous peach man of the Ozarks.
 Yates. Brown and Shepard have an orchard of 15.O00 or 10000 trees near Brewton. In addition there are other orchards of smaller size around about Evergreen, the largest of which Is own ed by pr. Marcellus McCreary.
 Peach growing Is in it's infancy here but the industry Is a healthy infant |. It Is developing and expanding at a remarkable rate, at a rate which bids fair to enable the Alabama peach grow CT to throw down the gauntlet to his Georgia rival.
 Strawberries brought big money Into Evergreen last year, and unless some thing is wrong with the weather in the spring they will bring in more money next year, A hurried look at the figures of the business done by the big Castlebury Company last year will convey some idea of the gold mine that has been uncovered by the South Ala bama strawberry growers. That com pany last season sold ninety-nine cars O. strawberries TOT $96,000.
 q saw car load of strawberries at Castleberry sell for $1,2375O." said Superintendent J. I. Mckinney, "and I saw another man offered $1,225 for a car load. That's the highest price paid for any car load of agricultural pro- ducts or mining products that were shipped out of the State last year. You might ship.gold quartz out of Alabama and get more for a car load of it than for a car load of Escambia County strawberries, but that's about the only thing that would bring the money"
 The Castleberry plantation is of course the biggest single item in the strawberry industry in Alabama; but Evergreen has been making some his- tory in raising and shipping straw berries. Out of Evergreen, man in the business told me there were shipped $50.0oD worth of strawberries. The Evergreen strawberry growers shipped between 25,00G and 35,OO0 cases last year, each case containing twenty-four quarts. That's a pretty good showing for an incidental industry and one of which the Evergreen community has not yet begun to boast.
 But the possibilities of strawberry raising are recognized by the Conecuh County people. They are not ignorant or nor indifferent to its value. The acreage of strawberries is being rapidly