Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-13
PLOTS WELL TITLED
Good Profits Made in Truck
Farming.
WHERE NO ONE rs POOR
EXPERIENCE OF THE SETTLERS
OF HAMMOND, La.
Town Built Up From Saw Mill,
Brick. Yard and Lunch
Counter.


BY VIM e. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star and
the Chicago Record Herald.
HAMMOND. La. April T. 1906.
This is an ideal town. The climate. the
pure water, the society, the good hotels, the
fertile soil and all the other requirements
for a happy and prosperous community
seem to be here, and Capt. J. F. Merry Of
Dubuque, assistant general passenger
agent of the Illinois Central railroad, who
has done SO much to build up the south.
thinks that it Is just about near an imi-
tation Of paradise as human community
can be. Most of the population of Ham
mond are northern people. who have been
driven from their former homes by rude
winds and cold winters, and have found
here comfortable climate, neither too
cold in the winter nor too warm in the sum-
mer, and opportunities to make more money
with the same amount of capital and the
same amount of labor that they have been
able to find north of the Ohio river.
The town has about $3.50 inha bitants. is
located on the main line of the Illinois Cen
trail railroad. fifty-three miles north of New
Orleans, and was discovered, so to speak,
by Capt. Merry in 1886. There was moth
ing here then but a sawmll, a brick yard
and a lunch counter in the railroad station.
But Capt. Merry. who knows good loca-
ton when he sees 1t, got a colony of indus
trious farmers from the north to take up
ten-acre tracts. for which they paid S25 an
acre, and Mr.. Cate who owned the lumber
mill and the brick yard, furnished them the
material for their buildings. They planted
tomatoes and other early vegetables, which
they shipped by express to Chicago-the
earliest in the market. and for that reason
got good prices for them The next year
they shipped by the carload, and now by
the trainload, and astonishing stories are
told about the quantities of fruit and truck
that are sent northward every year.
Fruit and Vegetable Trains.
The Illinois Central road is operating 1880
refrigerator cars and 1906 fruit cars. 1t
has built fruit sheds at every station in
this section and platforms for handling veg
etables. The cars are dropped along every
morning. are loaded during the day, and at
night an engine comes to pick them up, one
after the other, until train is made up
and starts northward on schedule time.
There are several icing stations along the
way. at which the refrigerator cars are re-
stocked and the men in charge of the train
regulate the temperature, so that it shall
be the same for the entire distance. All
fruit trains are scheduled to arrive at Chi
cago at daylight in the morning. The fruit
platforms at the foot of South Water street
will accommodate fifty-five cars at time
duu WIltIl Tie Train arrives the lFuCkS Ol
the commission men there to receive
the cargoes and distribute the fruit and
vegetables to grocerymen, hotels, restau-
rants and other customers as fresh as they
could be If sold on the soil that produced
them.
Early in the season Strawberries and
vegetables are sent by express Seven car
loads can be carried on passenger train.
The express rate for carload of straw
berries from Hammond to Chicago Is $500,
while the rate on the freight train Is only
$1a2, so there Is great advantage In ship
ping by freight when there is only twenty
four hours difference in time. The express
time from Hammond to Chicago is twenty
four hours: the fruit and vegetable trains
make 1t in f1fty-three hours.
Last year 400 cars of strawberries and
100 cars of tomatoes were shipped from
this locality to Chicago alone, and they
bring high prices because they are SO early.
Strawberries, radishes, lettuce, onions, peas
and turnips come first, and then the vcge-
tables follow one another through the sea-
son into the middle of July.
Extent of the Season.
The first strawberries are usually shipped
about March q, but they have been sent
as early as the 18th. This year they are
late, because of the long and cold winter.
The shipping dates for the various fruits
and vegetables are as follows: Strawber-
ries. March 21-May 10; radishes and let
tuce. March April Is; peas and onions,
10; beets April 20-June 10; carrots, April
20-June 10: cabbages. May June 5; pota-
toes, May 10-June 10; beans, May 10-June
10; SQUASH May 15-June 10; tomatoes,
May 25-July "a; melons, June 20-July 90
peaches, June August /. And then come
the late vegetables and fruits in season.
But Hammond is not the only town on
the road. The berry and truck business
which began so successfully there, has
been taken up all along the line between
Jackson Miss, and New Orleans-where
lands adjoining the towns and within walk
ing distance of the railroad stations can be
bought for $25 per acre. Three miles dis
tant they sell for $40 acre. and five
miles distant So an acre is about an aver
age price, according to the amount of i'm
provements. Every kind of garden truck
can be grown profitably A good dea! Of
fertilizer is used because it forces the
growth and brings the vegetables to
turity earlier in the season, but careful
farmers raise their own manure for moth
ing by keeping herds of cows and shipping
the milk to New Orleans every morning.
Men who came here with $500 and $500
are now independent, after only few
years. There has never been boom, and
no money has been made by speculation.
There have never been any rich capitalists
here. Nearly every settler In this part of
the country Is what you would call poor
man up north
Some of them had as much as 50 600 when
they came. and that Is all that any one
needs to be successful in business; more
settlers had less than that amount. Skill
full truck growers make from 5000 to 81 600
an acre cultivating lettuce, from $1O0 to
$500 an acre cultivating radishes, from
$3.50 to $500 cultivating cabbages and from
$3.50 to $500 an acre on Strawberries
Notable Instances of Success.
For example: One of the most successful
men Is Mr.. c. A. Tiebout, who was for
merly a bookkeeper in Kalamazoo Mich.
He came down here for his health in 1890
bought nineteen acres Of Land for $2S3 and
during the last five or six years has taken
from SO 900 to $500 q year from 1t in vege-
tables Last year he made So 200 from five
acres Of early cabbages, and grew second
crop of corn and COW peas after the cab
bages were shipped Off.
Mr.. V. E. Mathis of Crystal Springs had
100 acres in cabages. from which he
shipped ninety carloads, averaging $500 to
the car. Adam Schloesser. at Premier, La,
on the banks of Lake Ponchartrain, has the
reputation of having made half a million
dollars out of cabbages alone.
''The Radish King" is George Hostetter,