The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-21
FRUITDALE COLONY IS
 NO LONGER AN EXPERIMENT

tabfished to fear the loss of any partic- ular class of settlers"
 The theatre of the agricultural ac- tivity about Fruitdaie is the same as that of any of the northern or western pioneer towns. The Fruitdalians are farming on cut over pine lands. They are the successors of the woods gang and the men who ran the log trains.
 The Turner Brothers. the big mill men who have made so much money with the big saw mills along the line of the Mobile and Ohio were first on the scene and first attacked the virgin forests about Fruitdale.
 They now have the big mills at Nine- gar Bend some miles south, towards Mobile Their plant there Is among the largest in the State.
 Was Cut over Lands.
 When they. had finished their work and there were no more forests to con quer around Fruitdaie they sold their pine lands or part of their pine lands to the newly formd Fruitdale Land Company with western men at it's head The company got 5000 acres in one piece and went to selling 1t off to west ern settlers In small farms.
 The land is rolling, more rolling than the usual pine lands to the south In the valleys some of the lands are moist and wet. but the ridges and the plat eaus which form by far the largest part of the eompany's original holdings are among the best examples Of the pine lands to be found along the Gulf Coast. The company has only frac- ton of it's original holdings Settler after settler bought up small farms until, now the company has not many acres to offer. But the real estate business at FruitdaIe is still of consfd- erable proportions. and buyers and set tiers are stil1 coming in.
 The -FruitdaIe Land Company is offi- cered by c. F. Hitchcock, President and P. C. Locklin. Treasurer. The mis- sianery work was done by the company in the States of Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. The primary object of the founding of the colony was for the pur- pose of growing fruits and vegetables. Of the two fruits were given the pref erence in the beginning. In late months however. more and more attention and time is being given to growing ana shipping vegetables. The fruit grow ing interest, however, is still considera- ble. But the coIonIst suffered from the drawback from which nearly every colony suffers a lack Of knowledge of the ways of the soil and of the fruit which they proposed to cultivate They were not in many instances sufficient ly familiar with the modern horticult- ural methods which prevent the spread of disease among the fruit trees. And in a natural consequence the peach trees which formed the larger part of the hope of the colonists became af- feeted ard involved some of them in no inconsiderabIe loss. They found it diff7- cult, too. to keep their plum trees free of infection. The colonists who knew what they are about are still making money growing peaches and some of them who went into fruit growing without knowing it's ins and outs have had to transform their orchards into truck farms
 Preference For Vegetables.
 As is universally known the cold wave in April of last year was dis astrous to the peach growing inter ests of the country. And Fruitdale, with other communities interested in fruit raising, had to suffer. But ir the previous year the community was most successful, no less than 1s7 cars being shipped away from this station of the Mobile and Ohio.
 The colonists have found vegetable raising most profitable. There is, for example, the old German gardener, MT. Hartel, who last year devoted a single acre to the growing of tomatoes. From that single acre he got the astonishing ly large return of s250.
 The fact that Penniman Brothers, an eXIenEiVe commission house or St. Louis, has bought a large vegetable farm, which they operate at a consid- | erable cost for the St Louis market illustrates perhaps more than anything else the possibilities of vegetable grow ing in this section. They have two | farms. in truth, the largest Of which | contains eighty-two acres. Perhaps more cueumbers are grown on the Penniman farms than any other vege- | tables,
 The vegetable and fruit growing in- dustry of the community in and around | Fruitdale has assumed such propor- | tIons that during next spring, summer | and fall one of the largest canneries In the South will be in operation al Fruitdale The cannery which now | stands along the tracks of the Mobile | and Ohio is even now of considerable proportions. but 1t is to be enlarged by the building of a ffty-foot addi- | tion. When It is completed with the additions 1t will furnish employment for 500 hands, 1t Is said. It is to be managed by Craddock and Nagle, a Tennessee firm which has had exten sive experience sin that sort of busi- ness.
 First and last. in the town proper and in the surrounding community there are al least 1000 people in the ] Fruitdale community who came from | the Middle West, and the place has as- sumed such important airs that it has l a. bank and a weekly newspaper.