The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1910-01-27
OUR SOUTHERN LETTER.
Work Mr.. Van Lindley Has Done
for the Fruit Growers.


stance, what would you think of
peach crop that brings in forty
thousand dollars?
That is what the Van Lindley
orchard did the past summer. 1t
was a good season and the crop
we'll, but in addition to selling
well it was good crop.
- The orchard, which is about
hree miles from Southern Pines,
has thirty thousand peach trees
in it. Some years these trees do
not bear so we'll as they did this
year. Some years the market is
not so good. Yet those two con-
ditions are not discouraging, for
it does not take many crops at
forty thousand dollars each to pay
pretty good interest rate on a
plantation Of two or three hundred
acres.
Not far from the Van Lindley
orchard lives o. NJ. Palmer. He
is from Michigan. There is a
difference between Michigan and
Missouri. Missouri folks have to
be shown. Michigan people are
willing to show.
Palmer came down this way
from the country where the apple
tree is looked on with a friendly
regard, and the first thing the
Palmer folks did was to set out a
few apple trees, and to listen while
certain wise men told them how
useless it would be to try to raise
apples in the Sand Hill country.
1t is not the first time the wise
man found his mistake. Palmer
set out four or five hundred apple
trees, and this year the wise men
are telling around how that shrewd
Yankee got prize up at the
Raleigh State Fair for his fine
fruit and how some Of his apples
at Spokane, Washington, clear on
the other side of the continent,
also pulled down one of the prizes
for fine fruit, out in that country
where they are so proud of their
good apples that they wrap the
fruit in paper and sent it back
east in boxes for fancy trade.
And Palmer, he smiles and
plants a few more apple trees, and
: the wise men encourage him by
saying they knew all along he
would show somebody what his
country is good for.
Palmer showed them all right.
He made such a hit with his
prizes at the fruit show that the
Van Lindley orchard has con-
cluded to set out a thousand apple
trees this fall. When a fruit con-
Germ that markets forty thousand
dollars worth of peaches in one
crop begins to plant apple trees in
their orchard it is apparent that
the apple crop also gives promise,
for thing to tempt man to take
anything new into an orchard that
does as we'll as the Van Lindley
peaches have done must be good
The Van Lindley folks are not
new hands with fruit. The head
of the big fruit farm has been for
many years nursery man in this
State, and the orchard at South
ern Pines was planted because of
the special advantages this section
of the United States offers to fruit
growers. When it was planted
the country went wild over fruit
plantations, and much money was
spent in establishing orchards and
vineyards. Some of the planters
have won such Success as the Van
Lindley people. Many others
have nothing to show for their
work and expenditure but desert
ed orchards and vineyards and
wasted money charged up on the
wrong side of the profit and loss
account. For about the time the
fruit boom hit this section the in
sect pest, known as the San Jose
scale, came into the eastern part
of the United States and the or
chards around Southern Pines
were among the first to suffer.