The Prescott daily news. (Prescott, Ark.) 1907-1941, 1914-05-15
GAMER AT THE LARGEST
PEACH ORCHARD
Bert Johnson in Farm and Ranch.

OHe Oh the largest, II not the largest,
peach orchard in the world under
the management of one man. We
have here something like 5000 acres
of orchard, about one-half of which
is in bearing trees and the balance is
planted to young trees which will be
IN bearing in two or three years.
/ With such an output of fruit there is
always large quantity that from be-
ing oVerripe or other causes cannot be
shipped green to the markets, and
this led me to consider how | could
avoid throwing this away, which in
most cases was good and wholesome
fruit | therefore decided that by
putting this in cans and disposing of
it in that way was the solution Had
| realized the enormity of this under
taking | likely would have hesitated
to start same, but when once started
| was bound to see it through and
make it a grand success, which | be-
heve | can truthfully say has been
done.
In the spring of 1912 we built our
first factory building, making it 60
1920 feet, which we thought suffi-
cient. Later we found this was not
nearly large enough to take care of
our products and to supply the de-
mand we had created for our goods,
and the following year we built an adj
dtional factory 40x31S feet, both of
which are two stories high. The sec
ond story is used entirely for storage
Of empty cans, cases. etc, while the
first story consists of receiving plat
forms. operating rooms and store
for our finished products, as well as
labelling and shipping rooms.
Our village of Highland is located
in the center of our big orchard and
in 1912 was very small. | realized
that to get the necessary help to work
in our factory as we'll as to accommo-
date help working on the orchard, it
would be necessary to build at least
100 two or three-room cottages
which we Immediately did. At this
time others seeing the work going on
here came in and built a nice hotel,
restaurant and other store buildings,
the railroad company put up nice
depot, so we practically grew into a
nice small town over night, so to
speak. We are located on high ridge
overlooking the surrounding country,
having an elevation of some 700 feet,
which makes the location ideal for
health as we'll as giving us splendid
air-drainage for our orchard.
The next problem for the factory
was water. A canning factory uses
worlds of water, so we next put down
we'll 600 feet deep, which not only
supplies our factory, but our tenants
as well, with splendid water We
next found that it might be necessary
to operate the factory at night during
the rush period, so we built an cleo
trio light plant for 5000 lights, which
supplies our town as we'll as houses
all over the orchard with lights, some
of these houses being located five
miles away.
Then came up the problem of de-
termining on our brands of goods and
buying our labels, cans, etc. Also the
matter of securing a manager for the
factory who knew his business. We
feel that we have been very fortunate
in the man we have selected for this,
the all-important part of the business.
His ideas agree with mine exactly,
that our aim and one idea is to pro-
duce the very best goods that can be
turned out, and from the good words
we get from the people who buy from
us, we feel that we are putting out as
good if not better goods of the differ
ent kinds as can be found on the mar
ket anywhere.
AS the canning season for peaches
is short we decided that we could
make the canning season longer by
putting up other articles besides
peaches. We had a few thousand
acres of land between our small peach
trees we could use and therefore our
actory has been putting up peaches
{ several different grades, such as
unpeeled peaches for pies. and peeled
peaches for table use, tomatoes, spin