FRUIT CULTURE. 



Owing to the great range of climate in the State of North Carolina 

 there is a great range for the cultivation of the various fruits. Fruits 

 of most sorts nourish in all parts of the State, but certain regions are 

 better adapted than others to the production of certain fruits in a 

 commercial way. Therefore, we will treat of each separately, taking 

 first the small fruits as grown for home use and for market. 



STRAWBERRIES. 



So far as the growth and perfection of the fruit is concerned, there 

 is no section of the State where the finest of strawberries cannot be 

 grown. But in the cultivation of this fruit for market we must take 

 into consideration the fact that the strawberry is grown commercially 

 in all parts of the country, and that each section, from Florida to 

 Maine, has its own season in the market. Hence, to make straw- 

 berries profitable for shipment North, they must be grown where the 

 climate is early enough to put the product into the market before the 

 localities north of us come in with shorter hauls and cheaper freight. 

 Hence, in our high mountain country the crop will be anticipated by 

 localities on the coast north of us, and the shipment could not be 

 made profitable northward, though it may yet be possible to create a 

 Southern market for the product of the mountain country, where the 

 fruit can be grown in the greatest perfection. Present conditions, 

 however, have confined the culture of the strawberry as a commercial 

 crop to the lands of the coastal plain, where climate and soil combine 

 to make the business a very profitable one. In fact, the first really 

 fine berries sent North are those from Columbus County in this State. 

 Of course, earlier in the season, strawberries come from Florida and 

 other more southern sections, but there are none of them equal in 

 quality to those produced in the counties of Columbus, Duplin, and 

 Wayne, in North Carolina. From a small beginning but a few years 

 ago the business of strawberry growing along the Atlantic Coast Line 

 Railroad has increased to great proportions and thousands of car- 

 loads are annually shipped North. Chadbourn, in Columbus County, 

 is a settlement of Michigan people who colonized there nearly twenty 

 years ago, and who, by their energy and thrift, have developed a 

 large business in strawberry and truck farming, and are reaping 

 large profits. About the towns of Mount Olive and Faison, on the 

 Atlantic Coast Line, the strawberry business had its first start, and 

 the soil there has been found to be well adapted to the production of 

 the finest fruit. 



Great improvements have been made of late in the marketing of 

 the strawberry crop. The fruit is now all sold at the stations for 



