46 THK ALAIJAM.V Ol'l'OKTL'M IN'. 



sell for only seventy-five cents a crate while the Slappey 

 peaches troni the hills of Evergreen brought $1.50 a crate in 

 the same market. Without disparagement to the Elberta, a 

 sweet and delightful peach, the Slappey peach from the Ala- 

 bama hills was preferred by the commissionmen and the cus- 

 tomers in the open market. 



What particular merit is there in the Georgia soil anyhow 

 that makes it the only soil which can grow perfect peaches, 

 as Georgia people would have the outside world believe? This 

 claim was knocked into smithereens when the Alabama 

 "Slappey" and the Georgia Elber'.a met in the open market 

 last May and June. And the Elberta peach grows just as 

 beautiful and just as toothsome upon the Alabama hills as it 

 ever did upon the hills of Georgia. 



And moreover the Alabama peach beats' the Georgia peach 

 to the Northern market by a week or ten days, a great advan- 

 tage. The first car'oad of peaches that went into Chicago last 

 May from all over the United States, was grown, packed and 

 shipped from the big Stores orchard at Dolive. some dis- 

 tance south of Evergreen. True they were Elberta peaches, 

 but they w'ere equal in every particular -to the Georgia Elberta 

 and they reached the buyers two weeks earlier than did the 

 delicate fruit from the State across the Chattahoochee. 



Peach growing is as' yet in its infancy in South Alabama, 

 but unless clear headed business men who have put their 

 money in the industry are wrong, it will, in the next four or 

 five years, be grappling widi the Georgia industry for supre- 

 macy. Rut the market is wide and there are enough buyers 

 to go round. 



The men who are planting peach trees around here by the 

 thousands boldly proclaim that the Alabama peach orchards 

 are superior and more promising of the future than the Geor- 

 gia orchards. First of all it is asserted that the soil about 

 Evergreen is equal to or better than that of southwest or mid- 

 dle Georgia where peach growing has assumed wide propor- 

 tions. It is a sandy soil with a clay subsoil. The Evergreen 

 peach growers do not hesitate to say they think their soil i= 

 better tb^.n the (^.eoroia land. 



