672 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of their profitable qualities. The pre- The number of hands employed on 



serving plant pays our fig orchards the Experiment farm practically all the 



three cents a pound for figs and the year round, averages from 12 to 14. 



trees pay an average profit of $27 an Besides these, extra help is used in the 



acre. On this basis, the preserving preserving plant. 



plant pays for the figs and all expenses Perhaps this looks like considerable 



and makes an annual profit of $1,500 to help to handle 460 acres of land, not 



$2,000 a year. all of which is in cultivation. It will 



not look so big, and it will be readily 



RUN JUST LIKE AN ORDINARY FARM. seen that none of them have much loaf- 

 ing time, when one considers that here 



This story would not be complete are 82,716 trees on the place, trying to 

 without reference to the modern farm account to Mr. Cranberry for their ex- 

 equipment of the experiment farm, istence. 



Mr. Cranberry's comfortable home is The big orchard is the biggest. It 

 flanked on each side at convenient dis- contains approximately 8,000 trees four 

 tances with homes for the employes, years old, 7,000 trees one year old, be- 

 There is a big packing shed, in upper sides 33,000 cuttings just making a start 

 part of which crates and other packing in life all of them Magnolias, 

 equipment is stored; a big, commodious In peaches, the Elberta easily leads, 

 barn for the horses and mules and their with 6,284 trees on the working list, 

 forage, besides storage room for the The Belle of Georgia, an earlier peach, 

 fertilizer, of which on an average a which finishes its year's work just when 

 carload a year is used. There is a big the Elberta ripens, has 1,764 members 

 water tank which is kept full by a gaso- in the colony. Many other varieties 

 line engine and pumping outfit and an were tried, but these two won out in 

 office for Supt. Cranberry, where he the final contests. 



keeps his records and shakes his head The Conzales leads the plum family 

 over such trees as refuse to earn their with 4,000 trees and the others nowhere 

 living. He also has telephone connec- that is, comparatively nowhere. The 

 tion with the mill office at Bon Ami, Japan Wonder is a strong probationer 

 and the messages are delivered and re- and the Abundance so-so, 

 ceived over an ordinary barb wire fence. The Satsuma orange has 246 self- 

 Mr. Cranberry has so much faith in supporting trees, four and five years 

 the future of the cut-over lands that he old ; 2,000 trees a year old, and 60,000 

 is improving a fruit farm of his own, seeds to be budded ; potential but not 

 carved out of the stump land, a mile counting in the census, 

 east of Bon Ami. Another strand of The paper shell pecans will not be 

 the same barb wire fence is reserved earning their way for some time and 

 for a private line to his own farm. will be deeply in debt by the time they 

 It is also proper to state that no do; but the 2,283 trees of this kind 

 "fancy farming" is indulged in at the will soon pay the debt when they get 

 Experiment farm. Things are not started. There are 150 Kiefer pear 

 raised under glass or canvas, nor trees which promise well but are looked 

 watered by perforated iron pipes. Every on with deep distrust because of their 

 thing is out in the open, subject to the liability to blight; and herds of others, 

 same exigencies of wind and weather, few in number, but many in variety, 

 of frost and heat, of drouth and flood just getting a chance to prove their 

 that the ordinary farmer would en- trustworthiness. 



counter. Its purpose is to show what A new experiment in the way of dis- 



can be done on the land by any plain, closing the possibilities of the cut-over 



common-sense farmer, with ordinary pine lands is being conducted by the 



careful methods, and the result shows Long-Bell Lumber Co. on a tract of 



for itself. The Experiment farm is an 5,000 acres adjacent to Bon Ami, 



Experiment no longer. It is an In- which have been enclosed with a hog 



vestment. and sheep tight fence to be used as 



