Cabarrus County Farmers' Report, October, 1946

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the Wilmington Star, October 21, 1946

Cabarrus County Report

General farm apple growers report good crops. J.P. Cox of Stanfield, Route 2, in Cabarrus County, has harvested about 1,000 bushels this season from his home orchard. He suffered heavy damage from scab but made good yields despite this trouble. Mr. Cox is developing a reputation around Concord and throughout Cabarrus County for the quality of his fruit. People now demand Cox’s apple because they say it means the best in quality. That’s a fine reputation for any grower to have about anything he produces. It means money for the work done.

Roy D. Goodman, Cabarrus Farm agent, says that some of those who grew tomatoes as a truck crop in Cabarrus this past season lost heavily from a late blight. Paul B.C. Smith of Mt. Pleasant, Route 1, had his late crop just about wiped out; and he depended on it for a cash income during the late summer. This is the first report of this plant disease in the county.

Cabarrus is noted for its lespedeza and some of the growers near the Stanley County line say they, too, have had something new with which to contend this year. This new trouble is a weed called the Mississippi Spanish Needle. It is an erect-growing, hardy, tough weed that made its appearance this summer in the lespedeza field of southeastern Cabarrus. Roy Goodman says this is a pest that must be controlled or it is going to give all lespedeza growers lots of trouble.