Carteret and Halifax Farmers, 1949

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, as published in the Wilmington Star on Aug. 4, 1949

CARTERET MELONS & CABBAGE

Growers of the famous Bogue Sound watermelons, along the shores of eastern Carolina, figure they will not be able to market over 50 per cent of a crop this season. Alvin Taylor, one of the largest growers along the sound in Carteret County, said the vines could not set a normal crop of melons due to the continual rains. But the quality of the melons produced is satisfactory and prices have been good. There are no better watermelons than those grown along Bogue Sound.

Final information about those new varieties of early cabbage, the Round Heads Nos. 1 and 2, has been handed in to Farm Agent R.M. Williams by Roland Salter, one of the farmers testing the new cabbage varieties this season. Mr. Salter found that while the new varieties produced about 25 greater tonnage per acre than did the old favorite, the early Jersey Wakefield, the two varieties were too brittle for extended use as a commercial crop. Round Head No. 2 made a slightly larger head than Round Head No. 1, but was a little more brittle. Both kinds did not bolt as much as the Jersey Wakefield and they were about one week earlier in maturity. Mr. Salter also found that his own Round Dutch variety compared favorably with the two new varieties as regards bolting, but his variety was about 15 days later in maturing for market.

HALIFAX FARMING

A.L. Garner of Roanoke Rapids, Route 1, is conducting a demonstration of the value of mechanized farming this year. He and his three sons have used three tractors to cultivate 311 acres of cropland this season. There is not a mule on the place and the four men are growing 75 acres of corn, 44 acres of cotton, 100 acres of peanuts, and 90 acres of soybeans. In spite of the frequent rains and the late start of this spring, their crops are in perfect condition. The entire acreage was planted and cultivated with tractors and the cultivation has been so very good that very little hoe work was needed. This is their third season with tractors, and they say that they are thoroughly sold. Perhaps when they get a sizz-weeder to kill the grass, they will need no hoe work at all.

W.O. Davis, farm agent I Halifax, announces that he has just secured a new assistant, Walter P. Farrior, who was employed by the county commissioners in June and will devote his entire time to promoting livestock in that crop county. The folks up there say the time is coming and they can see it in the distance, when they must quit so row crop or cash crop farming and got to sods, hay crops, and pastures. This means that they plan to grow hogs, beef cattle, poultry, and dairy cows. A new milk processing plant has been established at Roanoke Rapids and this offers a market for all the fluid milk which can be produced. Therefore, old Halifax with its hundreds of years of crop growing history, plantation style, behind it, looks ahead to a new kind of farming to balance the old and in which the owners will not depend so much possibly on share croppers as they have in the past.