Rutherford County Farmers, August 1948

From the Editorial Page of the Rutherfordton News, August 26, 1948

Our good friend F.H. Jeter of the N.C. Agricultural Extension Service, Raleigh, in Monday’s Charlotte Observer on its weekly Farm Page gave Rutherford County a good boost for which we appreciate very much…. He wrote in part:

“One of North Carolina’s good farming counties is Rutherford. It is located in the southwestern part of the Piedmont section…. Rutherford is a county of small farms. It has many small industrial plants and some large ones scattered widely over area and many of the folks, perhaps someone in almost every farm family, work part time in one of these manufacturing plants. This is the way in which many of the people have come to town to own farms of their own or to have extra cash above the good living which their farm lands provide….

Rutherford was formed back in 1779 from parts of Burke and Tryon counties. It was named for General Griffith Rutherford and its agriculture, for the most part, is the same as for Cleveland except that the people pay more attrition to fruits, small fruits, berries, gardens and such crops as are adapted to smaller farms. It is a good cotton county and is fast becoming part of the great Spartanburg peach growing area. There is much fertile bottom land all along the lower reaches of the numerous streams and these lands produce excellent crops of grains, cotton and grazing crops. The whole county is favorable to the production of sweet potatoes. In fact, Rutherford is noted for the excellence of its sugar spuds and for its apples, peaches, cherries, melons and grapes. It’s a good county.

H.R. Niswonger, extension horticulturist, says Rutherford County farmers should specialize in growing fruits and berries. The market now is almost unlimited and strawberry growers can clear from $600 to $1,000 an acre where the crop is properly handled. The prevalence of freezer lockers and the fine markets provided by the many nearby textile plants offer an excellent outlet for all the berries that can be produced. Gordon McDaniel, who lives in the Bills Creek community, planted one-half an acre of strawberries two years ago and sold over $300 worth of the delicious fruit from the half-acre tract. He says he can make more money, net, from strawberries than anything he has tried so far. The secret of making money from strawberries, however, is first to get a good variety; keep down competition from grass and weeds; and then fertilize early each fall. This provides a strong, healthy crop of plants which produce well in the early spring. But F.E. Patton, Rutherford farm agent, says that the peach crop of Rutherford has come to be very important and is expanding as a farm enterprise each succeeding year. 

The growers had hard luck this year, as did almost everyone who grows peaches in the foothill region. In fact, Rutherford growers harvested only about 20 per cent of a normal crop. Even so, some of them whose orchards had better air drainage secured about 70 per cent of a full crop and really made money. The best crops harvested this season were produced by Lloyd Godfrey, B.H. Champion, Fred D. Hamrick, the Robbins orchard, and others in that community. In 1947, the growers of Rutherford shipped over 100 cars of ripe peaches in addition to the great quantity sold locally and through truckers. This year, only about 25 cars were moved.

The folks in Rutherford County really give attrition to sweet potato growing. In fact, a club boy of the county, Bobby Clement of Green Hill, not only won the county prize of $25 last year but went  on to become district winner for the entire southeastern section of the state. For this he received a second $25 in cash. His production was 159 bushels of fine sweets on one-half acre of land. Dorothy Robinson of the same Green Hill section won second county prize of $15 for the production of 112 bushels on one-half acre. The next high club boy was Earl Wilson of the Lake Lure community, who produced 81 bushels on his half-acre to get a $10 prize.

The sweet potato growers of Rutherford prefer the Louisiana strain of Porto Ricos. They have some good foundation seed and they produce a crop that is almost dripping with sugary juice. Dr. Ben Washburn, who owns the Cleghorn farm, is specializing in producing certified seed of this copper-colored strain of sweet potatoes. This past year, he grew some of the cleanest and best seed to be found in the state. Dr. Washburn uses good seed; he rotates his crop; fertilizes well; and follows the best methods of cultivation. He has the only curing house in Rutherford County operated with electric current and says that this method not only saves time and labor but that the cost is reasonable and that it is easy to keep the curing house at an even temperature both during the curing period of fall as well as during the follow-up storage period of winter.

The cotton growers of the county used 10,000 pounds of new Coker Wilt seed, directly from the breeder this year. This cotton is being grown by 37 men who are increasing it and will keep the seed pure so that other growers may have the same good seed available next year. The boll weevil has not done so much damage in the county this year. Last season, the growers lost several thousand dollars because of the attacks by the pest, but Jack Camp of Union township used Benzene Hexachloride at a cost of about $5 an acre and harvested a bale of lint per acre while his neighbors got only about a bale from every four acres.