J.W. Soles' Success with Scuppernongs in Columbus County, 1940

From the November 1940 issue of The Southern Planter

J.W. Soles of Whiteville, Columbus County, N.C., sold $365.52 worth of scuppernongs this fall from eight-tenths of an acre to find a new cash crop from vines which he set six years ago.

He harvested 18,276 pounds of the grapes which he sold for two cents a pound, or $40 a ton, and says this new enterprise has proved profitable. For the first two years after planting, Mr. Soles fertilized the vines with 1,000 pounds per acre of a complete fertilizer; but since that time he has been to no expense whatever, except for the pruning and harvesting done with ordinary farm labor.

Other farmers in that section have watched Mr. Soles’ experiment with great interest, since nearly every farm has one or more grape vines from which new plants may be rooted. Eastern North Carolina has ideal conditions of soil and climate for the production of scuppernongs, and farmers who are searching for new sources of cash income to supplement that supplied by cotton and tobacco may find the answer in Mr. Soles’ results.