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Saturday, October 3, 2015

Follow the Gunter Girls' Example; Join Tomato Club to Grow and Can Your Own Tomatoes, 1911

“The Gunter Girls of Aiken,” from the French Broad Hustler, Oct. 12, 1911

“The Gunter girls of Aiken” are winning laurels for themselves and at the same time giving an object lesson to other girls on the farm, and boys and men, too, for the matter of that. The Gunter girls are tomato girls, and it was in South Carolina, we believe, that the tomato clubs originated and where they are now flourishing. Miss Eunice Gunter of Seivern, Aiken county, the Columbia State informs us, has already put up 668 three-pound cans of tomatoes from one-tenth of an acre, and will probably increase the number to 700. That means 2,000 pounds of the vegetable, or at the rate of 20,000 pounds to an acre. The State thinks that when a South Carolina girl makes such demonstration of what is practicable on South Carolina farms, that it is time to stop importing to the state ”by railroads and steams, for the consumption of South Carolinians tens of thousands of cases of canned tomatoes.” And The State is right. This whole section ships in canned tomatoes, carload on top of carload, when it could and does produce the finest kind of tomatoes right at home. It ought to produce a great deal more of them than it does, but it doesn’t even take care of what it does produce and many bushels go to waste every year because of lack of home or local canning industries. What is made and goes to waste would not supply the home demand, but it would help some, if saved. The Gunter girls and others like the will have accomplished a great thing for their section if they succeed in increasing the output of tomatoes and increasing industry in the canning industry, not only of tomatoes but generally.

The other Miss Gunter, by the way, is going to Winthrop this year. By making a world’s record in tomato culture last year, she was given a scholarship to Winthrop and has passed the examination necessary to enter the institution. She made a record in tomatoes, and it is confidently predicted she will make a record in scholarship. The Gunter girls are winners. May their tribe increase.

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