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.
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