“Under the dark of shadowy pines
Untouched by axe or plow.”
We were joined, as we walked along, by another native, Mr. W. R. Adkinson, who told me that in 1905 his neighbor, Mr. Elisha Downing, cleared $2,050, net, on seven and one-half acres of berries. They both agreed that this year was not so prosperous, and yet the railroad agent told me they shipped fifteen carloads the Saturday before. They fetched $2.50 to $3.50 per crate f. o. b. track at Castleberry. There were several representatives of rival commission houses on the ground all during the shipping season.
Although the section is comparatively new in the berry and fruit business, I found it had spread all up and down the railroad, and from a reliable party I found the area planted to be about 1,800 acres in berries and 1,100 acres in Alberta peaches, extending from Bolling and including Garland, Dunham, Owassa, Evergreen (a beautiful little town and a great health resort), Sparta, Marble, Castleberry, Kirkland, Brewton (another beautiful and thriving town), Flomaton, Century and Canal. An hundred acres will be planted at Evergreen this year in cantaloupes, while many cars of radishes were shipped from Greenville this year. Eighteen hundred acres out of as many hundred thousand, and two or three weeks of strawberries for the millions of people who have been waiting all winter for them! This looks small and shows what may be done in the future.
Mr. Adkinson and Mr. Barnes on their way to pay the berry pickers.
Before the berries came.
At Marble I found a most interesting strawberry farm, and there I saw the field dotted with pickers, a picturesque, poetic sight, especially when dinner time arrived and the berries came in with the cream. The berries we had for dinner were red and firm, with a fine flavor, and Mr. Lister, who raised them, assured me that just thirty-five days before, or on March 23, he had transplanted the vines. He called them, I think, the Three W’s, though other berries which were cultivated for market were Lady Thompson, Klondike and Excelsior.