Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1898 — Fruit and Flower Farms. [ARTICLE]

Fruit and Flower Farms.

Small fruit and Cower farms pay well In England; why should they not dose here? The manufacture of jam might be made as profitable in some of our country towns as it Is in the English village of Histon, which formerly had no staple industry. The land all about was neglected, landlords were in despair, and even the farmers were gradually withdrawing to other parts of the country. It occurred to S. Chivers, a highly esteemed farmer, that it would be a good idea, instead of leaving the neighborhood, to start a fruit farm. He did so. This was twentyfive years ago, and, though he then bad only about five hundred acres of land, to-day he has over five thousand. His strawberry fields stretch away across the country. He has provided employment year after year for about six hundred hands to do nothing but pick strawberries, raspberries, plums and apples; and where there was distress, there is now a perfect hive of industry, and prosperity abounds in villages within a radius of ten miles of Histon. Directly the fruit is pickedi, it is carted off and turned into jam. Of course, the field hands are employed only in the fruit season, but in the winter about five hundred hands are employed in the very large factory he has erected in making marmalade and jellies. Floriculture also pays well in rural England. There is an increasing demand for flowers in the great centers of population. and this demand is met. Not only have new flower farms, and especially bulb farms, been established in various parts of the country, but flowers have encroached upon vegetables and even upon fruit in the old market gardens. Some flowers are on sale all the year round, and a considerable number of varieties during the greater portion of the year. The growing of the narcissus is perhaps the most important single division of the open air flower industry. Some six hundred varieties are now known, of which one hundred and twenty are worth cultivating. There are growers of roses under glass who cut blooms for market every week-day in the year; and lilies of the valley, now grown in seasons not natural to them from crowns retarded in refrigerated chambers, can also be obtained all the year roun<k The chrysanthemum is a general favorite, and the quantity produced in the autiimn and winter is simply enormous.