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DELAWARE

THE DIAMOND STATE

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The State Board of Agriculture

DOVER, DELAWARE

THE NEW AMSTEL MAGAZINE COMPANY
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, U.S.A.
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Delaware the Diamond State

NUSUAL opportunities for homeseekers—beautiful homes and
U cheap lands—at the door of the best markets in the world, among
refined, cultured and hospitable people.

Delaware is inviting useful and industrious people to come from
other states and countries to settle within her borders, and this pamphlet
presents a candid reason why the invitation is extended and why it should
be accepted by thousands of families.

Delaware offers unusual opportunities to homeseekers—good land
that is cheap in price, the best markets in the world and a delightful
climate. It has beautiful homes, churches and schools and a refined,
cultured, hospitable people. The agriculture of the State requires fuller
development ; men, money and energy are needed for this development,
and while there are thousands of farms that cannot be bought, others as
good are for sale at reasonable prices, and excellent land now idle is very
cheap. For many years the people have been going from Delaware into
the cities to engage in professional and business life, and the tides of
immigration from the Old World have swept past Delaware and left it
untouched. The towns and cities of the State are growing, but the farm
population is not increasing in the same ratio. The total population of the
State by the census of 1910 is 202,322, but almost half of the people are
in the city of Wilmington, giving New Castle County 123,188; Kent,
32,721, and Sussex, 46,413. Kent has a land area of about 630 square
miles, and Sussex of nearly 900 square miles, so that each of the two
lower counties has but little more than fifty inhabitants per square mile,
and more than one-third of them live in towns, so that there are not more
than thirty-three people to the square mile living upon the land of these
two counties. It is safe to say that the products from the farms of these

counties can be readily deubled, and even trebled, within two or three

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Delaware the Diamond State

years by giving better tillage to the farms now under cultivation and by
using the land that is now idle. This will result in greatly increased
prices of land, for ultimately the farms will sell at prices in proportion
to the net income that they will vield.

Delaware is one of the most favorably located of all the states of
the Union. It has a great variety of soils, all easily tilled and immensely
productive. It lies between two bodies of salt water and has a mild,
equable climate, a large percentage of sunny weather in winter, and it is
close to the great markets of the eastern part of the United States. With
the exception of Rhode Island, it is the smallest state of the American
Union. It is on the Atlantic Coast, half way between Maine and
Georgia. It is about 100 miles in length and has an average width of:
only twenty miles, containing 2,050 square miles, of which ninety square
miles are covered with water. The climate is genial, the latitude insuring
mildness. The center of the State is as far south as Washington, D. C.
The thirty-ninth parallel of latitude runs just south of Dover, the capital
of Delaware, and touches the northern edge of Annapolis, Md., and
Washington city. The Delaware and Chesapeake Peninsula is almost
surrounded by salt water, the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay on
the east, the Chesapeake Bay on the west. These bodies of water modify
the rigors of winter and the heat of summer. The long, warm seasons,
and a kind but varied soil, make Delaware the home of nearly every
fruit and vegetable that can be found in the temperate zone. There are
no destructive tornadoes nor cyclones nor floods. The land is nearly
level, no mountains, nor even hills, except in the extreme northern end
of the State.

Delaware is within a few hours ride of all the large cities of the
Eastern United States. Within 500 miles of it are nearly thirty-five
millions of people, one-third of the total population of all North America.
Within this circle are included New York, Hartford, Providence, Boston,

Portland, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Toledo, Detroit, Cincinnati, Louis-

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Delaware the Diamond State

ville, Columbus, Pittsburg, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wash-
ington, and hundreds of other cities. Think of it, thirty-five millions of
people within this circle and every one of them perfectly happy when he
gets a Delaware peach! Volumes might be written to enlarge upon the
suggestive facts above summarized. Take, for example, the simple
statement that Delaware is the home of nearly all the products of the
temperate zone. What does that statement mean? It means for one
thing that these products include such fruits as strawberries, blackberries,
raspberries, grapes and many other small fruits, and tree fruits like
peaches, pears, apples, quinces, plums and cherries; all these fruits are
produced in enormous quantities and of the best quality. Peach trains
go rolling over the Delaware Railroad; solid trains of refrigerator cars
loaded with strawberries are sent out of Delaware daily in the strawberry
season, sixty-four carloads going from one station in a single day, and
in the summer and autumn trainloads of red apples go to market.” Within
twenty-four hours from the time the perishable fruit is gathered in the
field it has been sold at a satisfactory price and is on the table of the
consumer.

What is true of fruits is also true of vegetables. Cantaloupes, water-
melons, tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, kale, cauliflower and other vegetables
go in immense quantities to feed the hungry mouths that must be fed in
the nearby cities. In speaking of our fruit market, Dr. H. W. Colling-
wood said: “On Manhattan Island and across the river are 3,958,000
people. Draw a circle fifty miles in diameter from City Hall, New
York, and you put a line around 5,000,000 people—as many as you will
find in all the States of Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Colorado,
Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
Not 3 per cent. of these people ever produce any fruit, depending upon
the farmers to raise fruit to send to them. It is the greatest fruit-eating
section in the world. Now draw a line up the Hudson River to Albany,
and thence straight east to the Atlantic Ocean, and you have 11,000,000

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Delaware the Diamond State

of people, a dozen or fifteen of the richest and most luxurious cities in
the country; cities which have man’s wealth and man’s demand for fruit
and vegetables of high quality. You have the greatest fruit market known
in an equal area on the face of the earth, and the demand for fruit is
increasing wonderfully. You have no conception of how people are
demanding more fruit and better fruit.”

All of these Eastern cities are growing in population and in wealth.
They become more luxurious every year, and these great fruit markets
are within easy reach of the most delicate and the most perishable products
of the Delaware farmer. The extreme lower end of Delaware is nearer
New York City than half of the State of New York.

THE SOIL OF DELAWARE

HE SOIL is alluvial. The surface is only slightly rolling, but

enough so to insure good natural drainage. Wherever the surface
dips below the surrounding land open ditches of moderate depth allow
the rainfall to drain away speedily, and every foot of well-drained land
in Delaware is valuable land. But the soil is not uniform; it varies in
character all the way from stiff, heavy clay to sandy soil of an extremely
friable character, easily tilled and productive. In a general way it may
be said that the soil gradually becomes more sandy from the northern to
the southern end of the State, but this is intended rather to mean that
the proportion of sandy land increases as we go south, for there is more
or less strong clayey loam in all parts of the State, and there is some
sandy land in New Castle County. The red or yellow clay loam may be
called our best and strongest soil. It produces full crops of all kinds of
fruits and vegetables; of grain and grass; is fine for pasture, and with
good tillage and proper rotation of crops requires only a moderate amount
of fertilizer or manure to produce the heaviest crops annually. This red

clay may not always come to the surface, but may lie a few inches below a

Eleven

PAPYyr4c) YP, Ayunory my

Delaware the Diamond State

friable sandy loam, and for some purposes a sandy topsoil with clay
subsoil is still better than the clay surface, for it dries out more quickly
after a rain, is more easily tilled, causes vegetables to mature earlier, and
hence often to catch the best prices in the market, and upon it fruits gain
a richer color. The heavy, white clay is found in small scattered areas,
disappointing until it has been well drained and filled with vegetable
matter by the application of manure or by turning under green crops.
It is excellent for pasture and for hay, and when the season is favorable
it produces large crops of corn and wheat. The sandy loam is not
adapted to grazing, but is very desirable for market gardening, for fruits,
early potatoes, sweet potatoes and for alfalfa and many other crops.
There is some black land, so called because of its color due to the
presence of a large amount of vegetable matter, mostly a sandy loam,
low-lying, so that the water level is near the surface, and thus it is
ideal land for strawberries.

These different varieties of soil require different treatment to yield
the best returns. People who are acquainted with the agricultural con-
ditions in other states and countries speak of Delaware soil as “kindly,”
and this word is very appropriate and expressive in this connection.
Every grade of Delaware soil responds in a very remarkable manner
to tillage and manures. The effect of green manuring is marvelous;
cowpeas, soy beans, crimson clover and other leguminous crops when
plowed under make the sandiest soil wonderfully productive. The poorest
sand in the State can be made to produce forty to fifty bushels of shelled
corn per acre every year and from one to two tons of clover hay without
the application of any manure or fertilizer. The crimson clover is the
secret of it. Plant the corn in the spring, sow the clover seed among the
rows of corn at the last cultivation. The clover grows in the fall, and all
winter during the open spells, and in the spring is ready to plow under.
Repeat the operation and by the second or third spring the clover may
be cut for hay, and in ten years the poor sand has become a fertile,

Thirteen

Kieffer pears ready to pick

Delaware the Diamond State

- retentive soil, producing two crops every year. The crimson clover
matures and is cut for hay about the middle of May, and the corn crop
will mature before frost if planted by the first of July. This process of
improving sandy land is hastened by the application of a little dissolved
rock and muriate of potash to the corn and clover for the first three or
four years, and much larger crops are grown, and every pound of these
fertilizers applied will pay for itself in the following crop. The great
fact stands out plain and clear that the Delaware soil in the Delaware
climate is capable of producing upon itself the green manure that will
make it as fertile and productive as one can ask, at the same time pro-
ducing good yields of a staple crop. This is not true of the land in cold
climates where the growing season is short.

General farming, stock raising, grain and grass are profitable. But
the character of the soil, the warm climate and the nearness to market
make a large number of specialties still more profitable. To discuss the
quality of the soil in Delaware in a comprehensive way it is necessary
to consider some of the climatic conditions as well as temperature and
the distribution of the rainfall. If a soil freezes six months in the year,
and by drying out is baked as hard as a brick a good part of the other
six months, the plant food contained in it can be of very little use, for
the mineral elements of plant food become available by the action of heat
and moisture. In Delaware the summers are long and the winters are
often open. Occasionally we experience the benefit of a deep freeze,
which has a loosening or pulverizing effect upon the subsoil. The greater
part of the year is warm enough to promote the chemical activity that
decomposes soil as well as the activity of bacteria that perform a similar
office, and also add to the fertility of the soil by gathering the free nitrogen
of the air and storing it in the soil as plant food. What the soil may
produce, therefore, depends not so much upon the amount of inert plant
food that it may contain as upon the processes that go on within it. It

it supposed that the surface of the earth was originally stones or rock,

Fifteen

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Delaware the Diamond State

but by the action of the atmosphere, the rains and certain grinding
processes, especially of water, the rock became decomposed, plants grew
in it, and the action of the growing plants helped the process, until after
long ages we have soil instead of stone. This same process is still going
on, and most soils have enough plant food for hundreds and even thou-
sands of big crops. In Delaware the long warm summers and frequent
rains cause this process to be extremely active, and great quantities of
plant food are made soluble. This is why thorough cultivation in Dela-
ware makes big crops. The soil is kept open to admit the air, and culti-
vation, especially after each rain, makes the best mulch and conserves
the water in the soil. The mild winters enable hardy legumes, such as
the clovers, and especially crimson clover, to grow during the greater
part of the time. This clover not only takes up the plant food as it
becomes available during the fall, winter and spring, but it gathers the
inert nitrogen from the air and makes it worth from 15 to 20 cents per
pound. The air is largely nitrogen and the clover plant takes a little of
this nitrogen—enough to be worth $15, $20 or $25 per acre—during the
fall and winter and converts it into plant food. The clover made into
hay and fed to cattle returns this nitrogen and also the mineral elements
of plant food to the soil, and this process adds constantly to the soil
fertility and insures perpetual maximum crops.

THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

ITH such a soil and such a climate it is no wonder that fruit
growing is immensely profitable, and here the apple is the king of

fruits. Fully half of the land in the State, or 640,000 acres, is admirably
adapted to growing apples, and much of the other half can be devoted to
the same purpose with the certainty of success. The apple has been
grown in Delaware since the State was settled ard fine native varieties
thrive everywhere. For several years early apples have been a prominent

Seventeen

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De aware the iamond State

feature of our fruit growing, as the conditions are especially favorable for
their profitable production. These early varieties mature after the winter
apples are out of the market, and just at the end of the strawberry rush
they bring a good price. They are shipped in refrigerator cars to all of the
eastern part of the United States and into Canada, and in all this territory
at this season they very nearly monopolize the apple market. It will be
a long time before the demand for these early apples is fully met, and
although the production is increasing in quantity, the quality is improving
and the demand is more than keeping pace with the supply, so that every
succeeding year prices are higher than they were the year before. On our
level, easily tilled lands, orchards are started with comparatively little
expense. The land requires no special preparation. It is marked off at
the proper distances to set the trees, which is done with little labor, and
the trees themselves can be bought at from $60 to $150 per thousand.
With proper culture these trees grow very rapidly and begin to bear when
five or six years of age. We have a large number of varieties, both
early and late, that are admirably adapted to Delaware; prolific bearers,
fruit of the finest quality and handsome appearance, and commanding
the very highest price in the market; and the crop can be counted on as
regularly and certainly as corn and wheat. Delaware has the market for
early apples almost to itself, because farther South these early varieties
do not thrive, while in Delaware they succeed to a degree that leaves
nothing to desire. The late varieties also grow to perfection, and of these
we have many kinds of large size, beautiful in color, of the best quality,
that will keep all through the winter, so that they can be held for the
highest prices of the year. Apple growing is increasing in importance.
In 1890 there were 340,648 apple trees of bearing age in the State; in
1900 this number had become 567,618, an increase of 66 per cent., and
it is certain that we now have a much larger number of bearing trees.
A well-managed orchard will give a clear income above all expenses of
from $100 to $1,000 per acre. Not many bearing apple orchards are for

Nineteen

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Delaware the Diamond State

sale, but good apple land is for sale, and one is able to purchase it all
the way from $10 to $100 per acre, according to location and improve-
ments. It will pay a profit on the cost while the trees are growing, and
in a few years will be the source of a very agreeable income if planted to
this fruit. Why go to the inaccessible mountains of the South and West,
away from railroads, away from the people, and spend a fortune clearing
unkind land of trees, stumps and stones, when clean land, tillable as an
ash heap, may be had for a song, where a railroad runs across it, in the
heart of civilization? The apple is the King of Delaware fruits; cer-
tainly Delaware will be one of the great apple producing States.

Professor C. A. McCue, Horticulturist of the Delaware Experiment
Station, recently wrote as follows: “Delaware has many peculiar advan-
tages that would cause a thoughtful man to select her as a place to grow
apples:

“First—Upon suitable soil and carefully selected location, Delaware
can grow an apple as good as the best in color and second to none in flavor.

“Second—Delaware’s markets are right at her door, and there is no
long railroad haul to get products upon the market.

“Third—With carefully selected varieties we suffer -less from apple
scab than many other apple growing sections.

“Fourth—Easily obtainable water supply for spraying purposes.

“Fifth—Easily tillable land.

“Sixth—Long growing season.

“Seventh—But little damage from frost.”

Under date of July 18, 1910, Frank C. Bancroft, President of the
Peninsula Horticultural Society, wrote from Wyoming, Del.: “Regarding
the Williams Red apple, I am estimating our crop from one hundred and
twenty trees at from twelve to fifteen hundred hampers. The average
price in Wyoming in 1909 was $1.50 per hamper, 7-bushel size. The
present crop is the admiration of all who see it.”’

F. M. Soper, Magnolia, Del., wrote recently: ‘I have been in Dela-

Twenty-one

A six-year old apple tree

Delaware the Diamond State

ware thirty-two years and I have never known a complete failure of the
apple crop. We have 45,000 trees under cultivation and will say that
Delaware produces as fine an apple as can be produced in any section of
this country. We get the flavor and color and quality, and in price we
are second to none. Last year we sold two thousand dollars’ worth of
fruit from seventy-five Zéees, and this year we received from one acre
of Yellow Transparent over twelve hundred dollars.”

Professor C. P. Close, now Horticulturist of the Maryland Experi-
ment Station, was the Horticulturist of the Delaware Station before going
to Maryland, and at the meeting of the Peninsula Horticultural Society in
Dover, January, 1907, said: “Before coming to Delaware I thought that
apples could grow only on clay soils, and when I saw the Delaware sands
I thought they might do for peaches but not for apples. But after a
careful study and observation of what is actually taking place in Delaware,
we must admit that Delaware can produce as good apples as can be grown
in any portion of the country. The greatest surprise of all is to see what
can be done on the light sands of this State. You get the flavor and color
and quality, and in prices you are second to none. Last winter I had
occasion to visit some of the fruit stores in Philadelphia and found the
best grades of Delaware apples were selling for better prices than those
from Oregon or from New York. A friend of mine, who is interested
in apple culture in Colorado, advised me to invest in raw land in that
State at $100 per acre, with water rights to cost another $100. When I
told him that Delaware orchards sometimes yield from $600 to $800 per
acre in a single year, he said: “That is as well as we can do out West.’
Delaware is most favorably situated as to markets, in this respect far
ahead of the West. It seems to me that if I were to go into the apple
business in Delaware I should plant heavily of the early varieties. You
can have apples the year around if the fruit is properly picked, packed
and stored. You can eat apples of your own growing every day in the
year.”

Twenty-three

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Delaware the Diamond State

PEACHES

EACH orchards were common among the early settlers of the State
and have flourished for more than two centuries. The first com-
mercial orchards of budded varieties were planted near Delaware City in
1832. These orchards were so profitable that the industry spread rapidly,
and between 1865 and 1875 all the central part of New Castle County
was almost one continuous peach orchard. In 1875 more than one million
five hundred thousand half-bushel baskets of peaches were shipped from
Middletown, an average of thirty-five carloads per day for the whole sea-
son. Never before in the history of the world had peach growing been
conducted upon such a large scale and with such marvelous success. Fol-
lowing 1875 there was a marked decline in peach growing in New Castle
County, owing to several causes, but the industry gradually extended to
the southern end of the State, and while the crop is now somewhat
uncertain, there is no reason why it should not again be as profitable as
it was twenty-five or fifty years ago. An orchard near Dover of less
than twenty-five acres has yielded $30,000, and appears to be good for
other crops. Another orchard of twelve acres has been quite as profitable.
An orchard near Bridgeville of five hundred trees bore every year for
several years, and in 1904 two hundred of these trees of the Elberta
variety bore eleven hundred baskets of fruit which sold at Bridgeville for
more than $1,000. Under peculiar circumstances, when the crop was a
general failure, a few years ago, the fruit from two hundred trees near
Greenwood sold for more than $3,100. While these are exceptional cases,
many orchards even in recent years have been a very satisfactory source
of large profits.

PEARS

EAR culture is also profitable. There are now about a million pear

trees in the State. They grow rapidly, bear early and are prolific.

The oriental type of pears especially succeeds here as nowhere else. A
number of other tree fruits are also grown with success and profit.

Twenty-five

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Delaware the Diamond State

STRAWBERRIES

MONG small fruits, strawberries take the lead. Sussex County
produces more of this fruit than any other county in the world.
In 1910 there were 21,907,163 quarts of berries shipped over the Delaware
Division of the P., B. & W. Railroad, a very large proportion of which
were grown in Delaware. Bridgeville shipped 425 refrigerator cars and
about seventy-five ventilator cars during the season, bringing to that
station about $300,000. Selbyville is the second largest shipping point
in the world, and there are other stations from which train loads are
made up daily from the time shipments are fairly under way until they
close. Prices at the station often average from 6 to 10 cents per quart.
One grower at Bridgeville received $3,360 from twelve acres in 1902.
In 1904 he cleared $300 per acre on Gandy after paying for picking and
crates. In one day he sold 3,168 quarts at from 14 to 17 cents per quart,
receiving a total of $500 for them, all gathered at one picking from two
acres. Strawberry growing is increasing in extent and the prices are
running higher year by year, showing that, like apples, the demand is
outrunning the supply.

The more labor, fertilizer and care put upon the crop the less the
cost of production per quart, and the better the fruit, and, therefore, the
better the price and the greater the net profit. There are men in the
business who have saved a competence out of it. The best practice is to
plant rather early, ranging from January to March, setting the plants
from 18 inches to 2 feet apart in the row and making the rows from
3 to 4 feet apart. The ground should be prepared the previous season by
a crop of cowpeas, or tomatoes in which crimson clover was sown, or by
some other crop that will leave the ground in good condition. Consid-
erable areas of low lying land are found in different parts of the State,
and these are often cleared of trees or shrubs and planted to strawberries
as the first crop after clearing. Such land is ideal for the Gandy straw-

Twenty-sev en

A grape vineyard near Dover

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Delaware the Diamond State

berry, which is one of the most profitable varieties. Fine, large fruit,
that will carry to market in solid bright condition, always brings good
prices. When the ground is ready for planting the rows are run out and
from 600 pounds to 1,000 pounds per acre of a high grade fertilizer is
applied down the row and worked in and the plants are set. In the
autumn possibly as much more is applied. If the appearance of the plant
indicates the need of it, from 50 to 150 pounds of nitrate of soda per acre
is applied in the spring. The plants are kept well cultivated and are
hoed by hand about six times, the aim being to keep the ground stirred
often and free from weeds. Blackberries and dewberries have been
extensively grown and have been very profitable, and in some localities
the red raspberry was for years the leading commercial crop and one of
the most profitable ever grown in Delaware.

GRAPES

RAPE culture has not been extensively practiced in Delaware except

in a few localities, including the vicinity of Smyrna, Dover and
Felton. For more than twenty years the business has been very profitable
around Smyrna, and within the last ten years vineyards have been planted
and have come into bearing near Dover. Some of these vineyards have
been set by experienced men from the best grape regions of New York,
who pronounce the soil, climate and other conditions superior even to the
best that they have known elsewhere. A large amount of land in Dela-
ware is excellent for grape culture and much of it is very cheap, so that
the industry is sure to extend year by year. There is no danger of an
oversupply of this fruit so long as it is of the fine flavor and appearance
that it attains in Delaware when properly grown. There are many other
fruits that are produced in smaller quantities, and there is no reason why
any expert fruit grower may not select the kind or variety that pleases
him best, make a specialty of its production and make money out of it.

Twenty-nine

A newly set asparagus field

Delaware the Diamond State

VEGETABLES

ELAWARE not only excels in fruit culture, but it produces many
vegetables, such as Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cab-

bage, turnips, and others in extensive commercial quantities. The pota-
toes, cabbage and turnips are shipped to market, but the tomatoes are
mostly canned at factories in the State. The canning business is an
industry in itself. In 1907 the green peas packed amounted to 141,036
cases of two dozen No. 2 cans each; valued when ready to ship at
$275,000. The growers were paid $72,500. Sweet corn, 75,000 cases of
two dozen each; total value, $110,000—of which the growers received
about $30,000. Tomatoes, 1,317,284 cases of two dozen each No. 3 cans;
total value, $2,240,000—of which the growers received $658,600. This
does not include the tomatoes shipped away for immediate consumption,

nor those shipped to Baltimore and other points for canning.

POTATOES

WEET POTATOES have long been a leading commercial vegeta-
ble crop in this State, and many a farm of sandy soil has paid for

itself over and over by this crop. The process of planting, cultivating and
harvesting is all plain and simple and not beyond the skill of any ordinary
farmer. With the proper soil and good cultural methods, the yield is
from 200 to 400 bushels per acre, and one grower near Milford claims
to have averaged a net profit of $100 per acre on from fifteen to twenty
acres per year for the last twenty years. While this is unusual, the
crop as a whole is a paying one. Irish potatoes, or round potatoes as they
are often called, have been planted in increasing area and with increasing
profits during the last few years. A few farmers make a specialty of the
late crop, planting them in July, but a much larger number plant as early
as possible in the spring, apply heavy quantities of fertilizer and get a

Thirty-one

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Delaware the Diamond State

good crop which pays well. No better soil can be found anywhere
for both sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes than the alluvial sandy loam
of Delaware. Fill it with humus by growing cowpeas and crimson clover
and then apply moderate quantities of commercial fertilizers and abundant
crops are certain to follow if the proper tillage is given. A paper read
at a recent meeting of the Peninsula Horticultural Society deals with the
conditions at Bridgeville and vicinity, and says:

“The early potato crop has been a profitable one for several years.
Our condition as to nearness of markets, genial climate and character
of soil are all favorable to this industry. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 35,
United States Department of Agriculture, says: “The ideal soil for this
crop should be one so light as to offer no great resistance to the enlarge-
ment of the tubers, so supplied with organic matter as to be rather moist
without being wet, and so rich as to furnish an unfailing supply of fertil-
izing ingredients. A rich, sandy loam, abundantly supplied with organic
matter and naturally well drained, is preferable. Stiffer soil may be
rendered suitable for the potato by draining and by the incorporation of
farm manures, or better by plowing under green crops. Very heavy clay
should be avoided if the farm contains any lighter soil. Recently cleared
ground suits the potato. Sandy soils, if not too subject to drought, may
be fitted for this plant by the addition of organic matter. It is claimed
that potatoes grown on sandy land are of better quality than those grown
on stiffer soil. The potato requires a good soil, but even more important
than natural fertility is a proper mechanical condition of the soil. Arti-
ficial fertilizers may be substituted in part for natural fertility, but they
are effective only when the soil is in such condition as to furnish a
constant supply of water. The potato should have the best soil on the
farm, since it is more exacting in this respect than the other staple crops
and since the product of an acre is generally of greater value. The
success of the potato is largely dependent upon the crops preceding it in
the rotation. If clover, cowpeas or other leguminous plant is grown just

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Delaware the Diamond State

preceding potatoes, its stubble furnishes organic matter and adds to the
store of available nitrogen in the soil. Corn after sod frequently precedes
potatoes, and this is generally regarded as the best rotation.”

This description of the ideal soil and ideal conditions fits Delaware
exactly, and the potato grows here to perfection. We have just these
conditions; our soil is ideal; we can produce easily and cheaply an
abundant supply of vegetable matter rich in nitrogen and in all the min-
eral elements of plant food by sowing the land in cowpeas, soy beans,
velvet beans, crimson clover, vetch, rape, turnips and other cover crops,
according to the rotation practiced. If potatoes are preceded by tomatoes,
crimson clover (or crimson clover and turnips) can be sown at the last
cultivation of the tomatoes, and when the time comes to plow the ground
in the spring we shall have a nice mat of green clover to put the land
into the right condition so that a heavy application of high grade fer-
tilizer will be extremely profitable, because it will force a rapid growth
and give an enormous crop of tubers of extra quality. The clover will
contain as much nitrogen per acre as can be bought for $20 or $25, and
the roots will bring mineral elements of plant food from the subsoil,
and the succeeding crop, whatever it may be, will be a good one. Such
a field near Dover gave nearly seventy-five bushels of shelled corn per
acre in 1910, after a big crop of potatoes were removed in July of the
same year. The ground is plowed early in spring for the potatoes in
order to conserve the moisture that came in the winter rains.

MARKET GARDENING

Me. gardening on the intensive plan is a good business near

any of the larger Delaware towns, and is especially so near Wil-
mington. In addition to supplying the local markets, there is also oppor-
tunity to grow many kinds of vegetables for shipment to the more
distant cities, especially Philadelphia and other cities in eastern Pennsyl-

Thirty-five

Frurt at the shipping station ’

Delaware the Diamond State

vania and New York. New York City is nearer the southern end of
Delaware than it is to the center of New York State, and Delaware soil
and climate will soon make the Diamond State the kitchen garden of

many of the Eastern cities with their millions of people.

MARKETING FACILITIES IN DELAWARE

OT ONLY is Delaware in the heart of the population of the

United States, in the midst of the great markets, close to the people
who have the means and taste for the most luxurious products of the soil
and most delicious things that grow out of the ground, but the State
is covered with a system of railroads and is penetrated at short intervals
with navigable streams, creeks and rivers, which afford unrivaled trans-
portation facilities for carrying these delicious products over the short
distances between the farms and the mouths that eat the fruits and
vegetables that grow upon these farms. Besides this, a comparatively new
method of marketing farm products, originating in Delaware, places
buyers at the railroad stations where they pay cash for the goods as they
leave the wagon of the farmer. The farmer gathers his strawberries,
apples, peaches, potatoes or other products, hauls them to the nearest
railroad station or wharf and goes home with a good cash price in his
pocket. Or, he may deliver his produce to an agent of his choice who
sends it to the most favorable market. So there are two phases of the
system. In one case commission merchants in all the principal cities
have agents or buyers at the stations to receive goods and pay cash;
in the other—at the same stations—men stand ready to ship the goods
on consignment. The one checks the other and prevents monopoly of
buying, and thus insures fair prices. The plan of having buyers at the
stations has decided advantages. Each buyer can select exactly the kind
and quality of fruit or vegetables that suits his market, and the commission
merchant knows every day in advance just what he is to receive the fol-

Thirty-seven

Ayunory xassne ut svag mor)

Delaware the Diamond State

lowing day, and he prepares to handle it to the best advantage, so it often
happens that the farmer at Cheswold, Dover, Wyoming, Bridgeville,
Selbyville, or other shipping points in Delaware, receives as much per
quart for his berries, or per basket for his peaches, or per barrel for his
potatoes, as the commission merchant pays for goods received on con-

signment when they reach the city.

THE PRODUCE EXCHANGE

HE DELAWARE PRODUCE EXCHANGE, organized in 1910,

did a large business the first season, handling more than thir-
teen hundred carloads of fruits and vegetables, and securing for the
farmers better prices than they were offered at the railroad stations.
The general manager of the Exchange keeps in direct touch by tele-
graph and telephone with the most reliable and competent commission
merchants in the cities where there is an outlet for Delaware prod-
ucts. He knows every day the exact condition of every particular
market and in this way is able to sell carloads on the track, or ship
to markets that are comparatively bare of produce, and hence in a
position to give the highest cash prices.

GENERAL FARMING

i: MUST not be thought that because Delaware is particularly

adapted to fruit growing and market gardening that it is not
equally well adapted to general farming, grain growing, dairying,
cattle raising and other lines of agriculture. Nearly one-half of the
farms are devoted to corn and wheat as the principal money crops,
and such farms pay from six per cent. to twelve per cent. interest
on the investment of the land owner. Many of these farms are
carried on by tenants, and while the owner receives a good income,
the tenant not only lives well, but saves money Dairying is most

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Corn at Bridgeville

Delaware the Diamond State

extensively conducted in the northern part of the State, but by means
of the silo and the soiling system, it is profitable on the sandy lands,
more particularly in connection with some fruit specialty like apple
growing, or strawberry culture. The same may be said also of raising
cattle for beef. Pork production is also extremely profitable because
all kinds of forage plants and grain grow with extreme luxuriance and
yield immense crops. On this point M. G. Kains, associate editor of
the American Agriculturist, says: “Though dairying, sheep, swine
and cattle raising and horse breeding are less practiced than in other
sections, this is only because crops are considered more _ profitable
than stock. There is no reason, however, why these branches of
agriculture should not be undertaken on a larger scale than they are
at present. They would almost all be profitable enough at least to
supply local demands, and in some cases be profitable also for sup-
plying needs outside the State.”

There is no better place in the world for poultry than Dela-
ware. Because of the mild winters, during which such crops as
crimson clover, cabbage, turnips and other hardy plants grow, or
remain green, egg production is one of the most profitable and satis-
factory lines of business. Along the streams water fowl are profit-
able because the breeding stock feed themselves for almost the entire
year and much of the food for the other fowl could be secured from
the water and pastures. Along the shores of the bay there are many
locations as admirable for goose and duck raising as the famous spots
of Long Island.

CORN AND WHEAT

y I ‘HE FARMERS who grow corn and wheat as their principal
money crops, plant fields running from ten acres to one hun-
dred acres each, and with good cultural methods wheat yields from

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Delaware the Diamond State

twenty to thirty bushels per acre, or even forty and forty-five bushels
under exceptionally favorable conditions. In 1910 the area in
wheat was 122,000 acres and the yield seventeen bushels per acre,
a better average yield than was secured in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Missouri, Nebraska and a number of large wheat growing states. The
average area planted to corn is about 200,000 acres, and there has been
a gradual increase in yield for twenty years past. The ten-year
average up to 1895 was about twenty bushels per acre; the ten-year
average from 1895 to 1905 was twenty-six and eight-tenths bushels;
the five-year average from 1905 to 1910 is thirty and four-tenths
bushels. The yield in 1908 was thirty-two bushels. In 1909 a drought
of unusual severity was prevalent over all of New Castle County at
a critical time so that the yield for the state was reduced to thirty-
one bushels. In 1910 a similar condition affected Kent and Sussex
counties, and the yield was thirty-one and eight-tenths bushels. With
the present cultural methods and an average season the yield should be
thirty-four bushels. Through the efforts of the Delaware Corn Grow-
ers’ Association and the State Board of Agriculture, by means of
corn shows where prizes are given, farmers’ institutes and other agen-
cies, a systematie effort is now being made to increase the average
yield to fifty bushels per acre, and this yield is likely to be attained
in a very short time. The prizes for yields in 1910 were given to
Naudain & Son, Marshallton, who had ninety-two bushels of dry
shelled corn per acre; A. S. Whittock, Odessa, who had eighty-eight
bushels, and E. A. Evans, of Cheswold, who had sixty-seven bushels,
based upon corn that was shelled and weighed after it was thoroughly
dried out. Mr. Evans’ corn was an acre taken from a field that had
received only such culture as he usually gives, and the yield was cut
severely by the dry weather. There were many large fields in the
State that would give a higher yield than that secured by Mr. Evans.
but they were not included in the competition.

Forty-three

p loaded to the ground

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W,

Delaware the Diamond State

Crimson clover is one of the most important factors in soil
improvement to secure increased yields of grain at a large profit. As
typical of what may be accomplished, the experience of B. F. B.
Woodall, Milford, may be cited. In January, 1909, Mr. Woodall made
the following statement about his treatment of a piece of land that
was so depleted of plant food by bad management that it would not
produce a paying crop. The soil is a sandy or light loam. “Scarlet
clover has been the all-important material for bringing this soil up to
its improved condition. To get the first crop of clover on syach soil,
plow in July and harrow in thoroughly four hundred pounds per acre
of a mixture of acid phosphate and kainit, then just after the first rain
sow eight quarts of clover per acre and harrow it in. The next spring,
in March, repeat the application of fertilizer and if this crop should
not be a heavy one, turn it under. If a good crop, cut it for hay, turn
the stubble and plant in corn. Seed to clover in August after the
cultivation of the corn is finished. This method of cropping every
year can be continued for an indefinite time as has been done for
twelve years at least, with my own soil, which is now producing fifty
to sixty bushels of shelled corn and two tons of dry hay to the acre
every year. This land will now produce in its high state of fertility
cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes and fruits to the amount of $100 to $200
per acre without additional application of commercial phosphate.
Every time I plow this land I turn up a half-inch of sub-soil so as to
get the soil deeper.

The cost and returns per acre for thirteen years are as follows:

400 pounds of phosphate, $2.80 per year for thirteen years..... $36.40
peed cach year, ml OW pel-year ior thirteen years. 20225. 6.... 13.00
eee OOM SATE OVAS OIE INTO yas Senna seaaee cee fen cals An 8.00

MotdiscOsenner ache tOk iim been vedi crass. 6's ¥ ole 2 Se nse $57.40

Forty-five

A Kieffer pear orchard, Middletown, Delaware

eraser rere reece

Delaware the Diamond State

12 crops of corn, average 40 bushels, 480 bu. at 50c............ $240.00
12 crops-or fodder at $5... 6.2% Sta eo. cee. ee Eee 60.00
12 crops of hay, 18 tons at $12....-.-..-- 22s eee cetera 216.00
otal returns tor thirteen years, per acre. 2... 0.2.5... $516.00
Total profit for thirteen years, per acre................ 458.60
pom sper ache: Per YOdh.. <1. 6 st ee ce as eee ee ee Son2/;

It is seen from this statement that corn growing in Delaware is a
very lucrative business and that it is not difficult to convert the poorest
land into soil of great fertility while making a substantial profit on
the crops produced. What Mr. Woodall has done on a small scale
with great care and exactness has been done in a slightly less degree
on a large scale by many farmers in the State.

WHAT THE CENSUS REVEALS

: j ‘HE FIGURES given in the census of 1910 were based upon the
crops of 1909, and not only were the crops cut short by a severe

drought, but because of unusual frosts the peach crop was a total
failure, and the yield of pears and apples was considerably reduced,
and the year for strawberries was not a favorable one. Yet the census
shows that the total value of farm buildings increased during the
ten years from $10,677,000 in 1900 to $18,117,000 or seventy per cent.
The total value of farm land increased from $23,769,000 in 1900 to $34,-
810,000, a gain of $11,041,000, or forty-six per cent. The average value
per acre of farm land increased from $22 to $34, or fifty-four per cent.
The average value per acre, including buildings, increased from $32 per
acre to $51 per acre, or fifty-nine per cent. There are now, in 1910, a total
of 10,800 farms in the State with an average of ninety-six acres per
farm. The value of the land, buildings and farm implements in 1910
amounted to $56,128,000.

The crops produced in 1910 include the following: Corn, 202,000

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Delaware the Diamond State

acres, 31.8 bushels per acre, 6,424,000 bushels, farm value 52c. per
bushel, amounting to $3,340,000; wheat, 122,000 acres, 17 bushels per
acre, 2,074,000 bushels, farm value 90c. per bushel, amounting to
$1,867,000; oats, 4,000 acres, 33.8 bushels per acre, 135,000 bushels,
farm value 43c. per bushel, $58,000; rye, 1,000 acres, 16 bushels per
acre, 16,000 bushels, farm value, 69c., $11,000; buckwheat, 2,000 acres,
20.5 bushels per acre, 41,000 bushels, farm value 65c. per bushel,
$27,000; potatoes, 10,000 acres, 103 bushels per acre, 1,030,000 bushels,
farm value 60c., $618,000; hay, 77,000 acres, 1.43 tons per acre, 110,000
tons, farm value $14.80 per ton, amounting to $1,628,000.

The fruit crop in 1910 amounted to 20,000,000 quarts of berries,
750,000 bushels of apples, 500,000 bushels of peaches, 631,000 bushels
of pears, 279,000 carriers of cantaloupes and 373 carloads of water-
melons. There were shipped from Bridgeville in 1910, 4,600,000 quarts
of strawberries, 12,000 barrels of potatoes, 18,000 carriers of canta-
loupes, 30,000 bushels of pears, 75,000 bushels of peaches, 25,000
bushels of apples, 40,000 bushels of tomatoes, besides 150,000 bushels
of tomatoes canned by a local cannery.

PURE WATER IN ABUNDANCE

NE of the most important things upon the farm is an abundant

supply of pure water It ministers to the health and happiness
as well as to the wealth of the family. A lack of water causes incon-
venience and loss, while impure water breeds disease and death. Dela-
ware has an abundant and unfailing supply of pure, cool, refreshing
water. Among the hills of the extreme north there are living springs
that never run dry, and in all the level portion of the State it is only
necessary to drive a galvanized iron pipe, bearing a perforated point,
into the soil to a depth of from twenty to sixty feet, attach a good
pump, and then by hand or windmill or engine, pump from the

earth a steady stream of as pure water as human lips need taste; an

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Delaware the Diamond State

abundance for man and beast; for the household and stable; for spray-
ing and, if desired, for irrigation. No doubt some of this water comes
from the hills and mountains north of Delaware, but the rainfall of
forty-six inches per year, well distributed through all the year, is a
large factor in this unlimited supply of health giving water.

THE PRICE OF LAND

EAR some of the most prosperous towns bare land is selling for
much as $150 per acre, while near other towns land just as
desirable can be bought for less than half of that price. The very best
land in the state, two or three miles from a railroad, is often for sale
at from $50 to $100 per acre, including excellent buildings and other
improvements. In other places the price is less than half these
amounts. Of the total acreage of farm land—1,037,000 acres—283,000
acres are classed as unimproved land. Some of this unimproved land is
idle or is growing up in bushes, or is in the hands of shiftless tenants
who will not work it, and such land can be bought at from $5 to $20
per acre and can be converted into the finest farms and most desirable
homes by the expenditure of very little money, and by intelligent,
well-directed labor. It is also possible to buy highly improved farms
with good buildings, comfortable and convenient surroundings, close
to town, possessing all the advantages afforded by schools, churches
and good society, at very reasonable prices and on easy terms. All
classes of home seekers are thus able to find farms and locations to
suit their taste and need. The price of land, however, is increasing in
some places very rapidly, in others slowly, but the increase during
the past ten years has been from an average of $32 per acre to an ave-
rage of $51 per acre, including buildings; or for land alone, from
$22 per acre to $34 per acre. At the present rate of development and
the rapidly increasing interest in land improvement we may confi-

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IUloTy wtp 7 Ayunor) wy

Delaware the Diamond State

dently expect a still greater ratio of increase during the ten years to
come.

SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES

HE educational system of the State is founded upon a system of

free public schools of all grades from the kindergarten to the
high school, with Delaware College standing at the head of the series,
open to all students from the State, giving free tuition. For the public
schools the State appropriates more than $200 per year for each teacher
employed. This appropriation is from funds derived from corporations
and license fees levied upon various kinds of business. Delaware Col-
lege is becoming a strong institution, well equipped in all its branches
and is developing a department of agriculture which will make it the
best training school in the country for the young farmers of Delaware
because it will train them in the exact lines most practical and useful
to them. The public schools are improving year by year and the keen
interest in them displayed by all classes of citizens insures their
continuous and rapid development in the future. There are churches
in all the towns and in the rural districts of every Protestant denom-

ination, and there are Catholic churches in most of the larger towns.

THE PEOPLE

HE people of Delaware are intelligent and hospitable, broad-
minded, liberal, kind-hearted and industrious. About one-sixth
of the population belong to the colored race, and the white people
belong to the purest strain of the Anglo-Saxon race in the United
States. The tides of immigration for many years past have swept
westward and left Delaware untouched, so that the people are descend-
ants of the original European settlers.
Fifty-three

aapmDja(y ut $49/3395 7Ua0arF, f° DUdtT,

Delaware the Diamond State

TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES

HE Delaware Railroad runs through the center of the State and

sends off branches at various points, and when it reaches Sussex
county divides into what may be called two main lines Other rail-
roads cross the State. A trolley line now extends as far south as
Delaware City. On both sides of the State are rivers and navigable
streams. With all these facilities there is scarcely a spot in the State
that is ten miles from a railroad station or a steamboat landing. Tele-
phone and telegraph lines extend everywhere.

FISH, OYSTERS AND GAME

ISH, oysters and game are not only a source of revenue to the

State, but they add in a most delightful way to the charms of liv-

ing and are not to be despised as a means of gaining a livelihood.

Oysters, clams and terrapin are abundant, as also are shad, herring,

weakfish, sea trout and many other kinds of fish. Wild ducks and geese

are shot in all the bays and inlets, and quail, snipe and other birds are
plentiful. Rabbits and squirrels abound.

THE THREE COUNTIES

HERE are but three counties in the state, New Castle in the

north, Kent in the center, and Sussex in the south. The extreme
northern end of the state is somewhat hilly, but all the remainder is
level or gentle rolling, free from stones and all easily tilled. The city
of Wilmington has more than 90,000 people, New Castle about 4,000;
Newark, Middletown and Delaware City about 1,000 or 1,500 each, and
there are other smaller towns in New Castle county. In Kent county,
Dover, the capital of the state, has 4,000 inhabitants ; Smyrna and Mil-
ford each about 3,000; Harrington, Felton, Camden and Clayton from

Fifty-five

Bearing a full load at five years of age

Delaware the Diamond State

1,000 to 2,000. In Sussex county, Georgetown, the county seat, Lewes,
on the seaboard, Bridgeville, Seaford, Laurel and Delmar are all im-
portant towns of from 2,000 to 4,000 people each. These are all great
shipping points for fruits, vegetables, grain and other farm products.
Selbyville, below Georgetown, and near the Maryland line, is the sec-
ond largest shipping point for strawberries, Bridgeville being the
largest in the world. These towns and several smaller ones have
banks, as well as schools, churches, opera houses, public halls, and all
have refined and intelligent society.

THE EXPERIMENT STATION

HE Delaware Experiment Station is one of the best in the country

and the State is so small in territory that every farmer in it may
come in close touch with its every department. If the farmer finds
among his hogs, his horses, his cows or his poultry a disease that he
does not understand, or one that baffles the local veterinarian, he tele-
phones at once to the Station and in a few hours the Station Veterin-
arian is on the ground to diagnose the case and prescribe the remedy.
If the fruit grower wants special assistance in fighting a fungus trou-
ble or an insect, or if he wants information of a special nature about
any of his operations, he calls to the Station for expert advice and
the same day the examination is made and the advice given All the
information at the command of the Station is freely given to all the
farmers at the farmers’ institutes which are held in all parts of the
state every year, so that every farmer who will avail himself of the
knowledge has the opportunity to learn from the best scientific men
and the best practical farmers all that is best and most profitable in
the agriculture of the state.

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Peaches in full bearing

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