Strawberry Profits in South Florida
From the Dispatch Farmer and Fruit Grower. June 30, 1889.
Messrs. Chubb & Ward, of Winter Park, Orange county, cent us the following summary of their operations this season: Number of plants 14,000, or a little less than three-fourths of an acre; variety the Florida seedling; plants set out September and October, 1888; commenced picking January 17th; number of quarts sold up to June 1st, 3,644; net returns received $653.60; expect to sell several hundred dollars worth of plants from this patch this fall, which will make a pretty fair showing for three-fourths of an acre of Florida, If the early ones had been shipped North they would have brought more money. Soil, first class pine land. Vines are still in bearing. Picked 300 quarts last week. Three families have had all they wanted to eat besides the above, and have given away a good many quarts.
Mr. E.L. Maxon of this place sold sixty dollars worth of strawberries taken from one twenty-fifth of an acre of plants and had a plenty for his family of three besides.
The late F.B. Knowles had for his Thanksgiving dinner at Worcester, Mass., two sweet potatoes weighing 15 3/4 pounds. They were first crop, not standovers and were from a lot of one thousand bushels raised between the rows in a five acre orange grove, all of which sold at 40 cents per bushel and upwards.
Twenty-seven orange trees here bore as their first crop this year 75 boxes which sold at from $1.65 to 6.00 per box. (Some were Tangerines.)
The writer possesses 33 hens that have laid an average of 27 eggs a day for a long time now and at 25 cents per dozen, the usual price, and feeding them on scraps from the kitchen and garden almost entirely, they are not a bad investment. From the garden spoken of above we are now, March 6th, eating cabbage, lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, eggplant, rutabagas, onions, strawberries.
Mr. H.S. Kedney sold in one season from his pinery of a little over two acres over 7,000 pineapples, none less than 30 cents apiece.
But, you say, you are picking out exceptional cases. Yes, they are exceptional cases, but not necessarily so. We have some land in Florida, as every State has, that a person could hardly “raise a disturbance on,” but any of the above figures can be duplicated or bettered on every acre of the good land in this country, and there is plenty of it vacant and yet for sale cheap to WANT THEM ; we have enough of the speculative kind ; they are no good to any community ; but men that will FARM are needed, and will do WELL.
Winter Park is surrounded by beautiful places and proffitable groves. Were we to begin to name them even, we should exceed our limits. Seeing is believing – come and see. We shall necessarily confine our remarks to a “sample” place, taken from two different localities which are surrounded and connected by places well worthy separate descriptions in this issue. We think, perhaps, the lovely groves of
MR. L.H. LAWRENCE,
on the north side of Winter Park and south of Maitland, are as well worthy a visit as any object of interest in this neighborhood. The plans of his honored father, Hon. Lewis Lawrence, of Utica, N.Y., are being conscientiously carried out by his devoted son, and these two places are showing the care and attention to the fullest extent. The Maitland grove is the older, the trees are gigantic, almost overlapping each other. They bear freely splendid fruit, and this grove can be easily set down as one of our beautiful and at the same time profitable places. On lovely Lake Maitland, nestled around Hudson’s Bay, lies Mr. Lawrence’s beautiful budded grove. Beautiful in location, fertile in soil, fully irrigated, carefully tended, thoroughly furnished with all the conveniences, it is, perhaps, THE “SHOW” grove of this section.
To the south of Winter Park about two miles, bounded on the North, East and South by beautiful lakes Estelle, Rowena and Formosa, on the line of the charming excursion route, the Orlando & Winter Park Railway, lies the beautiful residence place and grove of
F.N. PRICE.
Coming here from Chicago, looking the entire country over with a critical eye, Mr. Price found nothing more pleasing than charming Y’O Almao (a place I love) ; and surely that one should fall in love with such a place is not to be wondered at. Rising from each of the three lakes that almost surround it; on a knoll almost in the center of the thirteen acres is Mr. Price’s comfortable house. From its broad piazzas beautiful lake, grove and forest scenes greet the eye on either hand. In front of the house and on the banks of Rowena is a platform from which Mr. Price can go marketing in Orlando, or his children to school at Winter Park, almost any hour in the day. To the west, and only a short distance, the costly trains to the Plant System go laden with passengers on their way to Tampa and Cuba.
Nearly every variety of the golden fruit known to the connoisseur is found on these grounds. At a short distance from the house, on Lake Estelle, there is a pineary of the one-fourth of an acre, which, while only started last summer, will, in all probability net Mr. Price is an enthusiast on pineapples, and will put out several acres this coming summer on a place he recently purchased on lake Fairview, a short distance of West Y’O Alamo.
With its thirteen acres crossed full of citrus fruits, roses, pineapples, persimmons, plums, beautiful shade and ornamental shrubs and trees, with its perfect irrigation, sightly location and fine boating facilities, the genial Mr. Price and his interesting family may well feel proud of Y’O Alamo.
