168 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

negroes or add a few acres here or there to his landed posses-
sions, the natural increase of negroes being of itself a mee =
siderable means of acquiring wealth. The course that ae
sued between merchant and planter w <<,
much the same as that between the merchant and all persons of
fair credit, who preferred to give their notes to i thei

debts in cash. Annual arrangements were the satis Th > b ks
discounted good paper to run ninety days; at the nid ie this
they required interest paid and then renewed the pa

= ee They were happy in thus running credits to
P ers tor years and compounding the interest every ninety
ays. Of course they paid out their own notes (promises to

pay), and, as in fact a very lare ;
oe = — : ery large part of these notes never came
mption, they made a prosperous business.

pur-
as based on property, very

of the time
per, and so

ITT.

Why may we not before getting into matters of more conse-
quence refer to the “morus multicaulis craze’? The multicaulis
18 a variety of the white mulberry, and its leaves were, in days

= are gone, presumably are now, especially esteemed as food
or the silkworm. The enthusiasm of its culture did not raise

she hopes nor its collapse produce the dire consequences of the

tulip craze,” the “South Sea Bubble,” and others that have
come down to us through the corridors of time, and in the early
days of 1840 it had nearly run its rather brief course. At that
time the numerous advertisements offering and belauding it had
about ceased to appear, and those who were to realize fortunes
from the manufacture of silk had well-nigh ceased to mourn
ss os departed hopes. Still, the morus multicaulis was to
: — » probably, in some of the lots around town, and it had

ardly disappeared from the upland field connected with the

= farm of Mr. James S. Green, near Kidder’s mill, in which
a Tew acres had been devoted to its cultivation.

_~ of the most important of our industries is truck farming,
— — engage in it of course solely with a view to dispos-
: oe ; elr product in this city, but others raise vegetables and
= — almost exclusively, if not entirely, for early ship-
ser orthern markets. Among the latter are Chinese truck-
as = © raise vegetables hardly considered edible with us, and

P them directly to factors of their own race, doubtless in

 

 

Early Years 169

Philadelphia or New York. But in or about 1840 it was not so.
Very many persons had around their residences sufficient
ground for patches of vegetables, green peas, cucumbers, roast-
ing-ears, and the like, and so many a town lot was really a half-
acre farm. In the nature of things, as the town grew, or rather
as the town had grown, fresh vegetables became a felt want.
When the time and the necessity came into conjunction Mr.
John Barnes appeared on the scene. At the old London corner,
where Solomon now has his store, in market hours Mr. Barnes
could always be found with vegetables in their season, always
the best, too, of their kind. His farm was located quite beyond
the limits, even beyond “Dry Pond,” though it would be reck-
oned in that precinct. It comprised what now is the square
bounded by Queen and Seventh and Wooster and Eighth Streets,
about five acres. On this little plot of bald sand-hill land, by
indefatigable industry and practical skill, Mr. Barnes managed

to support himself and family, not forgetting to give them at

least a good solid English education. Here were raised the first
cabbages ever produced on soil hereabout. In fact, until Mr.
Barnes introduced them it was not supposed that they could be
headed around here. And watermelons—there is no adjective

"available to describe them. They were always to be expected on

the Fourth of July, and Barnes’s watermelons and the Gladvator
or the Wilmington or whatever line boat went on the annual
excursion were part and parcel of the celebration of the day.
At the time of which we write Mr. Martindale raised water-
melons also and furnished buttermilk, and it was a time of de-
light to the average boy on a hot summer day when the old
white-covered cart, drawn by the clay-bank mare, the whole
directed by old Aunt Sally Martindale, would be seen ‘coming
around old Jack Green’s corner townward. Mr. Barnes died of
yellow fever on November 14, 1862, aged sixty. To meet in-
creasing demand, the truck gardening in and around Wilming-
ton was developed, of course. Dr. James F. McKee, having
retired from practice, found at Hilton both pleasure and profit
in this kind of farming. F. B. Agnostini afterwards went into
it on the Little Bridge Road near San Souci Plantation. Mr.
Christopher A. Dudley engaged in it at Summerville, below
Greenfield, and John Gafford a mile or two beyond Jump-and-
Run Branch. And we must not forget old Dr. J. Tognio, who
leased a part of Love Grove Plantation, on Smith’s Creek, a
Frenchman of some attainments, we believe, in a literary way,