"Of Choice Fruit" - 1804

SAMUEL BAILEY, 

Offers for Sale, at his Nursery in New Kent county near the cross roads*—Five Thousand 

Grafted Apple Trees, 

Of choice fruit, at 6d per tree. He believes they are not excelled if equaled by any in this state, either In thriftiness or quality, having at considerable trouble collected the most approved kinds, agreeable to the following list. 

     Winesop.                         Golden Wilding,
     Bellflower,                      Rawel’s Jenneats,
     Summer Cheese,             Lowry Apple,
     Winter Cheese,                Summer Pearmain,
     Clopton’s Hangfast,        Winter do.
     May Apple,                     Freeman’s do.
     June do.                           Cannon do.
     July do.                            Ligbtfoot’s do.
     Sheep's Nose,                  Longstem,
     Harvest Apple,                Long Crab,
     Sweet Russett.                 Red do.
     Sept. 29th, 1804.             Flat do. 

Having seen many orchards set out by Mr, Samuel Bailey, and particularly two set for us, we believe him to be bettor acquainted with that business than any other person that we know.
  Wm. Chamberlayne—     Thos. Frayser.
Sept. 29th, 1804.

Mr. Bailey has set out an orchard for me, which I think is done in a superior manner to any I ever saw.   w4t    Ro. Christian.

- Virginia Argus, 6 October 1804

* 'The cross roads" typically refers the cross road at Rt. 249/Airport Rd./Tunstall Rd
NB: 6d is 6 cents



For more information on some of the apples mentioned I suggest Old Southern Apples: A Comprehensive History and Description of Varieties ... -Creighton Lee Calhoun

Another Bird Story

EGGS SCARCE.

A New Kent Lady's Plan to Increase Energy of Lagging Hens.  

(Special to The Times-Dispatch.) 

ROXBURY, VA., Jan. 14.-There are not quite so many happy homes in New Kent as usual. The cause of all the trouble is nothing more than  that the hens been three months one general strike. Eggs at thirty cents wholesale.  No not more than three or four eggs per day out of a large flock is more than the housewife can stand. The verdict of death will be read to whole flocks of fowls in the near future unless they do
better.  

One lady near this place hit on a happy plan. Her fowls were well fed and sheltered but would not lay. She had a load of manure hauled. No sooner had the wagon been unloaded than the Whole bank of manure was covered with the fowls. The lady went out some time later, to her surprise she found thirty-two eggs laying nil around where the hens had been feeding. The lady was delighted, and the news soon spread all over the neighborhood. Then the husbands had to come out from their warm roosts, hitch up and go after manure.

 -Times Dispatch, 15 January 1904

Title Says it All

Big  Melon- We saw yesterday at the Old Market a mammoth cantaloupe, raised by Mr. George Fisher, of New Kent. It weighed 23 pounds, and was sold for $1.

-The Daily Dispatch(Richmond), August 16, 1871

Farmers for Victory

                        We Farm for America 

New Kent's Answer to the Nation's Need 

OUR LAND A TRUST: We will treat our land as a heritage from the past which we hold in trust for future generations of Americans. The soil has taken thousands of years to build and we will hand it on richer and more productive than we received it. 

FEED THE NATION: We are called on to feed the nation now in time of war and maybe a starving world when the war is won. In a spirit of unselfish patriotism we will play our fullest part in the nation's war effort in her task of remaking the world.  

DEFEND THE NATION FROM THE FOE WITHIN: We can defend America from the foe within, while the men at the front defend her from the foe without. America has no more deadly enemy than those forces which work to break down her moral character, to destroy her faith in God and divide her by setting class against class and race against race. When the farmers stand firm, America will be proof against all "isms".  

SOUND HOMES FOR SOUND FARMS: We will make our home life a pattern for the nation. The home is the heart of the nation. A country is as strong, healthy and united as its home life. A sound home makes a sound farm, a home where everybody in the family plays his part.  

GOOD NEIGHBORING: We will pursue a good neighbor policy. Neighboring was once the secret of our democracy. Now is the time to bring that spirit back. We need each other today. "Each man for himself" will get us and America nowhere. Neighboring means sharing our tools and our time, knowing our neighbors' needs and doing our best to meet them.  

END PRIVATE WARS: We will end all private wars. Honest apology starts teamwork. National unity begins when you and the fellow you don't get along with straighten things out. Unity between the nations will only come through the same spirit.  

END WASTE: We will end waste in the kitchen, the cash-box, the machinery shed, the barns, the fields, the orchards and the forests.  

OUT TO GIVE—NOT TO GET: Whatever we do we will always think first of what we can give to the nation rather than what we can get from it. 

GUARDIANS OF NATIONAL CHARACTER: We, farmers of America, are guardians of the nation's character as well as of her soil. "In God we trust" was a reality to her founders — not just a catch phrase. With our dependence on Divine Providence we can make that faith live again as the secret of America's strength and greatness. 

Presented by C. Linwood Fisher for a                CLINTON L. WILLIAMS  
group of citizens and approved by              Chairman, Board of Supervisors
the  Board of Supervisors of New Kent              E. E. HARRISON
County,of April, 1943.                               County Clerk  

This is the text of a resolution recently adopted by the Board of Supervisors of New Kent County. If you subscribe to this creed, it is suggested that you cut this from your paper and hang it up in your home or office.

-The Virginia Farm Bureau News, 1 August 1943

"High-Priced Labor and Low-Priced Potatoes"

A WAIL FROM NEW KENT

High-Priced Labor and Low-Priced Potatoes Bring Trouble- Government Asked to Regulate.

There comes a cry from New Kent County. Some of the farmers down that way who sell all of their produce on the Richmond market seem to be in hard lines. Charles E. Palmatier, a truck, and general farmer, living in that county sixteen miles from Richmond was in the city the other day, and. speaking for himself and neighbors to a Times-Dispatch man:

"We New Kent farmers have been trying to answer the call to duty by making bigger crops than ever before. We did make good crops of potatoes and truck, such as salad, etc., and to do so we had to pay higher prices for labor than ever before. Because of the scarcity and high price of labor we cannot raise potatoes for less than $1 per bushel, and this week I could not get over 60 cents per bushel for them on Cary Street. It was at similar sacrifice figures I had to sell salads and other truck. At such ruinous figures we will just have to quit farming in New Kent this year- will, anyhow"

"If the government demands of us to stay on the farm and make bigger crops it should come to our relief, and not let do business at such a loss. The government has fixed prices on wheat and corn and some other products as well as upon many articles of commerce. Why not go the whole thing and fix prices on all of the extra stuff it demands that the farmers shall grow in abundance? Why should it leave off so important an item as potatoes? Seems to me it might guarantee us as much as $1.25 per bushel. That would give us a little profit, and we would be satisfied."

Mr. Palmatier also expressed the opinion that such back-lot gardening in the city has much hurt the truckers very much.

-Richmond Times-Dispatch, 08 April 1918

Farming Starts Again at White House- 1865

W.H.F. Lee from the Library of Congress

 The Richmond Republic speaking of the White House Plantation in New Kent county, Va, says "Here Gen. Washington married the Custis, whose family it was even  in those days, the ancient homestead. It descended to her son, the late George Washington Park Custis, by whom it was bequeathed to the children of Gen. R.E. Lee. The dwelling house, from which the plantation derived its name, was used by the Federal army as a depot in 1862,and was burnt by Gen. Stoneman during MeClellain's retreat from the the line of the Chickahominy. From that time to the conclusion of the war it was uncultivated, being at all times occupied by the troops of one or the other of the hostile armies. After the surrender of Gen. Lee, his son, William H. F. Lee, without loss of time, repaired to the White House, determined, notwithstanding the lateness of the season, to attempt to make a crop of corn. Armistead and William Christian, two young men formerly of his command, and Andrew Shackelford, of the late Confederate artillery, attended him.

A German and an Irishman and two freedmen were subsequently added to their force. They began plowing on the 29th of April, and have made a splendid crop of corn, which is estimated at fifteen hundred bushels."

-Alexandria Gazette- 23 August 1865




Both Armistead and William Christian show up on the roster of the New Kent Cavalry of the 3rd Regiment of Virginia Cavalry. As for Andrew Shackelford we have a more extensive biographical report. From  Hardesty's Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia of 1884 . . .

Andrew J. Shackelford - was born in King and Queen county, Virginia, March 6, 1844, and his parents, Richard and Mary F. (Stubbs) Shackelford made their home in New Kent county while he was very young. He grew to manhood in this county, and was one of its volunteers for the defense of Virginia in the civil war. He enlisted in 1862, in the Pamunkey Artillery, Custis Lee's division, and served until taken prisoner in April, 1865, at Sailors Creek, Prince Edward county, Virginia, receiving parole at Point Lookout June 22, 1865. In New Kent county, March 19, 1868, Frances W. Mason became his wife. Her birth was in Caroline county, Virginia, December 17, 1841 the date, and Joseph R. and Mary (Atkinson) Mason her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Shackelford are the parents of seven children, born to them on the following dates: Emma V., January 27, 1869; Edward A., September 27, 1870; Joseph B., September 2, 1872; Julia F., December 7, 1873; Lewis J., May 26, 1875; Fannie S., June 17, 1876; Mary Lee, March 13, 1878. The subject of this sketch is one of the prosperous farming residents of St. Peters district with post office address at White House, New Kent county, Virginia.

Exploding Hens

                                   Eggs Got In Deadly Work
Many Hens Killed by Violent Explosions of Their Frozen Product 

Richmond. Va., Feb. 21.- A most remarkable hen story, vouched for by veracious and respectable people, comes from New Kent county. W. P. Tunstall, who conducts a large hennery, yesterday found several of his fowls dead, with their bodies badly mutilated. While investigating the cause, he heard a muffled explosion, and saw a hen fall from her nest, torn and bleeding. 

 Looking into the matter further, he ascertained that the explosion was due to the fowls sitting on frozen eggs, which when they became warm, exploded, with deadly effect. 

According to Mr. Tunstall, the bodies of the dead fowls had pieces of eggshell all through them.

-Washington Post, 1904