Around Marble there are 350 acres in strawberries and 100 or more in Alberta peaches, and as I stepped into the clearing I met a native with a good, honest face and carrying a bag of silver in his hands. We soon became acquainted and he told me his name was John Barns and that he was going to the field to pay off his pickers. It being Saturday noon. I found him very straightforward and not inclined to exaggerate. He had bought his farm of 240 acres Christmas, 1901, for $500. His daughter married one W. W. Wright, who took a notion to plant strawberries—just one acre. He set out the plants December, 1905, and though this had been the poorest year in the history of the berry around Marble, the late spring and frosts holding them back fully three weeks, and cutting off the first crop entirely, Mr. Wright had cleared, after paying for his plants, labor, fertilizers and picking, one hundred and twenty-five dollars on that acre. “Now, 1903 was our best year,” said Mr. Barns, and he pulled out a little notebook he had. “Now, that year I planted my first berries, one and one-quarter acres, and they netted me $521.27, to be exact.” [Illustration: “Under the dark of shadowy pines Untouched by axe or plow.”] We were joined, as we walked along, by another native, Mr. W. R. Adkinson, who told me that in 1905 his neighbor, Mr. Elisha Downing, cleared $2,050, net, on seven and one-half acres of berries. They both agreed that this year was not so prosperous, and yet the railroad agent told me they shipped fifteen carloads the Saturday before. They fetched $2.50 to $3.50 per crate f. o. b. track at Castleberry. There were several representatives of rival commission houses on the ground all during the shipping season. Although the section is comparatively new in the berry and fruit business, I found it had spread all up and down the railroad, and from a reliable party I found the area planted to be about 1,800 acres in berries and 1,100 acres in Alberta peaches, extending from Bolling and including Garland, Dunham, Owassa, Evergreen (a beautiful little town and a great health resort), Sparta, Marble, Castleberry, Kirkland, Brewton (another beautiful and thriving town), Flomaton, Century and Canal. An hundred acres will be planted at Evergreen this year in cantaloupes, while many cars of radishes were shipped from Greenville this year. Eighteen hundred acres out of as many hundred thousand, and two or three weeks of strawberries for the millions of people who have been waiting all winter for them! This looks small and shows what may be done in the future. [Illustration: Mr. Adkinson and Mr. Barnes on their way to pay the berry pickers.] [Illustration: Before the berries came.]