Once more, they'll celebrate Arkansas peaches in Clarksville. The annual Johnson County Peach Festival is scheduled for Thursday through Saturday of next week, continuing a tradition that began in the community of Ludwig on June 26, 1938. Several thousand people showed up for that first festival, including Gov. Carl Bailey. The festival was sponsored by the Johnson County Fruit Growers Association.
Peach production in Arkansas isn't what it used to be. The peak year was 1940 when almost 2.3 million bushels were shipped. Late freezes in 1952 and 1953 spelled doom for the state's peach crop. While Arkansas likely will never be what it once was when it comes to peach production, there's some good news. Thanks to the farm-to-table movement, Arkansas consumers have become more appreciative of locally produced fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, young chefs across the state also feature locally produced products on a regular basis. The bad news is that an April freeze decimated the peach crop in parts of the state.
I've attended the Johnson County Peach Festival the past two years. Each time, I made the short drive from the festivities in downtown Clarksville to Peach Pickin' Paradise. Cars were lined up at the entrance of the pick-your-own operation, which the Morgan family began in 1977. The farm has more than 20 varieties of peaches and nectarines on about 3,500 trees.
Five generations of the Morgan family have operated orchards in the area. James Griffin Morgan founded Morgan Farms in 1876 and grew a few peaches for personal use. George Morgan Sr. began a commercial peach operation during the 1920s. When George Morgan Jr. returned to Johnson County following military service in World War II, he planted his own orchards. His son Steve started the pick-your-own business. Steve's son Mark continued the family tradition.
"Grocery store peaches are picked firm so they can travel," Mark told the publication Farm Flavor. "We have the benefit of being able to leave our peaches on the tree until they soften and get their sugar. People can come pick peaches and eat them the same day. It's a completely different product than what you find in a store. People in the industry scratched their heads and wondered how my grandpa would get people to come out and pick all these peaches. But he did it by staying open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, and building relationships with people so they developed many repeat customers. It's also a fun family experience. We're thankful when we see parents and grandparents bringing their kids out. Many grandparents worked picking peaches in the 1950s and 1960s, and they enjoy sharing that with their grandkids. We like to put smiles on faces."
This year's late freeze led to this message on the farm's Facebook page: "Due to the freeze, this season will be very different than other seasons in that we will not have set hours, and you-pick will not always be available. The best method to check what days we are open and if fruit is available is to call."
It was that kind of unpredictability that led to the demise of Arkansas as a place that shipped peaches to other states.
"Elbertas were first planted commercially in Arkansas in the late 19th century," James Jackson writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "As the first trees were planted with grubbing hoes or crowbars, early growers' methods were primitive and inconsistent. Growers soon formed associations to help one another and to share successful practices. They held day-long meetings and invited employees of the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service to make presentations. Eventually full-time, university-trained county agents replaced the ad hoc method of improving the orchards. In 1948, the University of Arkansas opened agricultural branch substations in Johnson and Howard counties."
I wrote in this column Wednesday about the work being done at the Fruit Research Station in Johnson County as it relates to new varieties of blackberries. The station also develops peach varieties. The late James Moore began the UA's fruit-breeding program in 1964. John Clark picked up the mantle from him. Moore and Clark developed varieties of white peaches with names such as White River, White County and White Rock that are suited to Arkansas' climate. With Clark beginning to eye retirement at age 61, Margaret Worthington has joined the university's fruit-breeding team. She's specializing in peach and nectarine breeding efforts. Worthington earned her doctorate from North Carolina State University and then worked for three years at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Cali, Colombia.
The Fruit Research Station isn't far from the Morgan family's orchards.
"By 1901, Johnson County shipped up to 10 boxcar loads of peaches a year," Jackson writes. "The season lasted only two weeks, typically mid-July to the first of August. From 1912-15, growers produced big crops, but the price per bushel remained low. The peak year for the Nashville area in southwest Arkansas was 1950 when 425 orchards collected more than 400,000 bushels. The year 1925 was also productive--250,000 bushels were shipped, and the price hit $2 a bushel. ... The best year for profit may have been 1944, when the federal government set a price ceiling of $4.50 a bushel."
He notes that once Arkansas growers lost the market to places without late frosts, "the only option was to pull up the trees and convert the land for other purposes, often pasture for cattle or to raise chickens."
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 07/14/2018