King Tomato

Every night last week, special freight trains pulled out of Tifton, Ga., and sped north over the Southern and Atlantic Coast Line roads. The lo-to-yo-car trains, as well as dozens of chartered airliners, all carried the same load: tomato seed plants. Before the short shipping season ends, South Georgia farmers will ship a billion tender young tomato plants for planting in northern fields, along with hundreds of millions of onion, cabbage, broccoli, sweet potato, pepper and lettuce seedlings.

For this business, now worth some $10,000,000 a year, south Georgia farmers can thank Paul Bearing Fulwood Sr., 56. When he was 16, Tifton-born Paul Fulwood ran away from home rather than become a machinist, as his father wanted. He went to Florida and worked on a tomato farm, where he got the idea for the seedling business. At 17, he returned to Tifton, started to raise plants. First year's yield: 35 Ibs. of cabbage seed, some 350 bu. of potatoes.

Fulwood soon tapped a bigger market. Canning companies, like Campbell Soup, Stokely-Van Camp, were then raising their own plants under glass in cold frames. They found that Fulwood's field-grown seedlings were hardier, could be harvested earlier and cost less ($2.50 to $3 per thousand v. $8 to $10 for cold frame plants). A tremendous market for seedlings developed (Campbell's alone buys 80,000,000 tomato plants a year) ano seedling growing sprouted into the biggest industry in Tift County. Where cotton had once been king, the new ruler was the tomato. Paul Fulwood's business grew, with the help of General Manager Paul Jr., who studied plant pathology at the University of Georgia. This year the Ful-woods planted some 1,800 acres.

The biggest part of their business is tomato plants, which bring in the most money, but involve the most risk. A cold wave during the six-week period, when tomato plants must be shipped, can ruin an entire crop. Three successive bad seasons in the early '203 almost bankrupted Fulwood. But one good season gave him enough profit to take his whole family to Europe for the summer. This year the Fulwoods are assured of their biggest season ever, expect to make their crop. For the uncertainty of his high-risk business, Fulwood has a nerve sedative. Said he, "I just go fishing."

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