Farmers who think they are in a poor business will do well to investigate Norfolk’s recent history.  The “trucking” industry of Norfolk is said to amount in the aggregate to twelve or fourteen million dollars annually, and many fortunes have been made from it.  The pioneer “trucker” of the region was Mr. Richard Cox.  A good many years ago Mr. Cox employed a German boy, a blacksmith by trade, named Henry Kern.  Kern finally branched out for himself.  When, in 1915, he died, his real estate holdings in Norfolk and Portsmouth were valued at two million dollars, all of which had been made from garden truck.  He was but one of a considerable class of wealthy men whose fortunes have sprung from the same source.

Many of the truck farms have access to the water.  The farmers bring their produce to the city in their own boats, giving the port a picturesque note.  At Norfolk it is transferred to steamers which carry it to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, Baltimore and Washington.  Lately a considerable amount of truck has been shipped west by rail, as well.

Hundreds of acres of ground in the vicinity of the city are under glass and large crops of winter vegetables are raised.  Kale and spinach are being grown and harvested throughout the cold months; strawberries, potatoes, beans, peas, cucumbers, cabbage, lettuce and other vegetables follow through the spring and summer, running on into the fall, when the corn crop becomes important.  Corn is raised chiefly by the peanut farmer, whose peanuts grow between his corn-rows.

While the banks are “carrying” the peanut farmers, pending their fall harvest, the activities of the “truckers” are at their height, so that the money loaned to one class of agriculturist is replaced by the deposits of the other class; and by the same token, of course, the peanut farmers are depositing money in the banks when the “truckers” want to borrow.  This situation, one judges, is not found objectionable by Norfolk and Portsmouth bankers, and I have been told that, as a corollary, these banks have never been forced, even in times of dire panic, to issue clearing house certificates, but have always paid cash.

Norfolk has grown so fast and has so rapidly replaced the old with the new, that the visitor must keep his eyes open if he would not miss entirely such lovely souvenirs of an earlier and easier life, as still remain.  Who would imagine, seeing it to-day, that busy Granby Street had ever been a street of fine residences?  Yet a very few years have passed since the old Newton, Tazwell, Dickson and Taylor residences surrendered to advancing commerce and gave place to stores and office buildings—­the two last mentioned having been replaced by the Dickson Building and the Taylor Building, erected less than fifteen years ago.