Nels Hairup
The Montpelier Examiner, November 5, 1909
DRY FARM POTATOES
If someone had declared a few years ago that potatoes could be grown in Idaho without irrigation, he would have been laughed at; in fact most people would have c declared the author of such a statement to be fit subject for an insane asylum.
Last spring Nels Hairup, one of the enterprising farmers of St Charles, concluded that he would try raising a small tract of potatoes without irrigation and planted two and one half acres in what are known as the Blue Button potatoes.
He gave them proper cultivation but the land did not get a drop of moisture aside from what little rain that fell. As a result of his experiment last week he harvested very close to 600 bushels of potatoes, not little warty, measly potatoes but as find spuds as could be grown anywhere in the United States, many of them weighing three pounds and over.
Tuesday Mr. Hairup brought 2700 pounds of these
potatoes to Montpelier and sold them at a slight advance over the regular price.
Mr. Hairup also raises considerable fruit and this year he was awarded the first
premium at the Paris fair for the best display of fruit. He had on
exhibition 12 varieties of apples, besides pears, plums and other fruit.
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The Montpelier Examiner, October 10, 1913
Nels Harrup, the successful rancher and fruit grower of St Charles brought to Montpelier, Tuesday, a large load of fruit, consisting of apples and pears and a few boxes of green tomatoes, which he delivered to the F C Hansen Company.
He also left at the examiner a box of Wolf River apples, which were immense in size, and certainly beauties to behold. Mr. Harrup informed us that this year his orchard produced 250 bushels of apples and 25 bushels of pears, besides a large quantity of pears. His currant and gooseberry crop this year amounted to 2700 gallons.