Nurseries don't dig captive competition.

• Author: Murray, Arthur O.
• Position: TAR HEEL TATTLER

You've heard it from Triad textile and furniture manufacturers. They can't compete with cheap foreign labor, especially in China, where some of it comes from prisoners. Now the complaint is hitting closer to home: Some Guilford County greenhouse operators say they can't compete with the County Prison Farm in Gibsonville, where labor isn't just cheap, it's free.

Medieval England had its War of the Roses. Modern Guilford has its War of the Geraniums. The 800-acre prison farm, part of the county jail, sold 6 1/2-inch geraniums this spring for $2.50--a little more than half the wholesale price charged by private greenhouses. "They would have tomato plants that would be $1 or $1.50," says Margie Brinkley, owner of Katydid Greenhouses in McLeansville. Such plants normally retail for $5, she says. "That's not competitive with Wal-Mart or anybody else."

Larry Smith, president of Minden Hill Farms in Pleasant Garden, didn't like the prison farm's price for 10-inch fern baskets--$5. He sells them for $15 retail and $10 wholesale. "We found their pricing extremely cheap."

Sheriff B.J. Barnes, who has been in charge of the prison farm since 1997, doesn't apologize. The farm generated $80,000 in revenue last year. After expenses, about $22,000 went to the county general fund. The farm is for nonviolent offenders who receive short sentences for crimes such as...