A SOUTHERN INDUSTRIALEXPERIMENT

CHAPTER XVIII

A SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENT

A FEW years ago a Florida cowboy, whose rangework extended from the Kissimmee Riverin South Florida to the Gulf of Mexico, and

from the Caloosahatchee River southward indefi-nitely, dreamed dreams as he sat in the saddle byday and lay under the stars at night.

The Florida cowboy is less known to fiction thanhis brother of the plains, but he lived the strenuouslife. He dealt with cattle wild and wicked, thoughsmall, yet he learned to thrust his right arm across theback of one he wished to throw, and seizing it bynose and horn, deftly turn it upside down in the airas it bucked. In place of a lasso he carried a whip,called a cow-dragger, twenty feet long, of braidedbuckskin, dragged upon the ground until it was slick,with a snapper that made a report like a gun and waswell understood by the cattle it controlled.

When cattle were rounded up for branding, cer-tain cowboys, famed for their skill, would call offbrands as calves were thrown, dividing hundreds ofcalves among scores of brands with never a mistake,simply from having seen the calves running withtheir mothers in the herd. The maverick of theWest is the harrydick-from heretic, out of the fold-

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Florida Enchantments

of Florida, and often goes to the small owner, whoseinterest is looked out for, and his calves branded forhim by the big cattlemen.

Our cowboy could see a cow farther through thewoods than any of his fellows, and for this was dis-tinguished among them, but he also saw other things,more distant, and quite beyond their vision. Hesaw great tracts of land, fertile but flooded, nearto the Gulf and above its level, only waiting for thewater to be drained away. Within that indefiniteregion which the imaginative maps of Florida callthe Big Cypress Swamp, he explored islands contain-ing hundreds of acres of rich hammock-lands denselycovered with forests of palm and pine; live and wateroak; bays, red, white and sweet; wild guava, fig,and other choice trees, with vines and flowers growingin tropical profusion. Within the swamp proper,much of which is dry half the year, he found forestsof cypress, with individual trees containing fivethousand feet of lumber, a dozen miles from thecoast where men were paying sixty dollars a thousandfeet for cypress boards. He knew the country as itwas known to the hunter, trapper and Indian, and heknew its resources better than they. He dreamed ofrailroads and canals, fruit farms and vegetablegardens, sawmills and sugar mills.

Three years ago he sought to interest capital, andfound men from the North ready to be inspired byhis enthusiasm and to promote his projects. Hetalked of the fatal frost line that in two generationshad driven the citrus family from South Carolina

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A Southern Industrial Experiment

and Georgia to South Florida, at times causing cropfailures that had raised the price of choice grape fruitto ten dollars a box, and of land to be bought for asong within the Big Cypress, where freedom fromfrost would be found if anywhere in the country.He proposed that three hundred acres of rich ham-mock-land, lying like an island within the swamp,fifteen miles from navigable water, be converted intoa grove of eighteen thousand grape-fruit trees, whichwithin five years should produce an annual crop ofone hundred thousand boxes of fruit. As to thetransportation problem, he suggested that when thecrop was ready railroads could be trusted to find it;or they could themselves cut a canal to the coast atslight expense, building with the excavated rock andsoil a permanent road, giving at all seasons access totheir property by water or land, as well as benefitingby drainage a large tract in which their interestswould be important and increasing. The result wasthat now twelve thousand healthy young grape-fruittrees are growing on two hundred acres of hammockisland.

There have been previous agricultural forayswithin the swamp limits, but this is the most impor-tant invasion, for "Deep Lake" is so far beyond theinhabited border, and so nearly inaccessible, that thecost of carting supplies from the nearest hamlet ismore than double the rate charged by Uncle Samfor carrying second-class mail to Alaska or thePhilippines, and the purchase price of a barrel offlour is forgotten in the cost of its transportation.

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Florida Enchantments

When the managing owner of the plantation visitshis property, his fast yacht carries him from the rail-road terminus at Fort Myers to Everglade in Choko-loskee Bay, whence he is taken in a small launch upAllens River for three miles, poled in a light skiffthrough a crooked creek for two more, and mustthen walk and wade for twelve miles over shakingsod and through water too shallow for a boat, butoften inconveniently deep for a man.

During the dry season supplies are hauled mostof the way by oxen, a yoke of which pulls about fourhundred pounds through a country where a horsewould be troubled to transport himself. These oxenare small, active creatures capable of scrambling likecats out of mudholes in which larger animals wouldbe hopelessly stalled. For the first half-mile the roadis too boggy even for oxen, and negroes strugglethrough knee-deep mud, bearing bags and boxes onshoulders and heads, or wallow to the waist insloughs, with a barrel of flour slung upon a poleresting upon the shoulders of each pair of them.The journey of twelve miles, which consumes eighthours, is over a prairie level as the sea, threaded withstrands of cypress and dotted with picturesque littleislands of palmetto and pine, but so soft that a newpath must be chosen for each trip, to avoid breakingdisastrously through the interlaced roots of grass thatbridge over the underlying bog. Often the rustlinggrass points out the sinuous path of a great blackor chicken snake, or the wayside flower concealsthe coils of the monster of many rattles. The trained

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eye of the hunter can frequently detect the lightprint of a panther's paw or the heavier track of abear beside the road, or trace the outline of a deerstanding motionless against a background of grasswatching him with wondering eyes.

The plantation island, containing three hundredacres of land, elevated enough to escape the accumu-lated water of the rainy season, is one of many to befound in this uncharted country. A cypress swampsurrounds it like the moat of an ancient castle, andthe corduroyed entrance is a floating drawbridge.Vines and shrubs have been cleared from the plan-tation, and enough of the larger growth to let sun-light into the soil. For six feet around each grapefruit tree stumps and roots have been removed, andall bowlders of stone for a depth of several feetblasted and piled up for future use in the buildingof roads. Between the rows of fruit trees, whichhave been set out thirty feet apart, many natives ofthe forest, live and water oak, palmetto and pine,have been left standing, to be taken away as the fruittrees cease to require their shade and the season freeslaborers from more urgent work. In the meantimethey measurably protect the young fruits from thelight frosts that sometimes touch this region.

The plantation house, which is principally piazza,was built upon stilts near the center of the grove,from trees that grew on its side, out of which timberswere hewed, rafters formed, and shingles split bythe axe of the pioneer. Royal palms and ponciannashave been set out around the house, and rows of

257

Florida Enchantments

cocoa palms planted along the drives that are to be.Within the boundaries of the grove are a few low-lying, primeval tangles of tree and vine, called heads,of present interest to moccasins, alligators, and wad-.ing birds, awaiting redemption through drainage,the promise of which secured to the Governor of theState the office which he now holds.

The deep lake from which the plantation takes itsname is about five hundred feet in diameter, with amaximum depth of one hundred and thirty feet, orabout twice that of the average "bottomless lake,"of Florida fiction. It is inhabited by severalvarieties of fish of mysterious antecedents, amongthem tarpon of goodly size. Grave alligators withunwinking eyes rest upon the surface, or swim lazilyabout, so unafraid that I paddled a skiff squarelyupon the back of one before he took the trouble tomove away. Water-turkeys drop into the lake fromtrees on its border and thrust snake-like necks withdarting heads above its surface, ducks paddle amongthe lily-pads, and flocks of white ibises fly across thelake when approached too closely, in resentment ofexcessive curiosity rather than from any apprehensionof danger. Upon the plantation guns are tabooed,and deer gaze nightly through the grove, to its some-time injury, while wild turkeys daily walk unalarmedamong the laborers, paying for protection by devour-ing the worms that threaten the young trees, and, asthe axemen allege, even distinguish the sound of thefall of the water oak from that of trees whose foliageis less rich in edible insects.

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A Southern Industrial Experiment

Occasionally a licensed gun in trusted hands isturned loose upon predatory hawks and owls, andthe cook is allowed discretion in the use of clubs oncrows and buzzards when they enter his tent andsnatch food from his table. The report of firearmsdoes not alarm the wild turkeys, whose confidencehas never been abused, nor the woodpeckers con-stantly nodding their crimson heads in approval ofthe universe, while unapprehensive mocking-birdscarol forth their faith in the humanity of man. Indianhunters bearing the historic Seminole names ofOsceola and Tiger, with a plain Tommy or Charleyprefix for every-day use, sometimes appear at thegrove to ask for the whyome (whiskey), which is nevergiven them, but they respect the request not to shootgame upon the plantation, and their guns are silentwithin the limits of the island.

The purpose of the enterprise is not exclusivelycommercial, and on the lake lot, in contemplationof residential use, a few acres have been devoted tooranges of several varieties-king, Brazilian, pine-apple, and tangerine, Japanese persimmons, peaches,plums, roses, and other fruits and flowers. A gardenfor vegetables is to be enclosed in wire fence thatshall be proof against the deer and wild turkeys,which have hitherto harvested all such crops evenbefore their maturity.

The laborers upon the plantation are negroes, tomany of whom its isolation is its attraction. Theytalk with freedom and without embarrassment of thechain-gang and the lash, and if the sheriff of the

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Florida Enchantments

county chanced to visit the grove it is probable thatwork would be suspended for the day, while theneighboring swamps would acquire a considerablecolored population. When off duty their wakinghours are spent in gambling with each other withcards, and the game continues as far into the nightas the rules of the plantation permit. If whiskeygets into the camp chaos comes with it. The negrowho smuggles it into the swamp and hides there withit can readily sell the liquor for a dollar a drink, untilhe is detected, when he is driven forth with the sig-nificant suggestion that if he is found lurking aroundthe plantation again he will probably be mistakenfor a bear. It is said that this warning has been dis-regarded but once, and that the mistake will not berepeated-by the same offender.

The pioneer work of the Deep Lake Plantation isalmost accomplished, and already its promoters havestruck hands with other capitalists, drawn in bythe fascination of the unexplored, who with them arewading in the swamps with their surveyors and engi-neers, estimating the trees, studying the land andwatercourses by day, and camping on the high spotsby night, calculating, by their campfires, the cost ofmen and machinery to establish the mills they con-template, the capital needed to build and equip rail-roads to civilization, quoting the prices of lumber inthe great centers of trade and figuring out profits andpercentages to themselves.

Within the swamps and on the higher lands thatborder them are strange growths, odd freaks of

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nature, and trees of rare beauty and value. Thecypress-knee, a curious cone-shaped formation, risesabove the water from the root of the tree, of no ap-parent use, yet if it is long submerged the tree dies.Great vines hang from the tallest trees, and so extendand arrange themselves that the trees look like mastsof a full-rigged ship as seen from her deck, whilesmaller vines weave nets which tie up an impatientman as the web of a spider tangles a fly. Birds dropseeds of the wild fig on the leaf stalks of the palmettoor on the bark of cypress, oak, or other tree. Theparasitic tree grows rapidly upward and downward,and many a wide-spreading fig, with its branchestwenty feet from the ground, can be seen surmountedby the broad top of a palmetto at twice that height,the trunk of the former completely enclosing thatof the latter. Occasionally a palmetto with twotrunks is found and, rarely, a hydra-headed freak ofthat family. There are groups of royal palms,slender silver palms forty feet high, with coats ofthorns, growing like bamboos in a jungle, and finespecimens of madeira, closer-grained and as beautifulas mahogany.

To the holiday coast, where the science of spendingis infinitely illustrated, and no outlay is too greatwhich can purchase the picturesque, gratify the tasteor contribute to the pleasure of the birds of passagewho populate it, the interior wastes of the peninsulaare of minor importance, but the prosperity of theGulf side of South Florida depends upon its conquestof the soil and control of the floods that each year take

261

Florida Enchantments

possession of all its territory save a narrow strip alongthe coast. Within this narrow rim of land are fewimportant industries. A canning factory recentlyestablished at Caxambas will distribute throughoutthe world the. product of the vast clam bank thatextends from Cape Romano to Cape Sable, while inthe same vicinity is a pineapple field with an annualoutput far beyond the million mark.

Many planters who have lost successive grovesand homes in the northern portions of the State,through the great freezes of recent years, are nowpushing their way toward the interior, and alreadywithin the borders of the Big Cypress are little grovesof oranges and grape fruit and flourishing fields ofcane. Young grape fruit trees three or four inchesin diameter can be seen bearing clusters of fruitof which single specimens measure eighteen inchesin circumference, and the slender branches must becarefully propped to keep the fruit from the groundand to prevent its tearing the limbs from the tree byits weight. Often the ends of saplings from theparent stem are grafted into the trunk or branches ofthe already grafted tree to give it double support andsustenance. The sugar cane which in other Statesis treated as an annual, is here perennial, living formore than a score of years, even going to seed, andthe waving plumes of a field of blossoming cane arenot to be found in similar luxuriance, if at all, else-where in the United States. The juice of Florida-grown sugar cane is said to be eighteen per cent.richer in sugar than that of Louisiana. To one

262

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familiar with sirup made from the Florida cane,molasses, which is the refuse of sugar making, and thepale glucose products seem alike characterless. Ofthat other product of the cane, brewed in the mysteryof moonlight, it would be a violation of hospitality tospeak.

Nowhere else in America are lands so fertile andso reclaimable, or a climate so benignant, wherefrost and drought are so nearly neglible as in SouthFlorida. The waters that smother it contribute tothe permanent value of its soil, and can be directedinto channels of the utmost usefulness. Drainage isas simple as irrigation is complicated. Yet the latterhas rescued from the desert great tracts in our West-ern country, and is the only hope of yet greater areasnow unproductive.

Of the vastly simpler work of redeeming sevenmillion acres of land in South Florida from the thrallof its penned-up waters little has been done. Aterritory extending over two parallels of latitude andnearly two degrees of longitude cannot be drainedby a few ditches in the northwest corner, and thefeeble work of a quarter of a century ago seems tohave been conducted with a view to draining theState of its assets instead of its waters.

In the valley of the Mississippi, communities livebeneath the level of its waters, the people of Hollanddrain their country into waters far above the topsof their houses-the Floridians have only to givetheir water a chance to run down hill off from theirlands.

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Florida Enchantments

The demand for the work is so universal, its benefitsso obvious and the engineering difficulties so incon-siderable, that the time cannot be far distant whenthe South Floridian will fear the floods that afflicthim to-day no more than the Dutchman dreads theZuyder Zee.

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