Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-04-27

A Letter from Flerida-The Peoples
Durdens.
CArAwBA GROVE, LAKE CITY, FLA.
aa April 7tb. 1871.
Ediaor Ruaand HeraM:-1n my last
letter to your paper, I gave ~ near ~
possible, with my then, short experience
the soil, climate and productions, OF the
Aovsry State Of the Union. Now then,
With your permission. wish to monopol-
ise little more SPACE in you excellent
peper. giving, for the benefit of those
minds which have been turned Florida
wards, few statistics, showing the aver
age amount Of productions per acre here
also, showing and giving . little idea
how the people are oppressed by taxation
and the causes and their capabilities to
meet the tax.
1st. We win take up the amount Of
productions. Corn, one Of the staple pro.
ducts, yields only 10 bushels, and on OK.
ceedingly good land, Is bushels per acre
It is worth at harvesting, only 30 cents
per bushel, and in the spring, if farmer
is able to hold over that long is worth
from $1.25 to $50 per bushel. Oata
yield 8 to 10 bushels, are worth at all
times, 81 per bushel. Pindars or "pea-
mute" when planted with the corn. gives
10 bushels per acre, can find really sale
at p per bushel. Sweet potatoes, yield
from rs to 100 bushels per acre, and sell
at 80 cents per bushel, in trade at thu
store.
In fact, there IL nothing that farmer
raises that he can get cash for here but
cotton. His other productions he il
obliged to take out in trade at the stores
Cotton is the most laborious crop that il
raised, requiring nine months to harvest
and two hundred and fifty pounds is CON
sidered a large yield per acre and
is worth in market from four to five
shillings per pound in the 'seed-tha'
is before it is ginned and the seed take1
out.
Sugar is raised here to small exten'
and pays better than anything that il
raised, but only small portion of tn
land will produce II, and that is what il
known as bottoms or hummock, which
u.s. very black and rich. When {
person gets, as they call it here, gooi
stand of cane, it will produce about fiv'
barrels of sugar, or one thousand pounds
worth here ten cents per pound /; and ON
barrel of syrup, worth fifty cents PEI
gallon but there is a great deal of ex
psnse attached to cropping the cane.
First, the seed il worth ten dollars pei
thousand, and it takes four thousand seed
to the acre the labor for taking care o
one acre of cane by colored help is abou
thirty dollars boiling and making int
sugar, ten dollars. Gross proceeds pc
acre, one hundred and sixteen dollars
total expense, eighty dollars; net profit
thirty.six dollars.
The above figures show larger prof
per acre than any other production raised
A person in buying land here has got t.
take up with about 400 acres of pint
woodland in order to get forty or fifty
acres of cleared land, and the present
legislature has passed law to the effec'
that all land in the State shall be assessed
and subject to tex at the value of $3.7(
per acre but if land is sold for more thar
IS. 70 per acre, then it shall be taxed al
the value that it was sold at, and many
times farms are sold for about four times
their real value.
This county, az we'll as all others which
our railroad here passes through, are sub
iect to an enormous railroad tax of tw,
and half er cent on the dollar. To illus
trate my own CAGE, last year the taxes OF
this place were $1125; this was on val
uation Of $l07O.50. This year it is as
sessed at the price paid since the last
ass es. ment. which is 100000, making an
increase Of nearly three-fold for state
school, county and sinking fund tax. Add
to this tax Of two and a-half per cent
and we have, instead Of $f1.25. as tn,
year previous, nearly $4,000.
Now, then, from the figures which
have given in the atrve, any one can se'
how much they can make in Florida q
farming, aud what their liabilities are il
the way of taxation. Then take out liv
ing expenses, and amount paid for hired
help, which IL. for colored men, IS to $1(
per month, and a man has not hardly
enough left to pay for keeping his farm
tools in repair. But, 90 the country "6lll
up" if it ever does, and farms are more
equally divided, then more attention will
be paid to improving and euriching the
land. 1850. r..
The question will, perhaps, be asked
what becomes of this great increase o.
taxesp It is thie-when the railroad wal
built here. the people, through fraud il
the election, were bound over to the rail
road BY bonds of one hundred thousand
dollars, for certain number of years
with interest, for which they were to re-
ceive tn at amount in railroad stock. But
again, through freud, they were beaten
out il, and as soon as the people found il
out, which was the first year of the war
they all declared in body that they
would not pay interest or principal, il
they went into litigation; and now II
is decided against them, and they
stand in debt to the railroad over $780,.
600. Nine.tenths of the farmers were all
sold out because they cannot meet the
tax. The railroad is now in the hands
OF cut throats, Who were, all through the
war bitter seces.ionists, aud are the
same now, at heart, but at the cloee of the
war they turned their colors for office.
This county is taxed yearly $1,400 for
schools, and there is not common school