Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-05-18
Ia a stqr Correspondent.

By q Staff Correspondent
Apart from its great value as the sumniit
level basin of the Florida Peninsula and Mis-
sissippi Barge Canal, Okefnokee, as a land
investment, presents magnitude of specula-
tive and industrial enterprise wholly unknown
to the people at large and suspected only by
the few, who, as surveying parties, or adven-
turous hunters have lifted the veil of mystery
hung around it by tradition, and penetrated
its fertile interior. For more than one hun
dred years after the settlement Of st. Mary's,
fiourishing town at the mouth Of the deep
river which drains Okefnokee, not sixty miles
distant, it was not known that the waters of
that river descended from plateau, nor that
the seemingly impenetrable border of heavy
timber and tangled underground, more than
one hundred and thirty miles in circuit, at its
head waters, enclosed an ancient great clear
water lake, now dotted over with
islands Thousands of acres in extent Ap-
preached on all sides except the lower east, ia
the vicinity Of the st. Mary'S river through a
low, fiat pine country from two to eight miles
wide, the settler, the hunter, or pioneer pros
pector viewed the thickiy studded under
growth, stretching away interminable in ex-
tent, as a bay gall' or the border of a limit
less mud swamp which he was accustomed
to regard as an irreclaimable reservoir of the
drainage of the surrounding country. Thus
for more than century Okefnokee remained
shrouded In the gloom and mystery of stCGDlp
though enclosing within the niry folds of that
1rbidding exterior princely reward for the
enterprise and industry that shall boldly take
the key nature has deposited on the banks of
the st Mary's at Camp Pinckney, and unlock
it's agricultural and commercial storehouse.
1t can no more properly be called a swamp
than any other body of open water surrounded
and indented with rich forests of accessible
timber. It's elevation of one hundred and
seventeen feet above tide water, only ten miles
distant at Camp Pinckney, sufficiently indicates
the facility and cheapne with which it can
be drained. and affords the proof by actual
survey, as shown inlGeneral Gillmore's report.
that, leaving out entirely the question of the
barge canal, the great area of six hundred
thousand acres of OkefinOkee, including bay,
and other similar areas OF two hundred thou
sand acres on the Florida side. can be perfectly
drained into the two rivers flowing out OF it.
and thus bring into cul ivation in the two
States about eight hundred thousand acres of
the most fertile land in America. The
fertility and agriculture value of
these lands, when properly drained, can
not for moment be questioned. Examinations
by surveying parties in every part Of Okeflno-
kee have repeatedly shown strata of decom-
posed vegetation of the peat order from eight
to ten feet in thickness, and those best in
formed upon the productive value Of such for
nations regard them as practically inexhausti-
BILE. Such a soil in a seml-tropical climate on
the very shores OF the Atlantic and connected
with it by safe. navigabe stream cannot be
easily overestimated. There is no fruit
IL.
because there is none other so formed and at
the same time so climahcallY situated and
available. Nearly all the fruits Of the Florida
peninsula will flourish in it's rich
Soil. protected by the Gulf stream warmth
of the adjacent Atlantic. while it's situation
its railroad, canal and river facilities for trans
portaton, leave it without rival in controlling
the ca ly markets. TIL very home of Indian
corn, peas, potatoes, rice, melons, turnips, sII-
gar cane. pumpkins, collardS, cabbages, onions,
straw berries, blackberries, ETC., it will grow
11x f1nc
beets, ,okra, carrots mustard, artichokeS, asper-
agus, celery lettuce radishes. squashes, ,cucum-
bers, canteloupes-and fully as successfully
any portion of southern Georgia-peanutS, sor-
ghum, broom corn, hops, oats. wheat, barley.
grapes, plums, apples, pears peaches, persim-
mons and many wild fruits, with long and short
staple cotton, and the grasses adapted to the cli
mate Oranges, lemons, bananas and other trop-
ical fruits willno doubt do as well on OkeflnOkee
lands on the Atlantic coast in its vicinity,
where some of them equal the peninsula pro-
ductions; while for sea island, or long staple
cotton, rice, sugar cane and sweet potatoes
they will have no rival.
In addition to these great agricultural ad-
vantages, the draining of Okefinokee will
render accessible vast quantity Of valua-
BILE timber such as pine, hickory, red,
white and live oak, poplar, sweet and
black gum, red and white bay, magnolia, beech,
birch. saSsafras, ironwood, dogwood, cherry,
wahoo, ash and many others for which the
forests of America are now ransacked in order
to supply the factories of the country with fine
grained woods susceptible of high polish Red
bay, the mahogany of the South abounds in
Okefnokee, and the gigantic poplars along its
spring heads are equaled only perhaps by the
monarch white oaks ofits elevated hummocks.
The opening of a canal ten miles, from Camp
PiDckney into the Okef1nokee, will be sufficient
to bring this great body of fertile lands, with
its burden of valuable forest tmoer, into mar
ket, while the canal itself, with fall of III
feet will afford all the water power necessary
for the present and future OF the entire section.
But if more should be needed it is amply pro-
vided by the St. Mary's river on the south and
east, while the Satilla, stream even larger
than the st Marys, curves down from the
Northwest TO within few miles of Okefiuokee
and elbows so near Camp Pinckney on the st.
Mary's as to raise the question whether the
| barge canal should not pass from the lake
to the Satilla instead of the st. Mary's The
Satilla is a broader and more rapid stream,
with more frequent shoal waters, well adapted
to the purpose of milling, the vast forests of
pine timber through which it flows. These
rivers on the north and east of Okefinokee pro-
vide it with abundant drainage, manufacturing
and commercial facilities connected with the
Atlantic; while, singular enough, the Suwannee
| flows out of it on the west side, forming con-
| tinuous water way between@ the Atlantic and
| Gulf of Mexico across the most northern ex-
| tremity of the Florida peninsula. Okefinokee
| may thus be drained either into the Atlantic or
| the Gulf, or both, simply by dredging the
streams flowing out or by direct cut of ten
| miles into the st. Mary's.
To these facilities may be added three rail-
| ways enclosing Oketinokee in a triangle-the
| Savannah, Florida and Western, connecting
/ savannah Win PenSacOla. Mobile and New
| Orleans passes in the vicinity of the northern
boundary, near Waycross, where also this road
| is crossed by the Brunswick and Albany Road
| The Wsycross an0 Jacksonville Short Line,
/ connecting the Florida with the Georgia system
| of roads at Callahan, passes from north to
south along the whole extent of Okefnokee on
| the east; and the Jacksonville, Pensacola and
| Georgia Railroad, skirting the whole southern
| border of Okehnokee and Bay swamp, passes
| through Florida from east to west, connecting
on the way with the Savannah, Florida and Wes-
| tern at Chattahoochee. II we add the Live Oak
| branch connecting the Savannah, Florida and
| Western at Lawton NO. 12) with Live Oak on
| the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Georgia which
| branch is now being extended to Roland's
| Bluff on the Suwannee and in the direction of
| Tampa on the.Gulf then Okef1nokee is enclosed
| with four railroads, forming something of an
| irregular square about eighty miles in diane
| ter. This square, except the area occupied
| by Okefnokee, is one vast, almost unbroken
| pine forest untouched except by few mills
| and turpentine farms along the Savannah,
| Florida and Western Road, and small begin
! ming in the same line along the Waycross
| ShUrt Line. These interests, how ever, are
| now beginning to attract attention to
| this country of cheap lands and abundant tim
| Der, and as the forests are rapidly giving way
| in other sections where naval stores have been
| the object, we may expect in a very few years
vast increase OF the business in the pine for
| ests OF Southern Georgia and Florida. Supple
| mental TO its fine rivers, its prospective barge
| canal and its Atlantic sea coast the Okefnokee
| country is now crossed in every direction by
railroads, affording every facility for the immi!
| grant and promising in a brief period to be-
come one Of the best paying regions in the
South. L. @. b.
The New York stock Market.
NEW YORK, May 17.-Share speculation
| opened irregular, the only important changes
| being an advance from Yesterdays closing