Morning journal and courier., 1885-06-24
IN THE SOUTH.
Reconstructing The Earth-Work of The Okeechobee Land Company Great Drainage Operations-Much Fertile Land Made Available.

| Fertile Land Made Available.
 KIssIMMEE CTTY, Fla, June 8. | To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 There is something appalling in the uncon- | cerned way which men have nowadays of re- ! modelling the earth to suit themselves ito \ say nothing about the minor creations of the ! Almighty. We have got accustomed to the | artificial organs of the human body, from q 1 glass eye up or down to mechanical liver. We are used to the chemists saying that cer- | tain manufactured articles intended as sub stitutes for sugar, butter, coffee, etc., are | equal if not superior to the natural unadul- ! terated product in health preserving quail | ties. But when it comes to tampering with | the very globe itself, some of us ordinary | mortals stand aghast at the presumption of man. The Red Sea has mingled it's waters t with those of the Mediterranean Men are ! painfully laboring now to detach South America from our own continent. Captain I Eads chained and tanned the mighty tide of | the father of waters. Men have talked of ! ship canals across the plain of Esdraelon to ! the Jordan valley, if not across to the valley | of the Euphrates, and it has even been pro- posed to plant vast inland ocean in the | heart of the dark continent. Verify, the ! creator himself must look on with peculiar ! emotions as he sees us human puppets thus disgusting his marvellous handiwork.
 But here in southern Florida have stum-
 bled upon scarcely less audacious enter prise. have been looking out for days over ! land now high and dry, over which from one | to three years ago the same steamboat that n h<,ra RO- 1-.w1 4,lI { moss hung expresses standing in lonely iso- | lation way back from the river, and been I told that "a year ago last February we tied \ up for the night at that tree." This is a | metamorphosis which has impressed me more \ profoundly than any of the others enumerat- | time being had been transported to another ' planet, where new forms saluted my eye, and alien experiences swayed my soul.
 \ Not to philosophize any longer may say | that three of us arranged for trip down the ! Kissimmee valley into the Okeec chobee ' country. We secured little end-wheel steam \ CT 'Rosalie," one of a fleet of five or six ! small craft that ply these inland waters in I obedience to passenger or freight demand I l may say the passenger demand has not ! amounted to much yet, for the facilities ! are exceedingly limited and the dredges can ! only be passed once a day. But I venture to predict that five years hence will find this \ ! the State. It is so unique in all it's attrac- ! tions,-so different from any of the towns \ yet provided tor in the peninsula. I am glad \ that my trip has taken place before the track f less wilds of the hitherto unknown region { have grown familiar with the crack of the | sportsmans rife and the deep hoarse whistle ! of the steamboat.
 The trip only possessed added attractions ! to our little party of two gentlemen and one \ lady, because of the small experience in \ 'roughing it" which it would involve. The I boat was one used in conveying supplies to | the dredges of the Okeechobee Land com pany, and consequently had no cabins. There \ was room below where six or eight persons ! could eat comfortably, but the deck above \ was quite open. We started from this enter f prising town and first made the trip across | Lake Tohopekaliga with but one stop,-a dis ! tance of fifteen miles. The stop was made \ at Pine Island, the handsome reclaimed I property of Captain Rose. Captain Rose was | the pioneer in most of the arduous labors connected with the inception of the vast drainage operations of the Okeechobee com
 pany. He built the first dredge that was ! used hereabouts, cutting the raw material from the woods, and driving many mai
 himself rather than trust to his unskille6 \ help. He waded hip-deep through. the
 swamps for months laying out the various ! canals, and has grown as brown as nut
 I under the influence of this semi-tropical sun
 He now enjoys the reward of being sovereign l in an island of 57O acres, where he proposes | to erect house for himself at no distant | day. We inspected the island, and found \ strawberries, sugar cane, and various kinds \ of vegetables growing rankly on the cleared ! portions. ! As we headed toward the foot of the lake | and pushed off again, the captain pointed to | the east and said: Wonder is the mouth of ! the canal which leads into Lake East Toho- ! pekaliga, sheet of water extending over an area of twentyone square miles, and only | drained prior to the building of the canal, by seepage through intervening sawgrass. The canal is little over three miles long, and has 8 fall of over six feet. When the canal was completed the current was 50 furi- ously rapid that dam had to be built. The ! lake was lowered nearly seven feet. am ! now tearing away the dam, as the current has spent itself, in order that a steamer may | ply daily between Kissimmee City and Mar
 coosee the thriving English colony on Lake
 East Tohopekaliga."
 I shall not worry the reader with statistics, l but find it impossible to proceed without giv- ing the briefest possible resume of the work
 already done in the way of draining and re- I deeming the terra incognita between this city ! and Cape Sable. The company was charter \ ed in 1884, and has concession for reclaim ing 8 ,00O, ,O00 acres of land in the southern
 half of the peninsula, with the right and title to half of the land thus reclaimed. The \ surveys were made in 1882 in the country | west of Lake Hichpochee, with reference to ! drainage canal exrending from Lake Okee- ! chobee to the headwaters of the Caloosa- ! hatchie river, extending through Lake Hich- ! pochee and Lake Flirt. A dredge came up the Caloosahatchie to Lake Flirt and then cut it's way through an immense growth of saw grass, on to Lake Okeechobee, excavat- ing tWenty-two miles of canal that is six feet deep by forty-four feet wide. This canal is ' I. ,lo,, %,& h171,6 foof on1 l deepened to ten feet. The canal has already ! lowered Okeechobee over three feet. Con- | sidering that the superficial area of the lake ! is something like thousand square miles, this reduction in water level is significant one.
 I Between Lake Okeechobee and this young city on the South Florida railroad ! from which I now write a series of navigable lakes, rivers and canals es- ! tablish communication with Lake Okee- ! chobee, so that boats may now 20 from here through to Punta Rassa on the gulf coast at the ! mouth of the beautiful Caloosahatchie. ] 1 will now cease following the operations of | the company ehronologically, and trace \ them incidentally as I narrate the incidents connected with our trip.
 I After charming ride of nearly three I hours over Lake Tohopekaliga, we entered \ the jetties that have been built from the ' mouth or the CtSual dC Oouth 1olo Oub 4AGe the lake, South Port is simply the name ap- ! piled to the place where sugar farm be- I longing to the Okeechobee company is To- cated. There are half dozen houses occu- pied by the operatives, and some of l the families of men engaged in working on idredges few miles down the ssvalley'-but no postoffice. We went ashore here and had 1 a chance to see what this redeemed land is ] capable of doing. Here we were, tripping ! along the bank on ground which was cover | ed with from two to three feet of water but | two years ago. Was this Florida? There ! was no sand visible. The ground appeared I instead to be rich black loam. I approach ! ed the banks of the canal, and saw from the | cut that this was not thin crust of surface l muck, but a stratum at least eight feet 1 thick on the average. There was small 1 sugar mill in operation and 8 shed near by l whore the cane juice was being boiled down | into syrup instead of being made into sugar, | as the present state of the market favors l the manufacture of syrup rather than sugar. l Near by were patches of cane from twelve to ] fifteen feet in height, of perfect stand and an average diameter of very nearly two inches. ! Evidently this cane should have been cut ! weeks before, as it was already badly choked with an undergrowth of rattoons. l noticed | that the cane was finely tasselled-l1ke the \ cane grown in Cuba. This scores point E Ii. L. r o:a sT1T