Morning journal and courier., 1886-03-02
AN ALLIGATOR HUNT

Plantations Away From the RaiI-
 roads-R1ch People Who Are Poor
 Arcadian Slmplieity-An Infusion of
 Northern Energy.
 SILVER SPRINGS PARK Florida, Feb. 27.-
 While we were sitting around discussing our
 famous hunt of the date described in our
 last to the COURIER readers, young man
 hove in sight and quickly dashed in upon
 the scene exclaiming in breathless state:
 Say, Will, let's you and I and Dan go down and
 take up gator that's down by the hammock
 fences"
 "Oh, we are all tired let him trail; how big is
 it?H said Will.
 Well reckon it's bout six foot!'
 Well reckon we had better take 1t up, said Will
 So we started. Two or three took a rope
 each and threw them over their shoulder. We had no lanterns, but the moon being nearly half full and the soil whitish sand it was fairly clear, but not bright. The young man led the way, and we, not having a rope or knowing what to do with it if we had followed along with some ap- prehension of danger. Still we wished to see that gator taken up. On reaching | the hammock fence we found him there sure | enough. Dave took fence rail and poked | him with it, at which the gator took hold ot | it with crash. His attention was now ! drawn to another rail on the other side, when he let go the first to take hold of the second This was raised up out of his reach, as was also the first. The gator lay there | between the rails with his great mouth open
 on the fence, dropped the moose upper jaw and ran, drawing the rope tight Then the gator became quite lively and rolled along and threw itself tail first for sev- eral hundred feet until it got tired out in trying to strike it's captor with is tail. They then tried to drag it along, but it was too cunning for that, as it stuck it's under jaw into the earth, forming an anchor. He was then pried over to the fence, when his upper jaw was held up until moose was slipped over his under jaw, and then he was snaked along without much ap- parent effort by the willing hands at the ropes. We were somewhat anxious to see how they would utilize the brute, but said nothing. On being dragged to the barn. yard he was measured and found to be al most eight feet long, and was soon dispatch ed and left for the night, but soon to go where all extra rabbits and other good ami mals go, at the root of some favorite tree for fertilizing purposes.
 Around our house are planted oranges, ! lemons, guavas, pineapples, pears, bananas, \ figs mulberries, persimmons, peaches, ,plums, I strawberries, sugar apples and grapes. This section of country is settled about the same as the other sections we have visited away from the line of travel. The houses consist of two or three rooms, sometimes only one room. All are one story high. Many are without windows, but with shut l ter to open by day and close by night, with often log for steps to get out and in, as the house is set on posts. They have no chim- neys, but an iron pot is suspended some sev- enty-ive or one hundred feet from the house where all the cooking is done and where the wood is chopped only as wanted to keep up the fire when needed. Around one of these huts may be found a small grove of orange trees, the proceeds of which, with the vegetables raised, make a living for the family, if it can be called living. They do not raise any more than they need, as the expense of getting the stock to the market would be all it is worth. We have talked with man who shipped lot of early vege- tables last season and in place of a profit he had bill of $31 come back to him for ex- penses above the proceeds. We learn that the watermelon crop is paying one if but if they have to be drawn ! three miles to station the expense would \ just about balance the profits.
 The settlers are often miles apart, and if 8 man is met without shirt and his pants ! suspended by piece of alligator skin around \ his waist that is no sign that he is not a rich ' man, as he may have several claims of one \ hundred and sixty acres each which he may | consider at $100 or more per acre. We have \ met such 8 man, and while he considers I himself worth over $390, 900 he is actually starving to death He has not money enough tc buy soap to wash his face, lives on what he money, but with great possessions, which are more to him than comforts or even the necessaries of life.
 Nature seems to have done much for this State, but men, so far, very little. But northern and western men are coming here
 and buying farms of ten or twenty acres and
 working them right up for all they can raise.
 here six years ago and planted
 only two acres in wild orange
 stumps which he took from the woods. He
 budded them the following summer. When the buds were three years old he shipped fifty boxes of oranges and the following sea following season two hundred and ship five hundred boxes this win ter, which are lying in the grove frozen. His oranges net him $1.50 per box, and during the six years he has raised vegetables to SUD- port his family of eight and enlarged his grove to cover ten acres, for AAs~N SOSAA NSAoS from this he had started two other groves for sale when the trees grow up. This shows what man can do here in six years. But, on the other side, we have net great many who have not been successful. They did not understand the trees and the trees did not understand them. So both failed. But they do not understand why their trees don't
 grow and still waiting and seeking to grow rich. We have talked
 with many who have never seen a ship or a
 steamboat; and with one old lady now seven
 ty-four years old who complains Of her eye
 sight not being as 'tpert as it was afore" and
 we were surprised to learn that she did not
 use glasses or even know what they were.
 She had ''hearn tell on en-" She has lived
 in little cabin for about forty years and
 never used any light but that of the sun.
 She has a little grove of fourteen trees, the
 oranges of which net her four to five hun dred dollars for the first crop.
 Flowers in bloom and everything bursting into life, 86' in the shade, this is truly a Hand of sunshine, birds and flowers but we have never lived in place where trouble and satisfaction were so equally blended. If we had brought gizzard in place of stomach it would have lessened
 our trouble and increased our satisfaction