The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-08-13
A FLORIDA DELICAoY.
1t is the Gopher of the Pine Woods, with
the Shell and Wood Ticks Removed.
from the Florida Times Union.l

Down at the market yesterday a
Times-Union man noticed a number of
gophers. Not the gopher of more
northern ATTITUDES, but the gopher pc
culiar to Florida, kind of half
brother to the tortoise and first cousin
to the turtle-to be more explicit, the
gopher known among scientists as the
"testudo polyphemus," but this name
is not known in trade because. accord
ing to Uncle Steve Melton, the gopher
epicures would not understand the
term were they asked if they'd have a
ten-cent plate of stew of the testudo
polyphemus. Mr.. Melton is authority
for the newspaper mans learning on
gophers.
These gophers you see around the
markets came in from the country"
said Mr.. Melton. Probably two hun
bred of them are sold at from fifteen to
thirty cents in Jacksonville every
week. When a countryman starts to
town likely as not he'll pick up in the
piney woods. as he comes along, one or
two gophers. Gophers are much
sought after by the colored people. In
every one of these little five-cent res
taurants around here You can get a
plate of gopher stew for ten cents, and
they tell me it's fine, but never tasted
any of it.
There is man down here in south
Florida who has started to raise them
for the market His name is DAILY
welle. Dalywelle defies the meat trust.
He is doing all in his power to break 1t
UP. In a very short time he will have
on the market gopher meat said to be
a dainty!rivalling of the diamond-back
terrapin of the mud ffats Of Maryland
The freeze. is what induced Dalywelle
to embark into a new industry that
King Winter cannot hurt. His farm
needs no CIVILIZATIONS; he lets the go
piers do all there is to be done, which
every Florida cracker knows to be
nothing more than digging a tunnel
and marking its entrance with
mound of yellow earth,
This unique farm is situated near
the little town of Wekiva, which is
within a few miles of the city of San
ford and within a stones throw of the
famous Wekiva river, named for the
Indian maiden, whose sad history has
been sung and told time and again in
the wigwams of Seminole braves. But
a good story improves with age, like
old wine, SO here 1t is again.
"Once upon time, as all stories co.
said Mr.. Melton, ''there lived in an
arid section of Florida.,a beautiful Sem,
mole maiden by the rdme Of Wekiva
Wekiva was the sister Of the great
grandfather of the famous William
Bowlegs, sometimes immodestly called
Billy Bowlegs. She was as beautiful
a maiden as ever the sun shone on,
She loved and was beloved. Unfortu-
nately she quarreled with her lover.
The quarrel was about boomers, or the
cut Of her bathing suit, or something of
that kind, but at any rate Wekiva
ceased to please and Jimmy Jumping
Jim-Jams took up with another girl.
This made Wekiva mad, and sad as
well. She thought that Jimmy would
return, but he did not. In fact. he an
nounced his intention to an intimate
friend, there being no newspapers in
those days, and gave the new girl an
alligator tooth engagement ring, set
with catfish eye, which the new girl
Wore in her nose publicly. On the
morning of the night of the nuptiaIs
Wekiva resolved upon a terrible re-
venge. She awoke early and wept.
She wept and she wept and she wept,
and the volume of her tears made a
river and it stole along down to the
wedding tent and swept away the new
girl, Jimmy, and many of his kin peo-
pie. The river is there yet in proof of
the truth Of the story.
But to return to the gophers. AS
has been said, 1t is near this stream
that Mr.. Dalywelle has his gopher
farm. The gopher multiplies rapidly,
and the protector of the new industry
hopes to have fifty thousand of them
on the market within three years. The
gopher needs no attention. He makes
his own living and carries his house on
his back When the house is made
quate for protection he fees to his un-
derground fort and intrenches himself
behind three or four rattlesnakes,
which are the chosen allies of this
queer denizen of the Florida woods,
But Mr.. Dalywelle does not mind rat
tlesnakes in the least. He likes to have
them around, as they yield a revenue
while the gophers are ripening. He
kills few of the snakes every day,
tans their hides and extracts their oil.
The hides are made into pocketbooks
and hand-satchels for the fin de steele
maidens, while the oil is made for the
cure of rheumatism in the joints of a
century ago.
Those who have visited the famous
farm say that Mr.. Dalywelle knows
how to make gopher stew par excel
lence. The only trouble to be encoun-
tered in making the demand for CO.
piers a great one is the fact that so
few people are acquainted with the real
merits of the meat of the animal In
order to educate people up to gopher.
Mr.. Dalywelle proposes to have an ex-
hibit of gophers at the Atlanta exposi-
ton, in connection with which he will
run a kindergarten kitchen. He will
meanwhile send to the President of the
United States and the editors of lead
ing newspapers and cook books a pair
of gophers and recipe for their prep