The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1897-05-14
FROM RLORIDA'S EVERGLADES.
An Interesting Letter Fran John c. Hart
Who is Growing Bananas and Pine
apples In that Sunny Land.


Hartland, Fla.s May 3, 1897.
Friend Menzies:
Thinking that some OF the readers of
your paper would like TO hear from
this part of the Sunny South, | will
pen few lines and hope you will
please publish the same.
First, | will say that we have had an
exceedingly dry winter and spring.
February and March was very warm,
the thermometer running up as high
as 95 in the shade, every day clear and
bright. April was rather cool.
The winter has been very profitable
for merchants and hotel men along
this east coast. merchant told me
the other day that there had been more
people from the North here this season
than ever before IN any winter. Hotels
did lively business. l was told that
the Royal Poinciana at Lake Worth
averaged seven hundred guests daily.
This hotel opened January lst and
closed April 18th. This is only one out
of hundreds of hotels along the coast.
The Florida Crackers celebrate the
LIST day of May each year the same
as we Northern people do the 4th OF
July, by having boat and bicycle races
and games of all kinds. This county
(Brevardl held its annual celebration
at Cocoa, ten miles up the river from
here. The first boats started about 2
D. m. There were five sloops in the race
and each had to sail six miles to the
flag ship and Ground to" and return,
the distance being twelve miles. A
heavy northwest wind was blowing at
the time and so much canvas was
carried by the boats that two OF them
capsized. The bicycle races were very
good but the best part OF the whole
celebration was the free dinner, which
was Just fine, for if there Is any one
thing | like better than another tits
to sit down to good dinner. Cocoa
| has very fine band and some hne
music was discoursed. The last piece
PLAYED was "Dixie." This Is played
at every gathering and seems to be
! their fayorite.
The orange crop bids fair to be a
paying one this season in this part OF
Florida and the apple crop is very
| heavy. The cold wave we had two
years ago froze the pine apple plants
and this is the first crop since. / notice
by the county papers that more pine
apples will be shipped from here
! this year than ever before in any one
season. o. X. Wood at Cocoa expects
to ship twenty thousand boxes from
his plantation and II. b. Holmes, oar
banker, formerly OF Croswell, Mich,
| from twelve to fifteen thousand. A
box holds bushel. Some might think
that because they are called apples
they grow OH trees, but Is notso, they
grow on a plant not larger than cab
bage with one apple on each plant. In
setting out the plants from ten 10
| twelve thousand are put IN an acre.
Some planters have fifty acres or more.
You can bet these men are from the
North. The Southern Cracker don't
do to-day what ne can put of TIL to-
morrow. In picking and shipping Il
field of pine apples it takes two or
three months for they don't all rlpen
at once. The work is commenced the
first of June and is not finished until
August.
| understand that Mr.. Flagler, our
r. X. king, is going to build a large
hotel at Rasan on one of the Bahama
Islands. lie is not satisfied with two
large hotels at st. Augustine, and two
more at Lake Worth but willrun line
of steamers from Biscayne Bay to the
Bahamas, distance of about sixty
miles, where he will erect Il large hotel
this summer. lie is now advertising
for carpenters. | hear that our old
friend Henry Howay thinks of going,
He is still stopping on the river and |
see him every few days. He says bis
rheumatism has left him and is as spry
as sixteen-y ear-old boy. On but the
climate in this part of Florida is simply
immense. There is such alarge guam
tity Of it to every square mile. 1t Is
pack ed in and trod down.
You will find one dollar enclosed fol
to pay on paper and please don't fail
to send it along as it gives me all the
news around about Yale.
see you take wood Cd subscription
| have plenty of it here but am like
many of the farmers up there, haven't
time to cut and haul it in.
1 will close for this time and will ado
that / am we'll and hope this may find
all the readers OF the Expositor IN
equally as good health.
Very Respectfully, j. c. Hart.
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The most complete line of buggies
l. Il