The age-herald., 1898-03-23
OVER THE LINE
 IN FLORIDA

The people of Florida are losing their old-time valuable saurians. In 1880 there were three million of alligators dn the state-not, 1t is true, by actual count, but by the estimates of experts. and today there are not over half a million, and these are young fellows bearing alligator hides too small for market purposes. And so 1t hap pens that Florida Is losing valuable trade, and the manufacturers of alligator leather are compelled to go to Central and South America for skins. So much is the loss felt in the state that the United States fish commission has been appealed to and efforts will, 1t Is thought, be made to breed aligahors and restock the Florida rivers. An old and fun-grown alligator can scarcely be found in the state outside of the Everglades.
 But Florida has other resources besides saurians. Her long coast lines are one great oyster bed. She has hundreds of miles of bfvlaives-ons of the oldest foods of mankind, one that had place in the feasts of the weabther Romans, and that may have been eaten by prameval man. But the historic feature of the oyster does not concern the Fioridians nearly so much as does the current supply and the uses to which 1t may be put. The supply in Chesapeake bay is becoming smaller, and as 1t grows less Florida proposes to fill the gap. While gulf oysters from Bi- loxi take possession of the markets of the Mississippi valley. Florida hopes to supply the eastern markets, because her oysters are found growing in suitable localities, and have a finer flavor and firmness than those that have been transplanted.
 Perhaps F'lorida's next best hope is found in Havana leaf Both Cuban and Sumatra seed are to be thoroughly tested It is 1i- ready known that the hummock lands of the state are similar to the best tobacco lands of Cuba, and it is further known that such lands do grow tobacco of fine flavor - tobacco that has sold up to the price of the best Havana leaf. There are. moro- oyer 40.0o0 Cubans in the state, many of whom have been lifelong tobacco growers, curers and cigar makers. These men un- derstand the art from the planting of the seed to the marketing of the cigar Last year 16O,o0O,OOO cigars were made in Florida, largely from F'lorida-grown tobacco, yet one can not buy a Florida cigar. They are sold as Havanas. But Secretary of Agrl- culture Wilson tells the people of Florida
  gard to fertilizing, and the process of fer mentation which produces, so it is said, the characteristic flavor of the product The experimental station at Lake City is studying all the problems of the tobacco industry.
 The state too, is full of logging camps and saw mills. Nearly all the wood of the lead pencils of the country once stood in the cedar forests of Florida. The hard and the soft cedar are found in the cedar tracts of the state; but the chief timber wealth of the state consists of long-leaf pine, of which there are 5.0OO,OOO,OOO feet standing. The annual shipments exceed 675OOO0OO feet, the shipping ports being in order Pen sacola, Jacksonville, Fernandina, Apa- lachicola, Carrabelle and Tampa. Even if every deduction be made for Alabama timber shipped through Florida ports, the states own shipments exceed 500 000JO 900 feet each year. This rate will soon sweep away the wooded wealth of the state. And it will not soon be renewed, for the pine is slow grower. Here are its dimensions at various ages: