The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-08-31
In the Watermelon Country.

May and June in Georgia were very
dry, July and August have been very
wet. The wheat and most of the oats
were harvested before the rains begun,
and very little grass is cut here, so
the season has on the whole not been q
bad one for the farmers. Now the
people here are just reveling in water
melons. Everybody who has land
seems to grow them, everybody who
has not buys them, and so everybody
eats melons. They grow very large
40 and so Founders being very COM
mon, but few get to weigh so to 100
pounds. They sell for nickel apiece
or three for ten cents, and they are
very good. They grow everywhere
that plants can grow, come up from
scattered seed and bear, and it is the
same with muskmelons. The negroes
feast on melons and 80 do the whites.
In place where the water is not good,
they must be a great blessing, for when
one eats them, he does not need to
drink much. Then we have had the
greatest abundance of peaches. We
live in the midst of an orchard contain
ing 1000 fruit trees, half of which are
peaches, and $50 are bearing They
were Just full. The trees were so la
den that the limbs lay on the ground,
as the trees are young and low down.
And such handsome fruitl 1t is the
same with grapes, they grow here in
the greatest abundance. Both ripen
from June to October. The great adj
vantage of the south is that the sum-
mer is very long, and the winter is very
short. The mean monthly tempera-
ture of this city (Toccoa) is as follows;
January 40, February 43, March AZ
April 50, May 70, June "a, July rs
August 70, September 70, October SO
November 90, December AZ. Lowest
nine above zero. Highest 81. This
tells its own story. But-while the
cold does last, there is as much if no
more suffering here than in the north
The houses are built without any re
gard for warmth in the winter, are
heated by iireplaces, so that while you
can keep one side very hot, the othel
is very cold. Water freezes in thu
sleeping rooms, for it is in many houses
Just about as cold inside the room
where the fire is out as it is outdoors
The colored people are most seriou
problem for the south. In great meas
ure they are an unknown problem, TO
no one knows what the colored maj
will become. Now he is in transi
ton stage. His greatest fault is tina
he does not like work. Yet many ar,
Industrious, they are very strong ply
sically, but most of them lack energ.
and persistence. They crave educa
cation, they make the best and tn
most of every opportunity to have thei
children educated, while the whites ar
| very ChTGlteS dUOuI lule' IL luusI "
remembered that they have descende'
from a savage race, that their immedi
ate ancestors were slaves, abused, treat
ed worse than cattle, tortured, murder
ed, and considering this, one can bu
wonder that the black man is rs civiliz
ed as he is. There were kind slav
owners, and many southerners woul
have it believed that all or nearly all o
the negroes were kindly treated, bu
men who have seen with their own eye
the horrors of slavery tell cold, har
facts concerning it. But northerne
grows to like the south, gets more an
more used to the ways of the people
yet he needs to be we'll fixed to not
homesck at times.
j. w. NEWTON.