Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1902-02-05
EROM SUNNY FLORIDA
CONES AN INTERESTING LETTER
Mr.. Akers Tells Of the Country, the
Soil, the Climate, and the
Methods Of Farming.
SPRINa PARK, Fla, Jan. q, '02.

ED. PUBLIC OPINION:
thought / would write and tell you
something more about the sunny
south. I have just made . trip OF
about fifty miles to see what the coun-
try looked like. I visited Florahome,
. colony situated on the Georgia
Southern and Florida railroad. It is
settled mostly with northern people.
A company bought and farmed several
thousand acres Of land, and laid out a
town. Outside of the town lots they
have laid out five acre lots, and out
side Of that they laid out some ten acre
lots. There are thirty or forty houses
located mostly on the five and ten
acre lots. And they are setting out
large quantities of peaches and pecan
nuts and quite variety of other fruit,
but only few oranges. 1 found "a
great variety of soil in that locality.
Some of it is very sandy and poor, but
there is kind of land they call
prairie in this country, but would
call it swamp without any timber on
it. The company that owned the land
cut canal or ditch abou: twenty feet
wide, eight or ten feet deep and seven
teen miles long, SO as to drain the
water off from this prairie into creek,
and that leaves this land dry and very
rich. There are four stores in the vii
lage, one hotel and very fine depot.
1 must tell you something about the
farming. The ordinary farm is from
ten to fifteen acres as rule, and
scarcely any one has more than one
horse to do his farm work with.
When they have their blowing finished
it looks like man had taken . cat by
the tail and drawn 1t back and forth.
And it IL q rare thing to zee . two
horae team in this, country. / have
seen q number Of parties drawing
wood to town but I have not seen two
horse teams In that business. The far
merss have commenced farming, or
what they call farming. hut it looks to
me more like boys play than any
thing else. The ordinary farmer will
put In from one to three acres of oats
and about the same of corn, and nice
lot of sweet potatoes. They raise lots
of pinders or in other words peanuts.
The farmers grow pinders for their
hogs and horses and they are cheaper
now than corn. Corn is worth one
dollar per hushel, and pinders are only
worth 80 cents. In fact 1 have eaten
butter made Of pinders. And 1t is not
bad to take when q person has
Florida appetite. There is tree grow
ing here in the hammock or timber
swamp land called the cabbage palm
etto. They grow from ten to seventy
Ave or eighty feet high, with nice
cabbage In the top, which is . fine
substitute for the cabbage. I had
some for my dinner yesterday and it
was all right. All man has tv do If
he wants some cabbage for dinner is to
take his AK and cut down q tree aud
break the top of the trunk of aud take
of q covering on the outside which
comes off the same as bark, and cook
the inside just the same as you would
the real cabbage, and you have fine
substitute. generally get my PUB
Lie OPINION on Saturday, and ! can
assure you / am always on hand to
get it as soon as the mail is distributed.
1t always seems like meeting an old
friend from home, and I can assure
you it is soon read to see how things
are going In Iowa. The weather is
very fine. l have not seen any frozen
ground this winter and neither my
wife nor myself have had what you
could call a cold since we landed in
Florida. We have enjoyed the best OF
health SO far. We expect to return In
the spring as early as 1t will be pru-
dent for us to do so, but can't tell just
what time. am as ever,
j. NJ. AKERs.