The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-27
MIR. PAvELLts TURTLE FARM.

Carried on on Rather Large Scale and | a Money Maker the Year Around Orange. Texas, June 3-A. Pavell was
 seen here this morning en route for New Orleans. MT Pavell lives on an island that he owns on the Louisiana side at the head of Sabine Lake. The island is neither more nor less than a series of shellbanks, some of them in cluding several acres, floated upon the upper crust of a deep marsh that is held together by the matted roots of sea cane, which stands thicker than the teeth of a flax hackle and grows ten to fifteen feet in height.
 MT. Pavell has been paying taxes on these shell banks and three or four thousand acres of liquid soil for more than forty years. Formerly he manu
 and split cypress fence posts at his
 landing. but for the past four years
 very little cypress timber came down
 the Sabine river and his occupation was
 gone until it occurred to him to build
 some large board pens in the marsh,
 dig down eighteen inches and floor
 these pens with slabs, that cost only
 the handling, and open up a large tur-
 tie farm,
 The floor is not for the comfort of the
 turtle, but to prevent it's escape, for q
 medium sized one will excavate hole
 in the mud several feet deep in a single
 night MT Pavell catches turtle in all
 months, except in the laying season, for
 he wants them to multiply. Frequent
 ly they will lay as many as a hundred eggs, cover them up and then hide in
 the mud near by until the young come
 out.
 Loggerheads are disposed to venture further from deep water than the checkeredback-a species of the dia- mond back of the Atlantic coast--and often deposits it's eggs on ground above the highest overflow. As the marshes are wide and deep he lives on crayfish and the suoculent roots of the marsh cane, so the hunt after loggerhead is not always one of comfort, He often burrows ten feet down and then off at a tangent more than twenty feet. To fisch him out boys take a pole thirty to forty feet long, made of thin strips of wood lapped and spliced together on the end of which is fastened a stout hook. This is worked down and along the hole until the turtle snaps 1t and then the tug begins. Often the stick or pole gets pulled in two, but the turtle has too little intelligence to learn from this experience. Not appreciating his danger. he will snap again when an- other pole is pushed down in the hole, and as long as the hunters pull he will hold on, and if the timber is strong enough he can in this way be hauled from his hiding place, slowed in box and delivered at the farm uninjured. Now and again the hunters find they have an alligator al the other end of the pole and as he is as stubborn as a turtle they usually land him on top of the ground, take off his hide, leave the flesh for coons and buzzards to feed upon, while the pelt is salted down and marketed,
 Hundreds of loggerheads are fshed | out in thie way, but the checkerback is easier taken with the seine. By watch | ing for the nesting grounds about the | lake shore a pretty good idea is had as | to the most profitable inlets to drag, 1 and with a horse and few men. often- | sr with only half a dozen men. several | hundred medium turtles are cap- | tured within a few hours and fifty is a low average for one haul. When land