The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-13

l Spring, distance of two hundred miles, the hyacinths are in full possession of the river and its tributaries.
 In the famous ocklawaha river, the principal tributary of the St. John, they have made their way many miles above the entrance to Silver Springs Run, the head of navigation. Nearly all the smaller tributary streams are covered by a solid mass. of the hyacinths, reach ing from shore to shore. In many of the inland lakes and streams they are also in possession, having been carried
 there by settlers because of their beau ty, or by stockmen as food for cattle
 and hogs, who eat the plant with ea-
 gerness.
 Not content with the disaster they have brought to the upper St. John, the water hvacinths have now extended their sway towards the sea, in spite of the confident hope at first entertained
 that the slightly salty water of the lower river would check their advance.
 For several years past the ''hyacinth
 pest" as it is justly termed, has seri-
 ously abstructed the docks and water fronts of Jacksonville, where, at this
 present writing, the plants are strand
 ed ir such vast numbers as to menace the health of the city should a heavy frost kill them and leave them to rot
 and ferment in their present location. Consequently, the city is now facing
 the water hyacinth problem from san-
 itary as we'll as commercial point of view.
 And now let us note yet other results
 of the hyacinth invasion of Florida. A man attempted to cross creek
 about half mile wide. It was slug
 gish stream, and the hyacinths had bridged it from shore to shore. It was
 in vain that the man bent to his oars. He succeeded in reaching the middle of
 the creek, and then found himself in
 trap from which he could not escape,
 movement either forward or backward
 being impossible.
 For two days and night he remained
 prisoner to the beautiful flowers that
 mockingly surrounded him. His boat
 seemed destined to become his coffin,
 as to leave it would only have insured
 instant death from entanglement
 among the hyacinths or from the bite of the deadly water mocassins that de.
 light to make their home among them.
 But, at last, the shouts of the hyacinth captive were heard and a boat started to his rescue. It was laboriously poled
 to point near by, but there the same
 dense mass that had, caught his boat
 checked it's farther advance. The
 space between the two boats was final
 ly bridged by plank over which the prisoner crawled on his hands and
 knees. His boat was abandoned, per-
 force, and may still be a derelict amid
 the hyacinth fields.
 The smaller screw steamers plying on
 the St. John are unable to pass through
 the lar germasses of the hyacinths, not
 only from lack of power, but because
 the plants get entangled in the propel-
 lers and hold them fast, as in a wise.
 The paddle-wheel steamers fare rather
 better, but their speed is reduced and
 they are often forced to stop.
 Even the largest steamers find it iTn-
 possible at times to make any head
 way, although they charge their ene-
 my at full speed. Their side wheels
 collect and crush the plants into sol-
 i'd mass between the paddles and the bulkheads, so that it is almost impos- sible to reverse the engines. As far
 back as 1895 the largest steamer on the
 river, the St. John, was caught in Lake Harney in a floating island of the hya- cinths and carried out of the channel,
 narrowly escaping stranding. Experi- ence of this kind have now become so common that they are only reported when serious disaster ensues. All of the bridges across the main river and it's tributaries are subject to injury, the constant banking of the
 plants against the piles causing strong
 and undermining currents. At several
 bridges men have been regularly em- ployed for several years past to push
 the hyacinths through the arches in or der to prevent disastrous damming up of the waters.
 Throughout the lands drained by the
 St. John and it's inflowing streams are vast forests of valuable timber from
 which the large saw mills of Palatka and Jacksonville are supplied. The
 logs are rafted down the river by tugs,
 many of which have for years been en- gagged in the business. A number of them, however, have recently been
 withdrawn because of the great and
 steadily increasing difficulty ill getting
 the logs rafted out of the creeks, seve-
 ral of which have become wholly closed to navigation. The present annual loss
 of time and power is estimated at fully
 one-third of the value of the logs. | Many of these logs get adrift, and, be- ing held and concealed by the rank hy5 acinth growth constitute an army of
 floating battering rams that are a seri-
 ous danger to all kinds of craft. The health of many localities has been impaired by the vast piles of stranded plants, left on the shores by retiring waters or washed uo by high