The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-15
LIFB ON THE SUMMER ISLES.
Where There Are No Taxes-Only Roses and Lilies and Onions.


 Roses and Lilies and Onions.
 Because the Bermuda Islands lie within 6SO miles of New York, they have been kept bristling with English soldiers and sailors guns and ships, says the Worlds Work.
 All these soldiers and sailors have had to be fed, paid and lodged, and so the gentle Bermudahs have sat com fortably at home and prospered by the vast amounts of money sent by the mother country.
 At about the beginning of this cen tury it apparently occurred to the British powers that there was little likelihood of any war with the United States, so ships and men were sent home to attend to other matters to the great loss of Bermudan revenue.
 There are practically no taxes in these wonderful islands, not even on the land or for roads-which, by the way, are superb The only tax could discover was what is called a parish tax, which means that if you go to the Established Church you pay few shillings a year to support it.
 The tourist agent speaks of Bermuda as the Land of the Lily and the Rose" which Is correct enough since lilies are grown by the acre for the bulbs which American florists force into Eastern blooms, and of roses there is a plenty the year around Really the onion and the potato extract the most wealth from the land.
 The farmer grows from one to four crops year of many of her products. Cultivation is confined chiefly to the bellows where the soil has accumulated in pockets over the coral beds which form the islands This soil in most places is not more than ten to eighteen inches deep, a mellow loam which looks like powdered cocoa.
 Truck farming is scarcely considered. Potatoes and onions and lily bulbs are too easily raised and several hundred and even a thousand dollars or more profit may be made from a single acre. But with prices falling and the Tex and growing vast quantities of onions. Bermuda will eventually have to turn to other crops.
 The working farmer here is the Portuguese. He was imported as a farm laborer but by thrift and good management has become a tenant in- stead of a hired man, and now raises certainly half if not more than half the crops of Bermuda.
 The negro is not the problem he is in our own Southern States. Of the 17,0000 souls on the islands about 60 or 70 per cent. are negroes. They are law abiding and remarkably citizens on the average very well educated by the colony, and they surprise a stranger by speaking with the accent of an Eng lishman, with httle or no negro dialect.
 When the Bermudan wishes to build house he removes from the site the top soil which will probably be not above ten inches thick, perhaps less. Under this Is a coral limestone, a little harder to cut than cheese. Instead of digging this out with pick and shovel he saws it into blocks, sets it in the sun to dry and by the time he has ex- eavated his cellar the blocks are hard stone fit to be made into the walls of his house.
 He mixes a little cement and lime with his shavings and all his materials are at hand. These cool stone houses, limewashed dazzling white, shine out through the deep green juniper trees and stand on the rocky shores above the wonderful ultramarine blue water with it's thousand iridescent hues, A picturesque feature in the panorama of beauty.
 Hedges of oleander which grow to be veritable trees divide the farms as stone walls or rail fences do those in New England and in April the islands, from the sea, appear to be buried under pink bloom.
 The affairs of Bermuda are practical ly in the hands of house of assembly, elected by the people and serving with out pay for a term of seven years though they do receive a fee of eight shillings for carriage hire-there being neither railway, trolley nor automobile in this peaceful land