The Florida agriculturist., 1906-03-14

lne hoy IlllSdDt6 prevents III I'll III
vestments, renders insecure the farm
garden ana makes the grain crop an
impOssibility. The ''rustler'' methods
of the stockmen are i. detriment to the
intelligent settlement of the farming
lands of the state.
Cattle have the right-of-way and the
hog is protected by the Legislature.
The stock owners are regardless of
the rights of settlers and investments
by new cOmerS in the state lands now
used by stOckmen as free range Is
considered an encroachment and the
immigrants life is made a burden.
These conditions must be changed if
the much desired Northern money and
energy is to be successfully invited
to locate here for a longer period than
the winter season, and i'll Il home more
permanent than hotels open only dur
ing the tourist season. But here again
arises difficulty. Right here in Mel
bourne, with all its advantages of good
water, high bluffs, absence Of malaria,
social, religious, and educational i'll
fiuenceS. its able and progressive
clergy and much to be desired Chau-
tauqua, the gardens are rooted up in
a night, the evergreens eaten off to the
ground. the dOOryardS defiled and pro
perty damaged by somebody's hogs
running wild, somebody's cattle at
large, and buzZard food mules brOws-
ing on the flower beds, young palms
and grass sprouts, thus destroying any
effort to beautify the door yard or
grow sod on the lawn.
This condition is deplorable; it is not
however inSurmountable. We should
not be discouraged. The future is
long and the day of retribution is i'll
evitable. The time will come when the
judges of all our courts, the officers Of
the country and the law makers of our
legislature are not all cattle men or
Influenced by cattle interests, when
the streets of TituSville, the county
seat as well as our own are not night
ly cOwyardS and pig-penS, and when
the good sense of the state, the laws
of Florida and the welcome offered
the settler are bOnafide and equitable.
There is not much method i'll mad
ness, but there is plenty of madness
in some methods. While the railroad
has rediscovered Florida, everything
else remains to be marked out. Civil
zatiOn has the repellant elements of
the squatterS to combat. Because a
man has some money to buy stock
and has the nerve to come down into
Il new, free, unsettled territory to
Craze without cost or permit on gov
ernment land, does his camp outfit
occupancy give him any moral or
legal rights to show his teeth and his
revolver when a real purchaser comes
along and buys a home? These hog
kings and cattle rustlerS are Tourists
of the Montana-CO Colorado sheep and
cattle man order. There they are
openly lawless. Here they hide be
hind a seven-wire-fence law. Money
has influence over politicians. Before
the railroad came to open the way for
the settler and work the wonderful
transformation seen today in the new
South what was the interior back
woods condition? Says The TallahaS-
see True Democrat in this connection.
AT this time few were the villages,
and of towns there were none, in all
this wide domain; only a few rough
log houses near each other, termed
settlements, separated by twenty, or
maybe, forty miles, of dreary wilder
ness. These were the homes of the
only inha abitantS-rOugh-ma cat
tlemen, who invited no immigration
to interfere with their laws of custom,
and were jealous of their Squatter
sovereignty. For 200 miles of south
ern course Il traveller would have NOV
ad amid SJIch ScnDpS IIDtiI tbo uortbaTn