The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-09-16
LIFE ON SUMMER ISLES,
Where There Are No axes-only
 Roses and Lilies and Onions.

Because the Bermuda Islands lie with nn sSO miles of New York, they have been hSept bristling with English soldiers and leailors, guns and ships, says the Worlds P7Work.
 All these soldiers and sailors have had ito be fed, paid and lodged, and so the gentle Bermudans have sat comfortably at home and prospered by the vast sums of money sent by the mother country.
 At about the beginning of this century if apparently occurred to the British pow CTS that there was little likelihood of any I war with the United States, so ships and linen were sent home to attend to other lmatters-to the great loss of Dermudan lrevenue.
 1 There are practically no taxes in these wonderful islands, not even on the land or for roads-which, by the way, are su- perb. The only tax 1 could discover was what is called a parish tax, which means that if you go to the Established Church you pay a few shillings a year to sup port 1t.
 The tourist agent speaks of Bermuda as the Land of the Lily and the Rose, which Is correct enough, since lilies arc ,, grown by the acre for bulbs, which Amer ican 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 a year of many of her products. Cultivation is confined chiefly 10 the hol- lows 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 finely powdered cocoa.
 Truck farming Is scarcely considered. Potatoes and onions and lily bulbs arc atI1. dnI md even a thousand dollars ore more proht may be made from a single acre. But with prices falling and the Texans grow ing vast quantities of onions Bermuda wall eventually have to turn to other crops
 The working farmer here Is the Portu- ,guese He was imported as farm la borer, but by thrift and good manage Iment has become a tenant instead ot a hired man, and now raises certainly hall if not more than half the crops Of Der 'muda.
 our own southern states Of the 11oOC couls on the islands about 60 or 70 per souls on the islands about 60 or 70 per iand remarkably industrious citizens, on the average very well educated by the colony, and they surprise a stranger by speaking with the accent of an English man, with little or no negro dialect.
 When the Bermudan wishes to build a house he removes from the site the tor soil, which will probably be not above ten inches thick, perhaps less. Under this Is A coral limestone, little harder to cut than cheese. Instead of digging this out with pick and shovel, he saws 1t into blocks, sets 1t in the sun to dry, and by the time he has excavated his cellar the blocks are hard stone fit to be made into the walls of his house.
 He mixes little cement and lime with ihis shavings and all his materials are at
 yguta ed a dazzling white, shine out through the deep green juniper trees and stand on the rocky shores above the wonderful ul- tramarine blue water with its thousand