The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1908-09-24
GOVERNMENT LANDS.
DeSOtO Has $4,000 Acres Subject
to Entry.
Concluded from page 1.

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Sisal hemp, the Spanish Bayonet,
and Sanseviera, all fibre bearing
plants which grow with little at
tention and no fertilizer, wherever
they can get a slight footing,
would seem to hold out bright
prospects to the pioneer in this
venture.
Another new field for the pio-
neer is the growing of medical
plants. Hundreds Of them grow
wild in the State; and where GER
tain cultivated ones like the Castor
Bean and Pawpaw have been test
cd, the yield has been everything
that could be desired. The De-
partment of Agriculture is author
ity for the statement that SIS, 900, :
900 worth of medicinal plants are
imported into this country every
year. 100000 pounds of Golden
Seal, which is regarded as a very
troublesome weed by the farmer
in the North, is used in drugs
every year, and from 95 cents to
1926 is paid per pound for it.
The common Burdock, another
wayside weed, is imported in large
quantities.
Immense amounts of cordage of
all kinds, as well as Manila paper,
are brought to this country every
year, millions OF dollars worth;
and the plant that supplies the
fibre for it grows wherever it can
get the slightest foothold in this
part of the State, and it has never
been known to be injured by such
cold as we have in the winter down
here. The leaves of another plant,
Sanseviera, furnish a fibre that
can be used for the heaviest rope
or dress fabric as fine as silk.
These last two plants do not need
even ordinary attention; only
plant them and they take care Of
themselves. If there is a drought,
they look green and happy; if
there is flood, they look only
greener and happier.
Nothing grows more luxuriantly
down here than all kinds of Bam-
boo. We import $2,000,000
worth of Bamboo from China and
Japan every year. This is another
plant that needs nothing in the
way of cultivation, although no
doubt it would profit thereby.
So many are the useful, plants
that would grow most protitably
down here that the list would
swell this article to most unseemly
proportions, but the interested in
vestigator can get all the informa-
ton he wants by applying to our
Board of Trade for it.
Plants and trees that produce
the milk that makes rubber also
grow readily, as can be testified to
by growers of tropical shrubbery
in varions parts of our county.
No one has yet made speciality
of growing Mangoes and Avoca-
do Pears for the Northern mar
kets. The latter makes a deli
cious salad served up in the same
manner as lettuce. Recently /
saw in Fort Myers an Avocado
pear tree that was four years old
from the seed, and it must have
been fifteen or twenty feet high
and loaded with fruit. There are
many trees of this delicate vegeta-
ble-fruit grown in that charming
town, by private citizens; and
when it gets into the market, it is
seldom they can he bought for
less than ten cents each. This
gives some idea of the profit there
should be in growing this rare
fruit.
Pineapple plants bear fruit
in from - to Is months from
planting; and with the new meth
cd of covering them with swamp
grass to prevent sunburn, there is
no reason why many acres of this
luscious fruit might not pay hand
somely.
These are few of the induce
ments held out to settlers on our
homestead lands. There are
MANY more. but time and space