The National tribune., 1909-05-27
LAND OF HEALTH And 0HOPE..
The BaImy Skies Fertile Soil and HeaGvn Surroundings Of
ST. Cloud-Everything Grows in Luxurance That Land Of
Eternal Springme.
"Know'st Thou the Land"

lEhnOW 81 tnOu tiic idhN WASAS eAAS ASAA.S-
trees bloom,
Where the rose-laden air yields it
choicest perfume,
Where in high myrtle groves brigh
oranges grow,
Where the softest of zephyrs unceas
ingly blow,
Know'st thou the land?
Thither, oh, thither with thee.
My dearest and fondest, with thee
would fee"
This immortal song, which has so en-
wrapt the world with its balmy
promise, represents the longing of peo-
pie in the frost-bitten, wind-beater
North for the eternal blue skies an6
fragrant air of SUMMER lands. The
country around the Tohopekaliga Lakes
fulfills to the utmost these dreams. TIL.
country is absolutely level as floor
with nowhere a jagged rock or rugged
ravine, with everywhere the eye turns
miles-wide stretches of absolutely leve
savannas, carpeted with luxurian,
grasses, and the view broken only by
the symmetrical columns of the long
leaved pines and clumps of the pictur
E, eSque saw palmetto.
That is the Lake Tohopekaliga coun-
try. of which st. Cloud is the center.
| Lakes Tohopekaliga, East Tohopeka-
| liga, Alligator and Gentry, surrounding
clear water, smooth as a mirror, except
when ruff1ed into dancing, shimmering
wavelets by the light breezes tanning
their surface. The Tohopekaliga Lakes
| are nine or 10 miles long, with a width
of five or six miles. The other lakes
| are much smaller. More beautiful
| sheets of water cannot be found any
where. and everything about them sug-
gests health and purity. There is none
OF the Misunderstanding ooze growing
with rank weeds, such as are familiar
surroundings of bodies of water else
where. Instead the sandy surface of
| the surrounding land slopes gently
| down to the water, and one can walk
along the very edge without his shoes
being soiled by particle of mud. These
waters swarm with fish of all fresh
water varieties, and in the clear depths
| can be seen pixies dsshing like flashes
of light after their prey, and the other
varieties can be made out hunting their
food with piscatorial industry.
| The wide, unwrinkied plains only
need the industry of man to fulfill Mig
mons song. Already here and there
can be seen thriving orange, lime, lem
on and grapefruit groves, from which
| the golden fruit has been recently har-
| vested. Wherever the land has been
cultivated it laughs with an abundance
of harvest On the 11th of May l saw
corn as fine in every way as any pro-
| duced in Indiana or Illinois, 10 feet
the roasting age. One comes across
marvelousIy producing little plots of
cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, celery, Gu
cumbers, etc. Wherever men have titled
| the ground with fair industry and skill
the reward has been great, frequently
prodigious.
AS much can be raised on a few acres
of ground in the Winter time as can be
produced on plots many times their size
during long Summer in the North. If
man wants the lemon trees to bloom"
| around him, to load the air with the
fragrance of orange blossoms" to
shade his home with high myrtle
groves" and to scent the evening air
with roses, all he has got to do is to de-
| vote a little labor to planting the trees,
and in two or three years he will have
his hearts desire in fullness.
/ To q Northern mans eyes the land Is
astonishingly easy of reduction to ara
| bility. 1t can be cleared at a minimum
of labor, and with scarcely any of the
laborious. back-breaking grubbng and
the arduous stump-pulling required to
clear Northern lands. Within a year
after the pine tree has been cut off the
stump can be burned out of the ground
almost by touching match to it.
Some of the clumps of saw palmetto
would seem to be pretty tough propo-
sition for grubblng hoe, but these
clusters are few and far between, and
the most of the ground can be easily
cleared by an ordinary two-horse plow.
Even one-horse plow would find no
difficulty in much of the land. The
| great, long-leaved pines stand so far
| apart and the space between them is so
clear that horse and buggy can be
driven in almost any direction without
reference to the regular roads.
Only occasionally some of the many
lakes which have dried up show a dense
growth of the tall, shapely cypress, of
the naples, magnclias, hickories and
sweet-gums Many of these should be
| preserved as groves and parks to orna-
ment the colony site. The cypress is one
of the shapliest trees, with its tall,
straight trunk surrounded by perfect
! cone of branches. 1t is most pictur-
esque and admirable feature in the
| landscape. 1t surpasses the long-leaved
pine in this respect. The long-leayed
pine has a straight tall column of i'm
| posing symmetry, but at its top is only
little crown of ragged, gnarled
branches. The young pines, which
spring up at once if their growth is not
| interfered with, are quite picturesque
and attractive until they attain hight
of IL or 10 feet, when their lower limbs
drop off, and they begin TO assume the
form of maturity. The cypress loses
none of its limbs, and therefore has
nothing to mar the perfect symmetry of
| its slender, cone-Iike form, which rises
| frequently to the hight Of 100 feet or
more.
The magnolias, which are evergreen,
are not SO shapely as the others, but
have pleasing form, and their great,
white flowers breath a heavy, almost
Intoxicating fragrance.
A constant feature Of the open
grounds are the live-oaks and water
oaks, which are SO near alike that il
| takes an expert to tell the difference
To the casual observer they appear sim
gularly like apple trees, and he is con-
stantly deceived into the belief that he
| is approaching an apple orchard only to
| find II a grove of live-oaks. A singular
| feature of the live-oaks is the spread
| of their lateral limbs. They shoot these
out to length of 80 or 40 feet in the
| older trees, and sometimes these are IL
| or IA inches thick. The wonder is how
| the tree can support them. No other
known tree seems to have as long and
heavy lateral limbs as the liVe-oak, nor
to be able to preserve them under the
stress of storms. The live-oak does it,
all the same, for nowhere could there
be seen a limb twisted off by the wind
such as would be inevitably the case in
the Northern woods. Either the live
oak is far stronger and tougher than
the Northern oaks, or the winds have
nothing of the violence of the storms
| OF the North. Probably both of these
are true.
The Colony Property.
| The colony property lies six miles