The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1911-06-15

freight trains, except to haul fuel for
Its engines and supplies for northern
tourists was such as to make the move
ment or freight very tedious. The
writer was delayed for six hours at
| the terminal station on an East Coast
branch line because his passenger
| train could not leave until tomato
trains from the south could be moved
from the branch track, upon which
| they were run in the night to expe-
dite the movement Of through passen-
ger trains. Those vegetable cars ex-
| tended for miles and miles up the
branch track, and that was no excep-
tional day. Stations along the line al
most experienced grocery famine for
weeks because the railroad company
abandoned its local freight trains and
devoted its energies to moving tour
lists and perishable freight northward.
Delay In transportation caused deteri-
| Grafton and loss in shipment. In fact,
| only those growers who produced the
| highest grade tomatoes and were mar
keting them promptly were able to
| or the ledger. That fact was freely
stated In Florida newspapers.
This writer saw the celery farms
| at Sanford and knows that trainload
| after trainload of this fine vegetable
was shipped from that point He
saw, too, just the other day, the potato
| farms between Palatke and st. Angus
tine. with Hastings as shipping GEN.
ter. AS We passed the farms near
the railway hundreds of men, women
! and boys, the darker kind predom-
| mating, were busy in the fields gather
Ing the crops and placing them in
baskets and barrels for shipment
| north. The potatoes are generally Of
medium size. excellent quality and fine
appearance. They were selling in
Florida stores May / at 40 to so cents
| per peck. The Florida climate is not
| suited to the preservation of pota-
toes except in cold storage and that
| fact accounts for the shipment of po-
| tatoes from the north so many months
I in the year. In this exchange the
| transportation companies do not suf-
| fer.
Fruits and vegetables only can be
profitably raised in Florida. Some
grass grows and there are native cat
tie as well as imported Jersey cows,
but even farmers use a great deal of
evaporated milk and the demand for
this product of northern farms and
factories Is such as to place it almost
among the staples in country store.
The writer saw a few fields OF oats.
| One was In the shock near Hastings.
| Perhaps there were three acres and
| the yield may have been 20 bushels
per acre. Oats cannot be grown profit
| ably and 1t is very doubtful whether
| field corn will do much better.
| Florida has an ideal winter climate,
dry and healthful, with temperature
ranging near 20 degrees. It's summer
temperature ranges about Is degrees
| higher and the very hot days are
| neither so numerous or SO uncomfort-
| able as in the north--a fact due to
! the trade winds. There is always a
breeze in central or southern Florida.
But from June to September 1t rains
| sometime practically every day and
from April to October insect life of
variou. kinds - mosquitoes, gnats,
sandfiies and common flies as we'll
as ants, cockroaches, etc.-make life a
| burden to most people and only the
cracker" by birth or acclimation is
willing to stay in Florida the year
! around.