The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1913-06-04
GREAT LITTLE CITY
OF GAINESVILLE

which controls the educational af
fairs of the state, the editor of the
Star went to Gainesville Monday, to-
take a look at the University of Flor
ida.
The ride in the early morning was
a most pleasant one, principally on
account of the scenery viewed from
the car windows. 1t was a moving
picture show of agricultural enter
prise and prosperity interspersed
after field of splen lid crops, with
here and there a stretch of noble
woodland. There were cornfields
and cornfields, and beans and toma-
toes and squashes and melons and
more cornfieIds, and if Ceres hasn't
filled her cornucopia to the top, and
then turned it upside down over Mar
ion county, there is no truth in my
tholOgy. All the crops looked well,
and corn looked exceedingly we'll. In
the Orange Lake region, the corn re-
minded the editor of the creek bot
tom corn in North Georgia he used
to keep the grass out of with a hoe
when he was a boy, and just before
laying by a 12-year-old boy could
work in the shade till almost noon,
the corn was so tall and thick. Not
only in these favored places, but in
fields and on hillsides that looked
barren and hopeless few years ago,
stood serried ranks. of the maize,
shaking it's blades in defiance of ia
mine, and the blackberries were
mighty thick, too.
Later in the day, Mr.. Wartmann
told the writer that he had nine diff
ferent kinds of vegetables from his
own garden on his table one day last
week. A few years ago, if a convul-
sion of nature or a foreign enemy
had cut Florida off from the rest of
the world, half her people would
have starved; now, it would be in
convenient, but most of US would
survive, and we might be really bet
ter off,
1t always looks to the writer like
the country around Evinston and
Micanopy should belong to Marion
instead of Alachua, and if it was in
the old days of conquest, he would
favor going after it with the sword !;
now he is trying to figure out some
nv n iRh fn Ion
which is all the same thing in prac-
tice tho some different in theory.
There are few fine farms in sight
after you pass Micanopy Junction; it
is almost wilderness to the streets of
Gainesville.
Tho living in Ocala for the last
score of years, the writer has. in that
time seen nothing of Gainesville ex-
cept what was in sight from the car
windows. Consequently, when he
arrived, and found that Mr.. Wart-
mann would be busy for some hours,
he gladly took the opportunity to
look over Ocala's handsome and pros
porous next-door neighbor
Ocala and Gainesville are, to Flor
ida, very much like what Sparta and
Athens were to Greece, or, to come a
little nearer home, what Atlanta and
Macon are to Georgia. In it's indom-
liable and everlasting hustle, Ocala
City of the South, and as we walked
thru Gainesville and viewed it's. wide
shaded streets, imposing business
houses and handsome residences, we
couldn't help feeling little like we
were again in leisurely and genial
but solid and steadily going ahead
Macon, where some of the best spirit
of the old time polishes the cutting
edges of the new.
The first person met was Jesse
Emerson, the clever and precise
Jesse, who abode in Ocala some years
and then removed to Gainesville. Mr.
and Mrs. Emerson are we'll and pros
porous in their new home. They have
kind remembrances of their OcaIa
friends.
Next appeared Julian Bullock, an
Ocala boy student at the university
Julian always looks good to the girls
and he looked good to the stranger
who was rapidly making himself al
home in the strange land. Julian
had hearty greeting and valuable
information for the envoy from home
Ex-Superintendent Of Schools w
Holloway next doomed above the
horizon. Mr.. Holloway introduced
the scribe TO Mr.. Geo. NJ. Lynch, state
supervisor of rural schools, and a
most capable gentleman for the of
fee, and several other prominent cit
liens, any one of which deserves a
paragraph which time and space for
bids to write.
Somewhat later We met another
Ocala boy, Frederick Hooker, one OF
the university graduates, who we are
glad to say will be with us again
after July 1st. Well acquainted with
and sincerely liking Gainesville, and
loyal to his home town, Mr.. Hooker
gave the scribe some useful informa-
ton about the school and the school
city.
Every once in. a while, we would
run into some young man whose face
was familiar and who would ask