The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-02-02
SQUARE PEGS IN ROUND HOLES

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In riding around Marion county,
the writer has seen a discrepancy,
incongruity or hiatus that he thinks
our Board of Trade could and should
remove, harmonic or fill up.
In quite a number of places, on
some Of the poorest ground in the
county, people from northern states
have settled, are putting up neat lit
tles houses and gone to work to es-
tablish permanent homes. 1t is a
pathetic thing to see how bravely
they have entered upon an undertake
ing that the old resident knows is
for many of them hopeless.
The land they are on is all right
if they have time and means and the
intention to work out the problem in
the way it can and should be worked
out. AS the Star has said, there is
no worthless land in Marion county
A man can settle ON a blackjack
ridge, which has never had a tenant
but the gophers, and can make a
garden of Eden out of it in five
years. if he stays that long, works
right and has the means to work
with. But if he comes here with
only means to stay few months, or
a year or two, and must in that
time produce money-bringing crops,
he; is up against a hopeless PROPOSE
ton, and is sure to have to return
north, and is as sure when he returns
to be a very bad advertisement for
our county and the whole state
ON the same day and only few
miles and minutes apart, in a swift
auto, the writer has passed a dozen
vacant or slovenly managed farms,
on every one of which the northern
settlers, some of them only two or
three miles away, with the money
and energy expended on sandheaps
and wiregrass, could obtain imme-
diate and excellent returns, be con-
tented themselves and add enormous
ly to the wealth of our county.
: These farms are generally owned
by white people, some Of them alb
sent in other states, others living in
the towns to give their children bet
ter school facilities, or maybe living
on other farms near by Most oil
them are, tenanted by negroes, none
os whom work in manner that pro.
cures more than half results from
the ground, and most of whom work
for wages for some white man OF
other, many leaving the acres thai
would render them Independent I'm.
titled and tramping off to town tc
hire out. 1t. is positively painful tc
see the shabby huts and the gooG
ground lying idle, especially wher
one thinks how much good a good
man breaking his heart in hopeless
labor a few miles away might do or
the same location.
What the Star suggests is this:
Let the Board of Trade go to work
and see what it can do to put good
men on the good ground. 1t is NJ
use to call names or point out local
tiles. Many of the members know
both. The thing to do is to induce
the owners of good ground to sell OF
rent to men who will try to get the
good out of it, and to lead the mel
who will do the work to the good
ground. The Star opines that man!
of them will go gladly.
In twenty miles of Ocala are prob
ably fifty families of settlers OIL
ground from which they cannot max,
a living without years of time ant
heavy expense. They are squart
pegs, all right, but their corner
won't fit the slick, circular sides o
the holes they are in until man,
hard blows have driven them in
And some are sure to be broke i
not broken in the driving.
In the same territory is enough
Iand-not forest, but good farming
land, not utilized, or used to poo
advantage-to raise produce, if prop
erly worked, to feed the people o
our growing city, and then some
Let the Board of Trade see if i
can't do something to get thes
square pegs into square holes, an
in so doing help not only them Blu
all the rest of us.