The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1915-08-26
HE SLAMS AND DAMNS
FLORIDA LANDS

OF Kansas is quoted as saying that
Florida is mot worth a damn" We
seriously doubt that the Jayhawker
attorney general has been correctly
quoted.
At all events he, having been con-
demned to live in the midst of
Kansas billiards, hot winds, and
hell-roaring cyclones, is in a posi-
ton to know just that damn" is
really worth; but evidently he knows
nothing of the value OF Florida
lands.
If he had said there is a lot of
land in Florida that is worthless, we
might agree with him, but the per-
centage of waste lands in Florida is
less than that of half the western
states.
II he had said that the average
Kansas land would fertilize the aver
age Florida land we might also
agree with him.
We could tell him that the Flor
ida farmer often spends as much
money fertilizing one acre in a
single season as the average Kansas
land would sell for on the market.
But we could also tell him that
the Florida farmer can make enough
money on that one acre in a single
season to purchase forty acres of
average Kansas land. We could
show him an acre of Florida land
from which the express company
alone got $500 for carrying what it
produced to the northern markets.
This same acre of land wasn't
worth damn" until someone came
along with faith, fertilizer, brains
and Drawn to put into it and make
it produce more than the average
forty acres in Kansas will produce
in actual cash value on the market,
We can show him an acre of
Florida grass that will keep several
head of cattle in good condition the
year round with no other feed than
that which they Craze from land not
worth a damn" until some man s
energy removed the palmetto from
it and planted Para grass in its
place.
It is results that counts.
| The Kansas farmer can have an
acre of bearing beans in June, bu,
they are not worth hauling to town
But the South Florida farmer wht
has an acre of beans in January car
, get from five to seven dollars &
hamper for them.
The Kansas farmer with ten acre!
/ OF watermelons in August would
have to feed them to the hogs or lie
them rot in the field. But the Flor
ida farmer can have his watermelon
ripen in May and sell them for $500
the carload.
We might enumerate various
other crops in like manner to show
the advantage of farming in Florida
But what's the use? People VIII,
want to knock Florida will do so il
the face Of any amount Of facts. TIL
fact that great many people hav'
been stung in purchasing land IL
this state gives the knockers an op
portunity to make the exception t
the rule and use 1t to check the flow
of immigration to Florida.
But Florida will continue tt
flourish despite all the knockin.
within and without and every yea
will add new values to her land an,
new people to her population AL
ready we have thousands of thrift.
and industrious Kansans within on
borders who find superior ad
vantages here in hundred differ
ent ways. The land was not "wortl
a damn" to them until they be
came worth something to the land
They find that dealing with Florid
soil is like dealing with a bank
they had to put something into it be
fore they draw anything from it
They find the transaction profitabl
and will gladly contradict the state
lment of the Kansas attorney genera
by applying his opinion of Florid
land to his opinion of Florida Ian
to his opinion of Florida land
Arcadia Enterprise.