The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-03-06
(E. ". Barber in Jackson mich.
PATRIOT.

FeD. 20, 10 lo-oCdlCeiy any tuiA
brings keener satisfaction to the
people of community than reliable
information of growth, as expressed
in an increase of population. This is
tangible evidence of progress, and
progress is the high word of our CIV
ilization. 1t indicates all desirable
things along the line of Improvement
in political. industrial, social and
moral conditions.
While there has been progress
from the formation of the world, yet
it has not been an unbroken ascent
from lower to higher attachments.
Often there have been retrogressions,
not only with individuals but with
entire communities. The history of
the past is the narration of the rise,
1 progress, decline and fall of nations,
states and peoples. Numbers, how
ever, are no evidence OF true prog
ress. One-half of earths inhabi-
tants live in Asia, and for centuries
they have made little or no progress
The normal growth of population
the increase of births over deaths
lin any country is comparatively
slow. If city, county or state
shows notable gain in population,
we know that it presents unusual at
| fractions and inducements in bust
ness opportunities, soil, climate or
products. Men are always seeking
the easiest and surest places to get
living and to get on in the world
sn materialistic age, like the
present, material growth holds a
high place in popular regard. In it
they take exceptional pride. It is
evidence of the esteem in which a
particular locality is held by others.
Those interested in Polk county,
Florida, for example, have persist
entity maintained that, because of It's
natural advantages-its soil, climate,
products and healthfulness-it is
one of the best counties in Florida
for the settler, the investor, or the
healthseeker, and the census figures
Justify this claim.
The United States census of 1910
gave to the county 24,14S inhabi-
tants. Five years later, in 1915, the
State enumerators discovered 3D.
421 people, gain of 1924 in five
years. Duval county, in which the
prosperous city of Jacksonville is To-
Gated, shows for the same time
gain of 1851 Polk is an interior
county of South Florida, with none
of the commercial allurments that
are presented by counties containing
such growing cities as jacksonville
Tampa, Pensacola and Miami, and
yet it was the second county of the
State in thetotal gain in population.
A singular fact in regard to Flor
ida climate is that higher tempera-
lures prevail in the northern than in
the southern part of the State. Tam
pa, for instance, is the growing COM
mercial city of South Florida, and
yet the highest temperatures record
ed by the United States weather bu-
rau in ovr forty years is &c degrees
in the shade, while at Jacksonville
and Pensacola, in north and west
Florida, the highest record is 1O4 de-
grees. Polk county lies Immediately
east of the county in which Tampa is
located, and it's hill and lake region
presents the most elevated land in
the State.
There is no gainsaying the fact
that South Florida has most salu-
brious climate. When it is sweltering
hot in northern cities it is nothing
out of the ordinary here. P. P. OAR
ling says he likes the summers here
better than he did those of Michi-
gan. The Florida summer, of course
is longer. but the heat is not killing.
Sunstrokes are unknown and heat
prostrations are not included in COM
plants about Florida
1T gets warm here. No one will
deny this. But when it is the
warmest in Florida, it is boiling hot
in the big cities of the North. Mar
quette, Mich. has registered los de-
grees as its hottest weather against
sc in Tampa. People of the United
States have been slow to learn the
actual fact. They have always
thought that because Florida is our
southernmost State that therefore it
is necessarily the hottest.
But this is not the case. This
wonderful peninsula is thrust out
boldly for nearly five hundred miles
into the sea. On one side it is wash
ed by the unresting waves of the
great Gulf of Mexico, and on the
other it is bounded by the mighty
Atlantic. Cool and refreshing breezes
from these two vast expanses of salt
water make this one of the most
pleasant BODYBUILDING lands in the
great sisterhood of States.
One authority declares that the
character of Floridian's soil is the
cause of its temperate climate. He
points out that the sand is neither