The Ordway new era., 1916-03-10
ni1s1Ia ! 70 nua1l N0iln6

G0o04W0e 8f0vos 4l2.s IOD. ~
/. The months goes out like . lamb. =
but It came In like . lamb. Indeed
the days. all seem . little wooly. and
as for lions. they amt NO sich anil
mails here"
The crackers have been shivering
for ten days over delicious" days, II
in Ordway. Thermometer standing
Sc to 65 fr. but yesterday the wind
changed from Colorado, and the Ba-
hamas soft breeze have brought salts
faction in temperature of about 80
degrees. We are within five miles Of
the gulf stream and when the breeze
comes from that direction as it gener-
ally does no one cares for much cloth
ing and the fashionably dressed ladies
from New York and other eastern
cities have ample excuse for their
scant draperies and gauzy attires.
The weather here is the constant
topic, indeed 1t is the whole asset Of
this neck "of the woods" That and
Biscayne Bay have made the rocks
and trees worth from $500 to $4,000
per acre. Get an acre or so of land
fronting on the bay where you can
walk on your own land down into
the water for your morning bath and
you must pay well for it. And even
on a nearby road, where you can see
the world go by, from your own cot
tage veranda is expensive. And yet
when you invest in a " acre of stones
and have to blast and crush rock for
your flower roots, and then buy your
soil in bags at the rate of so dollars
per ton, it all seems foolish and you
wonder why God didn't give them a
little Ordway dirt in exchange for a
few of these soft lime stones for our
roads.
Well, He had to give this country
SOMETHING and so He smiles upon
it with His gracious sunshine and soft
air and left them to do the rest and
they are surely doing it. In spite of
mosquitoes and everglades there are
500 Seminole Indians living way
down in the cypress swamps among
the alligators and other wild animals,
loving the climate so much that Uncle
Sam has given up driving them to
their reservation in the Territory west
of the Mississippi, and he has been
trying it ever since Andrew Jackson's
time.
The white mans agriculture is all
that will ever starve them out. They
will fight with more valor for these
swamp lands. than for patriotism, and
the last ten years have driven these
poor eviles steadily southwark as the
drainage of the Everglades proceeds.
The present canals have lowered
the waters of Lake Okeechobee
enough to drain belt miles wide
all around the lake. Queer as it may
seem the lake is hill, and this belt
is rapidly being settled by northern
people.
AT the mouth end of the lake is
Okeechobee City flourishing mush-
room town of several thousand peo-
pie. AS the waters of the Glades
recedes, oases appear which are
quickly populated by eager ranchmen
The whole scheme is in it's infancy.
Will this black mucky soil of the
Everglades be self productive? AS
yet expensive fertilizers are used, and
no one knows the net profit. but the
samples of corn, sugar cane, potatoes,
onions, ETC., are of prodigious size
and find ready market. In dry sea-
sons the mucky soil must have water
or crops soon burn. SO irrigation is
being arranged for pumps from the
canals.
Our county fair ended last week,
and good show it was-every vege-
table you ever heard of-citrus fruits
and tropical oddities galore. Reg
gattas and flying races for amuse-
ments, our honey men would have
been not a little surprised that the
comb honey display was so ridiculous
about " filled and almost
black-our Ordway cells of darkest
kind would have taken the blue rib
bon.
The 25th was Riley day. the poet
altho only 64 years old had to be led
to the stage, probably his last "day."
The school children covered him up
with thousand boquets and William
Jennings Bryan delivered the address.
The tourist season has been a re-
markable one-the globe trotters
shut off from Europe are with US and
thousands Of Grippe suffers from the
north so that hotels are overflowing.
Miami had to publicly ask her citi-
zens to open their residences and take
them in, Railways are strewn with