The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-09
Frying Down the Apalachicola"


 I went to sleep last night to the strains of Way Down on the Swanee River" sung by the young lady in the gored skirt and the shirred crepe de chine shirtwaist. with whom my companion, d young married man of limited experience in such matters had been all the evening carrying on filtration.
 l am older and know that much sleep is better than many smiles and that neither starlight nor star-llke eyes are good for the vision; therefore, I all ways go to bed between and o'clock, and get as much sleep as possible. We were awakened just at dawn by the steward with the announcement that we were nearing Cochran's land ing. the point of debarkation for We- wahItchka
 As I looked out of my stateroom door, saw swimming along with surprising ease and swiftness about 100 feet from the steamer, an alligator. If I had had my buddy's gun, I could have easily killed it. but I was glad did not have it. I might say that he was a fero- cious looking beast 12 feet long, but whatever I say I always speak the truth, and 1t compels me to say that he was not over five feet in length and looked scared as if he had just been pulled for shooting craps. How ever. he didn't remain long in view, for as I said good morning" he sunk like a stone out of sight.
 Wewahitchka, named by the Indians long ago, means in their language Wa ter Eyes, from the supposed resemb- lance to the eyes which three lakes there bear two of them are quite round and connected by narrow body of water answering for the bridge of the nose. The village is about a mile from the landing and the road passes through a turpetine camp in the pine woods and crosses an old railroad bed on which pines over two feet in diame- ter are growing. indicating that it is long time since a. train has passed over the line.
 This road was the St. Joseph and lola railroad. built about 60 years ago from lola, landing on the Apalachicola to St. Joseph on bay of the same name and a once prosperous town of 5000 inhabitants. The road was built to carry deep water export cotton brought by steamers from interior Georgia and Alabama to lola. Thousands of bales were handled and St. Joseph grew and prospered and became the capital Of Florida. The yellow fever struck 1t and practically wiped it out Now there is not a standing building within eight miles of it and the only living things on it's site are the wild creatures pe- culiar to this section.
 Wewahitchka has a drug store, ho- tel, four general merchandise stores. six dwellings and four churches, the inhabitants requiring much religious consolation to bear the cross of living there. Its principal products are tur- pentine, timber. honey and chilIs-all natural-and the latter are to be had without money and without price. There has never been boom here and the growth has been steady and unac- companied with excitement. The town is healthy except for the chills and fever. which is not considered as sick ness
 There are about 5000 stands of bees in the neighborhood and in good years the shipments of honey amount to up- ward of $10,000 in value. In my early youth l was informed that bees made honey; later on I found that they did not make it, but simply gathered it.
 In this portion of Florida there is a great variety of honey bearing flowers and unless a drought affects the blooming or continued rains wash the honey out of the blossoms the yield is enormous. Since the improvement in handling bees, one of which is extracting the honey by ma chnery, applying the centrifugal principle and returning the comb intact to the hives to be refilled, the amount secured per hive is largely increased. When the honey flow is at it's height, the bees store 1t more rapidly that 1t can be taken away from them. One beekeeper has taken from his hives B barrels of 30 gal Ions each in one day. It required all hands and the cook to empty the cells as fast as the bees could fill them.