Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1917-03-21

walked in field to where a negro
man was hoeing and found he was
digging the earth to plant peas and
beans, and with fertilizers one can
raise good crops, and hen, too, you
can grow fine oranges and other
fruit. Then there is interspread
along the prairie land, where no
trees ever have grown, a rich black,
soft land, and they grow tomatoes
and all sorts of truck in abundance.
Fortunes are made here in tomatoes.
At station on the way to Florida
City, called Peters, there is Mr..
Peters who has made about a mil
lion dollars on tomatoes alone. lie
has planted now 700 acres in toma-
toes, and uses $4,000 worth ferti-
lizers and manure per annum. They
were picking tomatoes while | was
there. The tomatoes are pulled as
green as grass and hauled to the de-
pot in boxes made for this purpose.
Here they are sorted and the largest
are wrapped in tissue paper and
Grated for shipment and were selling
all along from Charlotte to Boston
at from 50 to 81 a crate and a car
holds some 800 to AGO crates, so
they get from $1,000 to $500 per
car load for short season. Then
they can raise crop of corn or po-
tatoes on this same land. Much of
the negro labor here comes from
Nassau, an island out in the sea
some 100 miles from Miami. They
pay laborers from s1.25 to Sl.50
day as a rule, and all over Florida
tie negroes are orderly and kept
under good control, and many ne
groes are land owners and well to
do. As we walked around we no
ticed that all the pines lean away
from the sea at quite an angle, which
shows how strong the sea breeze is
here, there trees have grown at this
angle and are fixed in this position.
As we looked about in this spring
like land of soft sunshine, fruits
and flowers, when all nature seems
to speak in sweet tones of peace,
and thought of the war across this
CLASSY sea. 1t seems that every
prospect pleases, and man alone is
vile" Why can't civilized man act
under the impulse of those lines of
Pope?
"Teach me to feel another's. woe,
To hide the faults l see,
That mercy l to others show,
That mercy show to me-"
Civilization led the intrepid spirit
of Andrew Jackson to drive the Iu-
dian from this, his happy floral
hunting ground, and ran him across
the Mississippi-will the Unsuitable
millionares, who are fencing up
vast acres, improve conditions in
this land of flowers? But million
aires do not abound anywhere and
civilization, under God, like the
juggernaut had to crush the untam-
ed and untamable Indian under its
steam roller wheels, to give place to
cultivated fields, and we'll appoint
ed cities and the advantages of edu-
cation and christianity. Florida
feeds her tens of thousands all over
the land. As you sit down to a
meal anywhere, whether on the
train or III New York and eat your
grape fruit or orange with your
morning coffee, or your crisp head
lettuce and pulmp, red tomatoes in
your dinner salad, you pay tribute
to old Hickory Jackson" who pion-
erred his dangerous way thru the
Everglades of Florida to clear the
way for the present lands of fruits
and flowers. When we consider
the dangers and privations that our
forbears endured, in having to set
tie these lands by contending not
only with nature in cultivating the
soil, but having to fight those rude,
but brave savages, we should not
complain at our lot but be content.
ed.
There are few scattering tribes
of the Indians about in Florida, but
sadly degenerated from the mighty
warriors and brave chiefs of the
past. These remnants are mainly
used for commercial purposes by
the American white man, who ex-
hibit them in camps, all dressed in
crazy quilt blankets as a part of a
cheap show, like the monkey and
organ, or alligator-ye shades of
Oceola!. How you would weep 10
see how the mighty have fallen;
but an educated Indian is about as
useless, so far as his natural line of