The Coolidge examiner., 1936-01-24
Prepared by National Geographic Society.

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Washington, d. C.-WNU Service.
TEW tourists know industrial
= Florida. There is no smoke
l. pail hanging over the state.
Perhaps more CRIME and pungent
factory smells would be a welcome
tonic for the states commercial
progress; yet what factories lack
in size they make up in variety.
Output ranges from toys, turtle
soup and turpentine to shiploads
of dressed lumber, phOsphates, and
cigars. For even more contrast,
add many linear miles of snake and
alligator skins, wooden shoes, and
canned grapefruit, jellies and mar
| maladeS.
One mill at Jacksonville grinds
oyster shells and ships them by
the carload to California, to help
the digestions of Pacific coast poul-
try: another makes glass bottles
| for Cuban brewerieS.
Palm fronds by the carload go
as far North as Canada, for use
on Palm Sunday. Palmetto fiber is
made into brushes. A college stu
dent pays his way by stuffing baby
alligators and selling them to tour
lists. He stuffed 800 in one season
alligatorS, not babies!
Men wade on the bottom of the
sea, picking sponges as a farm boy
pulls turnips. They are scientifical-
ly farmed and are shipped the
world around.
Schooners cruise as far away as
| the coast of Honduras, catching sea
turtles. Unloaded at Key West,
| these turtles are first branded on
the breastplate with the initials
of the local fishing company; then
they are put into big tanks and fed
on seaweed; later some are sent
alive to New York hotels, their
fiippers neatly folded across their
breasts and tied; others, guillo-
tined on we'll worn beheading
block, are turned into canned soup
at Key West; but before any tur-
tie can be taken from the tank he
has to pass an official inspection.
Turtles may not have fiat feet or
suffer from nervous disorders, but
now and then one is found in no
condition to go to market. He is
thrown back into the sea. Then,
sometimes, strange thing hap
pens; among a cargo of turtles
from Honduras, 700 miles away,
one is found with the company's
initials already branded on his boay
breast. Condemned and thrown
back into the sea, turtles, it seems,
swim all the way back to HOndu-
ras from Florida, only to be caught
again.
FuIIer's Earth Mill.
Near Quincy, in north Florida, is
a big building with wheels, roll
ers and hoppers. like flour mill ;
but it grinds dirt-fuller's earth.
Steam shovelS scoop up the clay
like substance by the acre. 1t is
dried, ground. sifted. sacked, and
shipped to oil refineries all over
the world. Through this fine pow
derry dust the oil is filtered. Dry
cleaners use it to take out grease
spots. 1t has many other uses ;
even the clay used in beauty shops
includes it.
In beds of this earth workmen
often find the bones of ancient an
mails. Scientists from the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History
dug up the fossiliZed body of a
manatee. The remains of saber-
toothed tigers, prehistoric little
horses, and even of camels ages
old. have been found in Florida.
A man sits on a high chair and
reads aloud to workers in Florida
cigar factories. They call him a
''lector." He is an old institution
among Cuban cigar-makers, like the
public story-teller in oriental ba-
Ears.
Many cigars are made at Key
West and some at Miami and Jack
sonville, but the industry centers
at Tampa, with its 200 factories
big and little. One Of them Iarns
out upward of half million a day
Much of the tobacco used is i'm.
ported from Cuba. Some is grown
in Florida and wrapper leaf also
comes from northern states.
Cheaper cig-;rs are made by clev.
er machines, whose movements
often curiously resemble the mo-
tions made by the hands of a hU
man cigar-maker. More expensive
cigars, of the size and shape known
TO the trade as cOronas, royals, per
fectos, panetelas, etc, are all made
bv hand. Three workers, sitting ir
a row at the same bench. form
a team. They are paid by the thou
sand. This grouping of workers
nto threes Is not done by the man
~oment; It is left to the cigar