Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1902 — FLORIDA LETTER. [ARTICLE]

FLORIDA LETTER.

Thelma, Fla., April 4. Editor Democrat: After another two weeks silence we again attempt a letter to you, and possibly the last. We are thinking very seriously of starting toward home next week. Myers has at last lost all hope of ever killing a turkey and has his mind set on home, and that means go! We have been far away from postoffices since our last. We spent a week at Dannie Monroe’s, in the edge of the “Woodyard,” and from there moved to the “Water Hole,” near the mouth of Fish Creek, where we spent five days and had great sport fishing. The first day we got there, just at noon, and while Mrs. M. got-din-ner, Mr. M. took the little bass hook and rigged a line on the crookedest pole in the swamp and caught a fine big black bass. We were camped close to the water and the bass kept striking all the time and he left his dinner twice to go and make a cast for them, and caught two more while he was eating his dinner and two more before Mrs. M. had the dinner cleared away, making five in less than an hour, all fine, large ones —the big mouth bass. Mrs. M. had a tnssel with a big dog fish ruined forever her fine Bristol steel rod —but saved the dog fish and left it for the buzzards. Two days w hile there we went to the beach and fished with the net and caught one day 60 and one day 80 salt water fish. On Easter Sunday we had a fish fry and Mrs. Clark and Mr. and Mrs. Danrrie-

came out to dinner. It was a beautiful day, warm and clear. On Friday Mrs. M. drove the horse and wagon across the country to Blue Creek ford, near the ! old Keaton place, and Mrs. M. rowed the boat and net around ' into Blue creek and up to the old fish camp at the edge of the timber. We camped one night at the ford then drove into the fish camp where we still are. To-day we went outside and caught 22 fine sea trout, two mullet, a eheephead, a flounder, a salt water bream, a gar or two and about 20 catfish. ' We wish all you people at home I who are fish hungry could have your fill of them. We give away to all the white folks we see and are just a coining money selling fish to the ‘‘turpentine niggers.’’ Myers came in one day with 55 cents as awe-struck as a boy with his first pair of boots —the first money he had ever made in the south. (He jingled it in his pocket for days. For fear this letter will sound too fishy we ought to take up some other subject but we are nervous about these letters since one of our letters was said to read like a certain newspaper of our county, and if that is the case they are liable to be held up in the mail.) We had the most beautiful l>oquet of roses in camp last week, from Mrs. Stanalands, red and pink, monthly roses growing in the yard from bushes much higher than our heads. The weather is very summery and sand flies are very much in evidence whenever the wind dies out. From our camp we can look out across a salt marsh to the waters of the Gulf. The coast here is not like it is at St. Andrews. The waters are shallow and quiet her°, as there is a bar out about five miles that breaks the force of the waves There are no breakers here nor any sound of ti e ocean. We miss the roar of the breakers we heard the last two winters. Between us and the water are two or three palmetto islands, one of them being the one we got the photo of when here before. The country has changed a good deal in 5 years. There are many more settlers—home-steaders—and more stock; the scrub oaks are much larger, the grass shorter, the country drier, the game much scarcer and wilder, and the darkies much more plentiful. This has been the

coldest winter Florida ever knew The most steady cold. It began in November and lasted until March, with very few real warm days, but summer is here now in earnest and dry weather. The farmers are wanting rain for their crops. Monday we start for the railroad and will probably go to Branford, the nearest point, about 40 miles, if we sell our rig here, and we think it is sold, the buyer going on horse-back to Branford and driving the rig back. If we do not sell here will probably drive to Gainesville, 80 miles, and try to sell there. We stop over at Keuka, this side of Jacksonville, for Mrs. Baker, mother of Mrs. Funk of Wheatfield, who is going north in our company. When we leave there we go home as fast as steam can carry us. To all our friends and relatives who have so kindly written us so many letters this winter, we will say address your next to Wheatfield, as we will be there by the time your letters are.

MYERS & MYERS.

Keuka, Fla., April 13. Editor Democrat:—This beautiful Sabbath day finds us at the home of Grandma Baker, who is going north with us. She lives with a married son and they have a fine orange grove which they have kept up through all the freezes and drawbacks of this part of Florida, and while all around them are fine homes all gone down and orange groves entirely gone that were once worth one thousand dollars an acre, their grove is all ready now to make them good money from now on till another freeze comes. They have bearing trees of oranges, grape fruit, tangerines; also pears, peaches and mulberries and strawberries. And the roses are something grand, of every color, shape and style. Mrs. M. is sporting a boquet this morning composed of a mammoth Marshal Neil rosebud and a rose geranium leaf and some sweet violets. The orange trees are in bloom and the air is heavy with the odor of flowers, and the mocking birds are singing their sweetest songs in honor of the beautiful summer day We left Thelma, Tuesday, about ten o’clock, and drove eleven miles that day and about twentythree miles the next day, going through Mayo, the county seat of Lafayette Co. Thursday we drove sixteen miles to Branford, where we got a train Friday about noon. We sold our rig before leaving Thelma and a man came to Bran-

ford to take it back, so we got boxes and packed our baggage and got it to the depot just as the man got there for the horse. So we bade good-bye to old Peter, the faithful old horse, and watched them across the river on the ferry and out of sight, feeling as if our home was disappearing before our eyes. We had a very pleasant trip across the country to Branford as it rained a good shower Monday eve and turned cool and the sand roads were much better for the rain. The flat woods were not wet enough to be bad roads so we got along very nicely. We traveled one (lay on the main road from the county teat town of Perry of Majo, another county seat, and only met and passed three teams, all day, and two miles out from Mayo we found a gate closed across the road, by some one who probably kept cows on one side of the gate and calves on the other. At this season of the year they “pen” their cows, as they call it, fencing in a small patch and putting a cross-fence in, and at night drive the cattle up and put the calves in one part and cows in the other. They let the calves have all the milk at night but milk the cow® in the morning, and then the cows are turned out and driven one way and the calves another on the range. In a few’ days they learn to come up and go in their seperate “pens” by themselves. During this milking season, which lasts about three months, the calves are all branded, and butter and milk are plenty. The rest of the year the cattle run on the range and no one has any butter or milk, no matter how many cows he owns. Next year they fence a new cow-pen and use this year’s for a crop. We came from Branford on the train around thro’ High Springs and Gainesville to Rochelle, where we had to stay all night and the next forenoon leaving about 3:30 and reached Keuka in about an hour, where we found Mr. Baker waiting for us with a horse and wagon. We start tomorrow evening for the north and if we reach Jacksonville on time, will be home Wednesday morning. Myers & Myers.