Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1902 — TO RECLAIM THE EVERGLADES. [ARTICLE]

TO RECLAIM THE EVERGLADES.

Nearly a Million Acres May Be Turned Into a Garden. For the past fifty years, in fact, the practicability of draining the Everglades of Florida and thus adding a million acres or more to the wealth of the nation has been fully discussed. Several

surveys of that great submerged bastnr with its rich muck soli, its swamps, islands and streams, have been made during the past twenty years, so that the region i« no longer 'unknown. Fishermen, tvap- ■ per* and hunters have traversed the "glades” in every direction and have reported that, while they consist in the main of a vast morass of saw grass, tropical tiees and undergrowth, the? are , accessible. All are agreed as t> the • wonderful fertility of the soil where it is | not submerged and as to its capacity for : yielding great crops of sugar cane, rlcC | and of her products. j The prospects are now that from a .and I of desolation nnd waste the great swamp j rojhm of Florida known as the Ever- | glades- Is to be changed into a veritable garden spot, for work is already in progress \\ hereby the transformation is to be i fleeted. The scheme is of gigantic proportion, for it is the intention of its prqincters to reclaim nearly or quite a million acres of the most fertile laud to I*> Annul in this country which is now covered with water and rank tropical growths of wild plants, at present iuhabi ited only by alligators, snakes nnd mud turtles, and make it both habitable and cultivable. By opening canals and draining the great basin it is expected that nearly 4.000 square miles of rica land will ho added to the area of Florida, nnd a: the same time the State will be rid of one of its greatest drawbacks. While this enterprise is by no means a new one, the advances made in eng' Leering science during the past q-.-nrter of a century have made the problem more feasible than it was a few y-ars ago. and tiu* work can be done, it is said, at a minimum cost for so vast an undertaking. Operations have already been begun. and on the land reclaimed at the north side of the great luisin quit • a large tract has been cleared, upon which profitable crops of sugar cane, vegetables of all kinds, rice and corn have b. «--i produced without fertilizing flic soil or pajing much attention to tip- cultivation.