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Show BACK FROM FLORIDA ..'LANDS John A. Roston, one of the Ogdon representatives of Florida lands, has Just returned from a trip to Florida, and is enthusiastic In regard to the opening up, settlement and future of the everglade districts of that state. To a Standard reporter Mr. Roston talked entertainingly of his southern trip, and among other things said: "I am Just home from n quick trip to Florida and am more than pleased with c nditloDB as 1 found them on the east coast of that stute. Work Is progressing nicely in tho construction work of the drainace canals now W-ing di;g there to recbli.i a vast area, and that section Is at present the objective objec-tive point of hundreds of people who are going there from every state In the Un on and Canada to Investigate. A large number of people are Interested In-terested in Florida lands. "I left Jacksonville with Mr. West of Oklahoma and a Mr. Maxwell of St. I-ouIs. and our first stop was at St. Augustine, the oldest city In the United States, where we remained a day sightseeing, visiting the 'Fountain 'Foun-tain of Youth,' the tildett house built and now standing in America, the alligator alli-gator farm aud other points of Inter-terest. Inter-terest. From there we went to Del ray and a little later started for the beach, which Is only half a mile distant. dis-tant. CrosslDg the canal we commenced com-menced an Investigation of conditions. condi-tions. "We visited several orange and grape-grult groves, apple orchards and tomato patches, as well as packing pack-ing houses, asking questions and securing se-curing Information from old-tomers. One man there had about five acres In fruit, and perhaps tho same area in tomatoes and pineapples. He well satisfied and making u good thing. Another man had thirty acres, about half under cultivation and planted In pines and tomatoes. We visited his packing house, where they were closing up the last of the first crop of tomatoes. These were bringing bring-ing 50 cents per crate, but we were told that they had , been selllug as high as $1.45 and even $1.95 per crate. This man had been shipping from one to five carloads per week. 'Another man, who had Just com pleted his harvest from a three-acre tract of tomaioes, told us he had made Sl.r.uo from the produce and still had another crop to come. An-riother An-riother man whom we talked to con fessed that he had made a complete failure of his crop, and he was then tmpoyed n a packing house. You see, some mako good and others do not. I heard while down there of some remarkable profits made, but I do not care to repeal these, as they sound loo big to us people of the north. "Florida has an Ideal climate. There Is no sultriness, and invariably a cool breeze is blowing. This Is one of the very few spots on earth where something can be grown the entire year It Is healthful down there and we wore advised that thero was no malaria, colds, rheumatism or tuberculosis tuber-culosis troubles. "I went up tho Miami river, and at the point where the big canal empties Into the river thero is a fruit farm on part muck land. I went through this orchard and picked elegant oranges and grape fruit from the trees. The fruit is tho finest I have ever secu. "From Miami to Jacksonville is 3CG miles and in that distance there are 100 stops, or an. average of three aud a half miles between towns. I checked these off from a time table and know this statement to be correct cor-rect Some of these towns are fairly-good fairly-good sized little cities, and others of course are small settlements, but the whole country Is settling up rapidly." |