Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, September 5, 1913, Page 4

| b < P o N W il PAGE FOUR 0 The Eveaing Telegra Published every afterncon from th: Kentucky Building, Lakeland, Fla wntered in the postoffice <t Lake fand, Florida, as mail matter of tb: second class M. F. HETHEmINGTON, EDITOk — HENRY BACON, MANAGER. SUBSCRIFTIUN RATES: Dng year ..... .. $6.00 Wix I!onthl bk e s . 25 Whree months ... P b Delivered anywhere within th: Uimits of the City of Lakeland for 1. pents a week From tie same office 1§ issued |THE LAKELAND NEWS, A weekly newspaper giving & resum: o local matters, crop cowditions pounty affairs, etc. Sent anywner: for §$1.00 per year. The latest is the yarn that Park Trammell is to oppose Congressman Sparkman. Talk is cheap, but Gov- ernor Trammell will run for no oth- er office until he shall have served his term as governor. And then somebody, somewhere, better look out.—St. Petersburg Times. Without any inside knowledge on the subject, we are strongly of the opinion that the Times has sized up the situation accurately. —_— It is impossible to withhold all sympathy from Harry Thaw in his game, persistent, high-priced fight for liberty. His personality is not heroic, but he has suffered seven years for killing the rake who de- bauched his wife and as he has nev- er been crazy a day in his life ex- cept when he was drunk, it seems like carrying a joke too far to stick him back in Mattaewan. The Lakeland Telegram ‘‘hopes that all personalities and Gov. Gil- | christ's poetry will be excluded from the campaign.” THow about the monkeys? Why limit the out. put?—"Times-Union ., The monkeys were all right and we had no objection to them. They were the concrete symhols of a worthy cthical motive and the gen- ial ex-gzovernor used them to good | advantage without offending our ar- tistic sensibilitics. But can we say as much for his poetry? With our hand on our heart, we trow not. s (s Editor Butler announces that his position, as cditor of the Citrus County Chronicle, ceases Oct, 1. It was useless to name the date, be- cause the local page of the Chron- fele will tell when he ceases con- nection with it mueh more foreibiy than words. —Jasper News. ; This is the first news we have ~ had of Major Butler’s intention to . Tetire from the Inverness Chronicle, and in common with all his breth- ren of the State press, we want to know his address for the future. As a news gatherer for a weekly paper he is unsurpassed -hardly equalled—and personally he is one of the most interesting characters in Florida journalism. Good luck to you, Major, wherever you go. You deserve the best. s Osceola county still maintaing her policy of appropriating funds to have her county papers used as im- migration agents through the North and West. She has made it pay well heretofore in bringing in new people and doubtless it will continue to pay. The Gainesville Sun says: “Realizing that the newspapers are the real boosters and advertisers for every community, the county commissioners of Osceola county have made an appropriation for sending out 1,200 copies of the two Kissimmee papers and the St. Cloud paper, to people in the North. This is but a just recognition of the good work done by these papers in the way of boosting their county. Every year the newspapers all over the State give hundreds of dollars’ worth of free advertising to the county in which they are in with never a thought of remuneration for their space or work.” B — | e — Hon. Emmet Wilson. representa- tive in Congress from the Third dis. trict, dogsn't come out in so many words and say so, but he permits a trusted friend to sagaciously sur- mise through the Jacksonville Me- tropolis that he (Hon. Emmet) will not be a candidate for the Sen- ate against Senator Fletcher. This patisfles acute public curiosity, al- Jays wide-spread popular anxiety and will enable Senator Fletcher to get a good night's rest. In all se- riousness, there is almost a comic, Jack-in-the-box element in this in- cessant jumping up or Jumping down of distinguished gentlemen who after careful deliberation have determined either to run or not to zun against Senator Fletcher for the office the latter gentleman now holds. There {8 no conceivable TYY EVENING TELEGRAM, LAK ELAND, FLA., SEPT. 5, 1913. e s L WP ot cood reason why Mr. Wilson, a young man who has just broken into the lower house of Congress and has hardly fleshed his maiden gsword, should seek to oust Mr. Fletcher from his seat in the Unit- ed States Senate, and equally there is no good reason why he should enter a disclaimer on the subject. There should be more tarrying in Jericho among gentlemen with sen- atorial ambitions. —_— And now it is Dade county that must face the music on the prohibi- tion issue. The Miami Herald says that a petition for a wet or dry elec. tion has been filed with the county commissioners ‘and no doubt the same will be called for a date in the near future.” To the imbibers in a saloon town where ‘red lick- er' has always been openly sold it seems almost like the end of the world or some other cataclysm when a popular vote closes the saloons and drives out the liquor traffic; but time cures all griefs, even though it may not allay all thirst, and communitics thus bereaved, rally with surprising quickness from “the staggering blow to their commerce,” and a few years later the return of the saloons would surprise and disgust that commun- ity even more than their original departure. The blow is impending over Ocala and perhaps soon over Miami, and, while we know nothing of the prospects, the boys would bet- tr prepare to stand from under, for prohibition is marching on and it encounters few defeats in the small- er cities. —_—— TR0 CRORORCROBOHCACBONCAONN IBCRCBORC RCBOHIRSH -] o SEPTEMBER 5 IN HISTORY ? l =] [-] LHOR0H0H0: CUOROBIICY CHOHOHCHCHORCHORCROROHC: TH0HCH 1829-—The purchase of Texas by the United States being discussed by the American and foreign press. I1848-- King's troops took Messina, Italy. 1854 —1The allied Freneh and Erg- lish forces made an attack by sea and land on Petropaulov. ski. | 1870- -The French republic pro- | claimed Gen. Trochu com- mander-in-chief ot the forces in Paris, and Jules Favre, minister of foreizgn affairs. 1904-—Reported Russians preparing to evacuate city. Attacks on Port Arthur increasing; Jap- anese not allowing defenders a moment's rest, 1912—New outbreaks reported outlying Chinese provinces. in v VORCE TOROMCFCROY HORCROFQICICE IBOROCCY CBOKCHODY ] e TODAY'S BIRTHDAY HONORS. =] -] 12HCHCBCECE IOUCBHCEC QHQOHOBCHOHOROBOBORON 0B8R Congressman Edward W. Town. [ send, of New Jersey, is 46, and a na- tive of ('leveland, Ohio. Ile is the author of many books of short stories and novels; was elected to the Sixty-second Congress and re-elected to the Sixty-third Congress. NOTICE FOR BIDS The board of bond trustees acting as a board of public works, and the commissioner of public works of the city of Lakeland, Florida, will on or before 10 a. m. on the 15th day of September, A. D. 1913, receive sealed bids for the curbing concrete foundations and paving of the fol- lowing named streets, or parts of streets in the city of Lakeland, Florida. Separate bids are to be made for asphalt, composition pave- ment. Said bids to contain sepa- rate figures for curbing, concrete foundations and paving. Asphalt Coanposition Paving Tennessee avenue from Pine to Bay street, 30 feet wide. Walnut street from Florida ave- nue to Tennessee avenue, 20 feet wide. Lemon street from Florida avenue to Massachustts avenue, 20 feet. The work to be done in accord. ance with plans and specifications made by the engineer representing the city of Lakeland and filed in the office of the secretary of the | board. All bids to be addressed to ! the “‘secretary of the board of pub- ‘llc works, Lakeland, Florida,” and { marked “street paving bids.” | The board of public works and the | commissioner @ public works re- serve the vight to reject any ard all bids. By order of the board of public | works and commissioner of public | works of the city of Lakeland, Flor- ida, dated Sept. 4, 1913. H. D. BASSETT, Vice Chairman of Board Bond Trus- tees, Acting for the Board of Public Works. 0. J. POPE Commiesioner Public Works. 1153 THE MOST FASCINATING GAME IN THE WORLD (By Harry Snowden Stabler.) All good Floridian thing from the Big Freeze. That happened twenty years ago--a& short time in any country except this blessed one of ours--but as long ago as it seems to them no man in that warm ¢limate recalls it without a shudder. However, should such an atmospheric freak occur today it would not only be far less destruc- tive, but it would be viewed with more equanimity by the people, for in 1912 the citrus fruits came near being fourth instead of first in the value of the State’s products. Florida today is an unknown country to ninety-nine out of every hundred people in the United States. Even the majority of those who visit it fail to get anything like a cor- rect idea. In 1894 the peninsula was thought by the inhabitants themselves to be a mere strip of sand jutting out between the At. lantic and the gulf, fit for nothing but growing oranges. So if you had then ventured the opinion that the freeze was a sort of economic cata- clysm—one of those proverbial ‘“blessings in disguise’--you would probably have been hanged to a sour orange tree if one could have been found. But there were mighty few left, and many people, thinking their only asset was wiped out, quit the State. There were many others, however, possessed of courage, for- titude and vision, whose faith in the future of the country has been am- ply justified. Those who stuck to citrus growing realized that while freezes do come every now and then to damage the crops, or even cut the season’s tender growth back, the temperature had not fallen so low as fourteen degrees in Florida since 1835. Among them was E. H. Mote, whose story is worth sketch. | ing because it is in some ways typi- cal of thousands of men who came to Florida when it was in a very primi- tive stage, fell in love with it and stuck to it. Mr. Mote was a Delaware man. Like many another he went south for his health in 1881, locating at Leesburg, then a village of less than a hundred people, situated between Lake Griffin and Lake Harris. The lake rezion is by far the most beau- tiful part of Florida, but even then the crooked promoter was abroad in the land. So the newcomer promptly got stung in the purchase of some land which he had never seen, al- though he paid only five dollars an acre for it. With the deed in his pocket he went out to take a look at it. It was not only covered with scrub, but there were a lot of small mounds scattered all over it. Be- neath each one was a hole. “What are those?" he asked. “Gopher holes.” The Florida gopher is not fnrrm]’ but shelled. It is a sort of land tur. tle and it often dig: a hole into which you could throw a good-sized valise. Disgusted, the tenderfoot was about to drop his deed into one of them when he was persuaded to trade the land for a pair of mules, one of which was spavined, the other blind in one eye. With this pair of steeds and $300 Mr. Mote embarked in the livery business. It jogged along a few years, finally came down to a walk, and then one day a per- fectly bare feed room over the sta- ble ave him an idea. Danger from Frost is Less Now In a week or so enthusiastic Flor- idians were sailing round on roller skates. The rink was opened in February and by July it had netted $2,200, just enough to give Mr. Mote a start in the hotel business That grew, but the town needed a | real emporium. It was opened with a general stock of goods costing $8,- 000, half of which was bought with cash. A series of free excursions brought the natives from distances of fifty miles or more and the whole stock was sold out in less than two weeks. Out of this business he bought a twenty.acre orange grove in 1891, paying $32,000 for it and forty acres adjoining. Groves were Just as high priced in those days as they are now. Then came the Biz Freeze which cut the trees to the ground and broke him as well as every one else in the citrus industry. Nothing daunted he abandoned that land aud started to build another grove upon some hummock land which was used for growing vegetables. This occu- pied a small peninsula at the south- west of Lake Griffin. In four years 10,000 trees Lad been set out, when in 1899 another freeze cut them back so they had to be budded over again. This time half the new buds were grapefruit of a seedless variety, the rest being oranges and tangerines. It was in this grove, accompanied by the man who built it. that I first saw a citrus tree in full bearing. It came to me as a distinct shock, for if there is anything in nature so beautiful or impressive T have yet s date every- | to see it, unless it is an orange tree with the bloom, the green fruit and the ripe fruit all upon it. This par- ticular tree, an unusually fine one for its age—about twelve years--was not more than that many feet tall with its lower branches touching the ground. Hanging upon them were at least 400 grapefruit—about ten or twelve boxes such as you see in the stores. I crawled under the branches and tried to get an ade. quate picture of the great yellow globes, half a dozen of which could be seen hanging to a stem smaller than a lead pencil. But neither words nor camera can describe it. “Now you can understand,” said my host, “why the growing of tiese things {8 the most fascinating occu- pation in the world. No, the danger from frost does not lessen or add to its zest, because it {8 much less than it used to be. We have learned a great many things about frost pro- tection in a comparatively short time. ““Most varieties of grapefruit and oranges are now budded on the har- dier native or sour-orange stock and close to the ground. That eliminates the single tall trunk, so the branches often seem to spring out of the earth., Before cold weather comes the tree is banked with clean, dry earth, sometimes to a height of three feet, which effectually protects the most valuable part of it. And should a very severe freeze occur, at least fifty per cent of the tree's value would be saved, besides giving us a good long start on the new growth. “Then, too, the temperature in a grove located near a fair-sized body of water will be anywhere from six to ten degrees warmer than other. wise. The land slopes gently from the center in all directions, which not only allows a natural drainage, but also enables us to irrigate it by pumping water from the lake to the highest point, whence it is evenly ! distributed.” We had gone up to the pump house and stood looking across 125 acres | in full bloom, with aere and there a tree on which the fruit had been left to ripen. The perfume is not the only thing that is likely to go to your head. Figures to Make Your Brain Reel “When this grove is in full bear- ing, when the youngest trees, are, say, ten years old, how many boxes of fruit ought it to produce each year?” 1 asked. “That is a rather difficult thing to say,” was the reply. “Like the stars, one year differeth from an- other in glory. Neither are all trees alike, But call it an average of four boxes to a tree. There are 15,000 of them in this grove, which would make 60,000 boxes.” ‘At what price a box?" “That again is hard to say. But in a good year grapefruit from this grove have sold on a basis of $3.50 a box on the tree; oranges from $1.40 to $2; tangerines from $2 to $3.60. But leave out those figures, which are exceptional, and call it $1 a box.” “That's $60,000 profit?” “Even at 50 cents a box that would be $30,000--twenty per cent on $160,000, or $1,200 an acre, for which this grove has been sold.” Such figures as these set one's brain to buzzing. And with that ten-box tree in mind.-it is there yet, by the way--I wonder if four boxes & tree was not ultra-conservative for such a grove. It seemed so, indeed, And the net | this estimate on a five acre grove of grapefruit heginning with the fifth year. It will be noticed that the cost of fertilizer, which would amount to $2,475, seems not to have been included in the summary. Fer- Yield Yoar tilizer Labor Spraying Boxes 6 (% i .40 .10 4 6 .18 .46 .10 7 .21 .62 .15 5 8 .30 .70 .15 9 .36 .85 .18 1 10 .45 1,05 .20 11 .50 1.2 .20 8.9 12 .60 1.35 .20 13 .66 1,50 .25 10-12 14 50 1.7 .25 15 .80 1.80 .25 15 “This is a very conservative es- timate,” writes the compller of this table, “as it figures a Crop every other year only and a moderate yield at than. T have alloweq for heavy fertilization and goog care, to this estimate it would be proper to add twenty per cent for wear and tear of implements, and so on. I figure the cost of one tree from the fifth to the sixteenth vear would be $13.53, or for an acre of 100 trees $1,353, which, with ap added twex;: ty per cent for incidentals, would amount to $1,62:) an per acre, or $8,118 for five acres, : “According to my table of esti- Ore rir for in the Florida Grower I found | %25 Is The Price of a Good Suit of Clothes It’s mates a tree would yield in this time 51 boxes of fruit, or 5,100 boxes for one acre, or 25,000 boxes for flve acres. If this fruit sold on the tree at $1 a box and we deduct the cost of production, or $8118, we have a balance of $17,382. All this based on a $1 a box price. of a fifteen.year-old five-acre grove is really about 7,600 boxes an acre every two years—a return of twen- ty per cent on a valuation of $18,- 750, based on $1 a box.” Which is to say twenty per cent on a value of $3,750 per acre! Hadn’t T Just paid at Jacksonville nearly $4 for a box of fruit to send home? Everybody does it, and like | everybody else I resolved to build or buy a grove. Thereupon I ran into a mass of contradictions that were utterly bewildering. For the next day I was offered a sixteen acre | grove containing about 1.200 or. range and grapefruit trees for $6,- 000. Most of the trees were in full bearing, too. The word of the agent who offered it to me I know to be as good as his { bond; moreover, his judgment is re- | puted to be on a par with either. dition,” he said, “and there is some white fly in it which need not bother you. A few hundrd dollars will put it into fine shape. From the bloom inow on it I think this grove will | produce enough fruit this coming season to net you $1,500.” ““Hold on,” T said, “that's twenty. five per cent of the price. 1 don’'t doubt your word for a moment, but will you tell me frankly how it is hat tke owner of this grove is will- | Ing to part with it on such terms?” “I'll answer that question if you will answer one of mine,” he | promptly responded. “How is it that one man will open a store, neglect his business and sell out to another who will make money with the same stock of gonas?” That was an angle that had net been considered. I ran across still another point of view when an agent in a different part of the state showed me a twelve-acre grove, six years old, that had ‘been sold for less than $4,000. . same question that I had asked ‘the first agent I put to him. “How I8 it,” he replied, “that you g0 into a shop and pay $50 for a suit of clothes that costs the tailor a little more than half that? He buys the goods and trimmings, fits ‘ it on you and takes his profit, doesn’t he? Sume way viith the man who :[b:xihls an orange grove. He doesn't consider the fact that from your roint of view it is a bar;zain.’.' That being the case the next | thing was to find out what it would | cost to build a grove and what in- come it would bring at, say, six vears of aze I found it in a book let written for the benefit of the homeseeker in Florida, this way: Ten Acres in Orange and Grapefruit, The Costs and the Profits s Statement based on land being set in best varieties of hudded stock, 100 trees to the acre, cultivated and fer. tilized to the best advantage. First Year--Cost of grove, esti- mating the price of land cleared at 1 $70 an acre; 500 each of the ona- | Year.old budded orange and grape- fruit trees at fifty cents each, set- | ting, fert!lizer, cultivation, etc., $1,- | | o — PA'S MODERN AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN HOTEL TAY Electric Elevators, Electric Fans in Diaing Room. DESUIU HHIEL W A [Y;‘L Ra;ker. Mgr B - : Tampa, Fla. ; ‘ ). mest comfortatle lobby in the city. Two large porches; do not have to be ccoped up, All o utsida rooms and well ventilated. ' Courtous Treatment G varanteed Our Patrons Baa i L RATE_S—EVUROPEAN n. o ro0m, Wwithont bath...$1.50 Two persons, withoutbat h.. 2.50 vig nesson, with bath. ... 2.00 Two persons, with bath...::.S:Oo Cre pe-con without bath. ., n with bath ...... 3.50 average man. But to be sure of genuine satisfaction we ag- vise that you have our Ghicago tailors Ed. V. Price& Co. make your clothes to your indivig- ual measure. are lower and some that are higher but we'd like to show you that $3; i value. M pl Wi LIAMSON-MOORE (0. e E>clusive Local Dealers The capacity | Net income from grapefruit, 1-3 b, “This grove is not in first-class con- | the price that suits the We have prices that sl " =1l I\ [ TN 340. Second Year--Fertilizer and jahy $350; interest on $1,340 at ¢ p cent, $80.40; total, $1,770.4¢, Third Ycar.-Fertilizer and la) $400; interest on $1,770.40 at per cent, $106.22; total, $2,276.¢ 1eRG per tree, $626; cost of grove at u of third year, $1,661.62. Fourth Year-—Fertilizer ang *® bor, $500; interest on $1,561.62 ;T° 6 per cent, $99.10; total, $2,250.7.° Net income from oranges, 1 box m::: tree, $5v0; net income rrom graj: fruit, 2 boxes per tree, $2,500; plus at end of fourth year, $74! Fifth Year--Net income from anges, 11.4 boxes per tree, } {net income from grapefruit, 21 | boxes per tree, $3,125; interest czte surplus ($749.28) at 6 per \'v:x,; | $44.96. Fertilizer and labor, $ul ‘lsurphls at end of fifth year §: 1944.24, v: Sixth Year--Net Income from c.-g |anges, 11.2 boxes per tree, $7i z ! net income from grapefruit, 3 ! | per tree, $5,750; interest o | plus ($3,941.24) at 6 per oo | $236.65; total, $8,680.89. I | izer and labor, $600; surplus at ¢, of sixth year, $8,080.89. I have been unable to corro this table, save, perhaps, in the of the fertilizer and labor after (Continued on Page 3) ‘it Specigl_!’rices BELOW WE GIVE A FEW OF 0T); PRICES WITH MANY OTHEMe 400DS OF EQUAL QUALITY AN}Y PRICE. : QUALITY OF GOODS I3 TH), FIRST THING WE LOOK AFTEla AND THEN THE PRICE TO MES! YOUR APPROVAL WITH A GUAlr} ANTEE THAT EVERYTHINI WILL BE AS REPRESENNED. THESE PRICES FOR CASH ONLY ! L8 pounds Sugar for.........$1.008 . ; Best Butte, per Ib, ....... [ Cottolene, 10 pound cax . ..... L2 Cottolene, & pound ...... b 3nowdrift, 10 pounds ... 1.10, 3nowdritt, 6 pounds ....., 4, 4 cans Baby Stze Credm. .. Hy Jetagon Sonp, 6 for.......... ": jroun¢ Coftee, per pound ..... b 3weet Corn, 8 for ........ e ) lest Whita Meat, per Ib 1 Kal. Kerosene .......... 6, 7pound Lard, per lb. .... 10y ¥eed Stift i our specialty, e art 1t on South Florida avenue Bul € ‘all us. We deliver the goods RATES—AMERICAN +-$3.00 Two persons, without bath... 2.50 6.50 D. H. CUMBIES CO0. Phone 337 lakelano-i SAVE TIME & MONEY'! HALF TONES- LINE PLATES qu_anl TIONLNY L T *PROMPT MAIL ORDER SERVICE cTeoeoeeoeocseoaeee> - 27) SPECIALDESIGN S Two persons with bath