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Gobernor 'Brolvard on the TLb er glades Drainage Work
By FRANK L. MAYES.
The day which I spent with Govern
or Broward and President Bittinger
of the State Press Association look
ing over the Everglades drainage
work which the dredges are now do
ing back of Fort Lauderdale on the
New River was one which I wish
every member of the Press Associa
tion could have experienced. Fort
Lauderdale is on the East Coast rail
road about 25 miles north of Miami
and has been for years the chief
trading post of the Seminole Indians
who come down the New River in
their canoes and return in the same
way to their shifting abodes in the
Everglades. The New River is a
swift, deep stream of pure, fresh
water getting its supply from the
vast Everglades overflow and empty
ing into the Atlantic some three or
four miles from Fort Lauderdale at
what is known as New River Inlet.
* * *
And here let me digress for a mo
ment to mention a most enjoyable
hour which we spent with Hon.
Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, at his
beautiful home on the north point of
New River Inlet, w’here the Georgia
statesman spends a portion of the
winter season and, far from the busy
haunts of men, enjoys the quietude of
nature while he pursues the literary
work which has made him famous and
edits the magazine which bears his
name. His home is a beautiful place,
overlooking the Atlantic from the
east doorway and a placid lagoon from
the west and surrounded by palms,
cocoanut trees, and plants and flowewg
peculiarly indigenous to that tropic
clime. Los Olas, the Spanish term for
quietude, I believe he calls the place,
and it is well named, for aside from
the song of the mocking bird and
his feathered associates and the cease
less murmur of the waves which “seek
to utter half the story of the sea
and die in music with the tale un
told,” there is nothing to disturb eith
er the rest or the work of the man
whose name as the author of the “Life
of Napoleon” and the “Story of
France” is as familiar to the literary
world as it is to his millions of fel
low citizens in America who have
either read his “Life of Jefferson” or
watched his career as one of the mas
ter minds which the world of politics
and economics has produced. I would
not transgress the proprieties of the
occasion by relating anything of the
purely personal and social conversa
tion which that brief hour encom-
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We Commenced Selling' Good
Clothing Sixteen Years Ago
We improve our Manufacturing facilities with every season's advent. We can't
possibly see where there’s any room for improving our Clothing. We know there's no
room to improve prices. But they have always been very reasonable.
New Spring Suits for Mens7.so, $lO, $12.50, sls, S2O, $25.
Boys' and Children's Suitssl.so, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6.50.
Men’s Pantssl.so, $2, $2.50, $3, $4, $5, $6.50, $7.50..
Everything that’s right in Hats and Furnishings.
Mail Orders:—'Samples of Suits or Pants will be sent to any address. But always give
size and price goods wanted.
THE GLOBE CLOTHING COMPANY
89-91 WHITEHALL ST., ATLANTA, GA.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
passed, but I have never been more
thoroughly impressed with the mental
penetration of a man or met one
with a spirit so infectious as when,
in company with the governor of Fiori,
da, I formed one of a party of Flori
dians who called to pay their re
spects to the noted Georgia citizen
who has done as much probably in the
moulding of public opinion as any
other one man of his time.
♦ ♦ ♦
But to the Everglades drainage
work. Some six or eight miles up
New River and back into the Ever
glades, the state has two dredges in
operation. One has only recently
been completed and is only just be
ginning its real work. The othe/ is
making steady progress in a north
westerly direction toward Lake Okee
chobee some fifty miles away. It is
the intention to cut two parallel
ditches six miles apart direct from
New River to Lake Okeechobee, thus
reclaiming the strip between the
ditches as the work progresses and
demonstrating the feasibility as well
as the value of the drainage project.
I have never had any doubt as to
the feasibility of draining the Ever
glades—there has never been any
question in my mind that it could
be done —the question that has always
bothered me was whether or not the
work, when completed, would be
worth the cost. But about that fur
ther on.
* ♦ *
The ditch which is now being cut
is 65 feet wide at the top, 50 feet
at the bottom, is 14 feet deep, and
the water, as affected by the tide
and river, comes to within about three
feet of the top, making 11 feet of
water in the excavation. The dredge
has since the beginning been cutting
its way through coral rock of which
there is over three miles from the
point where the ditch leaves the
river to the nearest point on the route
where it strikes the seft mud forma
tion which the greater part of the
route includes. It will, according to
the engineer’s estimate, require six
months’ work to get out of this coral
rock and into the mud, and progress
then will be much easier and faster.
♦ * ♦
The prediction was made that a
canal cut through this coral ledge
would either be impossible with the
equipment which the governor provid
ed, or would be so costly that it would
bankrupt the state. Yet Governor
Broward tells me that, figuring in all
expenses of operation and 20 per cent
on the value of the dredge for wear
and tear, he is cutting this ditch for
6 cents per cubic yard through the
rock and can do it for 4 cents per
cubic yard through the mud. This
is much cheaper than Mr. Flagler’s
dredges are working in Biscayne Bay
or at Key West and cheaper than any
contract dredging has ever been done
in the sand on Pensacola bar.
♦ * *
The drainage of the Everglades, as
embodied in Governor Broward’s plan,
embraces two main features —first, a
means of lowering the water in Lake
Okeechobee which, fed by the Kissim
mee river and other streams from the
north, annually overflows the 21-foot
rim which surrounds it and floods the
entire surrounding territory; and,
second, a means of draining from the
flat glades the 60-inch annual rain
fall sufficiently to make them fit for
cultivation.
♦ * ♦
The lowering of Lake Okeechobee
contemplates simply the cutting of one
or more ditches sufficient to carry off
the excess volume of water which
fills that huge basin at different times
in the year and thus prevent the
overflows. The drainage of the glades,
after the Lake Okeechobee overflow
has been prevented, contemplates the
cutting of small lateral ditches by the
owners of the land, connecting with
the main state ditches and at such
depths and distances apart as may be
necessary. This done, the land be
comes immediately tillable and no one
knows just how valuable it may then
become.
♦ ♦ ♦
This Everglades soil is undoubtedly
the richest in the world. All the way
up New River I saw large fields of to
mato plants, many of which had been
drained by the individual owners. At
several points on either side of the
big drainage ditch which the dredge
is now cutting I saw tomato plants in
fruit on the land that a few months
ago was under water, but whose black
muck soil is now producing the heavi
est crops that can be grown anywhere
in the world. I walked through an
orange grove on a small island in the
Everglades which the owner told me
was yielding him a handsome profit
but to which he could seldom get
access except by water. He can drive
to it by team now.
* ♦ ♦
As I said before, there has never
been any doubt in my mind as to the
feasibility of drainage. There is no
doubt in my mind that the soil, when
drained, will produce the heaviest
crops that can be produced anywhere.
But the scheme is so vast, the cost
so great, and the obstacles so numer
ous that I have always hesitated to
lend my approval to a project whose
benefits seemed so expensive and so
remote. I do not therefore even now
pretend to say that the plan, simply
as a drainage proposition, will prove
a profitable one, but after traversing
this big ditch and seeing the actual
work of excavation which is going on,
I have no hesitancy in in
my judgment at least one canal should
be cut into Lake Okeechobee, and the
old Diston ditch which now connects
the lake with the Caloosahatchee on
the west should be widened and deep
ened to a like capacity with the canal
from New River on which the dredge
is now at work. “Why?” do you ask.
* * *
Listen. The East Coast Canal Com
pany, a private enterprise, has now
practically completed the dredging of
an inland waterway from Miami
through the shallow lagoons along
the east coast to St. Augustine. This
waterway parallels a railroad. From
St. Augustine, the company will cut
some twelve miles west into the St.
John’s River, giving them communica
tion with Jacksonville and again away
to the southward of the interior to
ward the head of the St. John’s —
and over all of this territory this
waterway is but paralleling highways
of commerce (railroads) that are al
ready established.
• * *
The cutting of Governor Broward’s
ditch from the Atlantic ocean into
Lake Okeechobee will give the pub
lic a waterway—a highway of com
merce —straight across the state from
the Atlantic to the gulf. If it is worth
the while of a private canal company
to dredge a waterway along the
east coast where a great highway of
commerce, like a railroad, already ex
ists, will it not be worth the state’s
while to dig a canal across the state
itself, through a section where no
communication is now possible, thus
(Continued on page 11.)
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