OKEFINOKEE SWAMP 6ii 



nearly half the population of Ware County, and is the largest city in 

 the pine-barrens of Georgia, the density of population in 1900 was 8.5 

 per square mile, the proportion of whites 69 per cent., and the increase 

 since 1890 30 per cent. For the whole state of Georgia the corres- 

 ponding figures were 37.5 per square mile, 53 per cent, white and 21 

 per cent, increase. 



The principal occupations of the people in these counties, outside 

 of the towns, are stock-raising, lumbering, turpentining, farming, 

 hunting and fishing, approximately in the order named. There seem 

 to be a few " moonshiners " just south of the swamp in Florida. Not 

 more than 10 per cent, of the area of the four counties named, even 

 with the swamp excluded, has been touched by the plow as yet. Until 

 quite recently this flat sandy land was considered as little better than a 

 desert, but its merits are beginning to be appreciated, as is proved by 

 the rapid increase of population in the last decade. The leading crops 

 of this region are corn, sugar-cane, oats, sea-island cotton, sweet ])ota- 

 toes and rice. Sugar-cane syrup is becoming one of the principal agri- 

 cultural exports, especially north and west of the swamp. 



Healthfulness of the Eegion 



Like Dismal Swamp and the Everglades, the vicinity of Okefinokee 

 is remarkably free from climatic or endemic diseases, Fountain's state- 

 ments to the contrary notwitlistanding. Malaria, which in the popular 

 mind is commonly associated with swamps of all kinds, seems to be 

 chiefly confined to alluvial districts, and is therefore not to be expected 

 around Okefinokee, which is strictly a non-alluvial swamp. As many 

 as 200 men were sometimes employed in the swamp by the Suwanee 

 Canal Company, and it is said that there was never a case of malaria 

 among them or their families who lived at Camp Cornelia. No one is 

 known to have ever died in the Okefinokee, from illness, snake-bite, 

 starvation, drowning, or any other cause. On the contrary, instances 

 are recorded of men suffering with rheumatism who have gone in there 

 to work and come out in a few days greatly relieved, if not cured. 



The chief drawback — though not a serious one — to life in the 

 swamp is the drinking water. It is of course rather warm in summer, 

 and always full of fine particles of peat, just as in northern cedar- 

 swamps, but nevertheless it is not unwholesome. Its properties are 

 doubtless similar to those of the Dismal Swamp water, which used to 

 be preferred by navigators sailing from Norfolk and vicinity because 

 on account of its slightly antiseptic properties it kept fresh on shipboard 

 longer than any other kind. 



The flat pine-barrens around the swamp have many attractions as a 

 residential section, notwithstanding the pessimistic picture of them 

 which Bradford Torrey draws in his article " In the Flat-woods."^ 



^Atlantic Monthly, December, 1893. Also reprinted in his " Florida Sketch- 

 book," 1894, p. 1. 



