GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 221 



oranges and vegetables in, and into crude barrels for fish or 

 rosin, or hewed into cross-ties without ever going through a 

 mill. Long-leaf pine is still the principal fuel in the rural dis- 

 tricts and smaller towns, and especially at ice factories and 

 electric light plants. A generation ago it was used on nearly- 

 all locomotives in Florida, but that custom is now almost ob- 

 solete except on a few branch lines* and logging railroads. 



Cypress of both species is used largely for shingles, poles, piles, 

 and cross-ties. Within the last few weeks a company owning a 

 body of cypress (presumably pond cypress) near Cow Creek in 

 Volusia County has advertised for lOO laborers to cut ties, the 

 supply of timber being estimated to last five years. Cedar is or 

 has been cut for pencil wood, mostly in the Gulf hammock region. 

 There were cedar mills at Cedar Keys and Webster forty or more 

 years ago, and more recently there has been a large mill at Crystal 

 River and a small one at Rosewood. 



Rail fences, chiefly of pine, can still be seen in some of the 

 older settled regions, particularly the two hammock belts, but wire 

 fences (with posts usually of pine) are much more common at pres- 

 ent. Another important by-product of the long-leaf pine is pine 

 straw, used for road-surfacing material in high pine land where the 

 sand is deep and clay and rock not easily accessible, mostly in the 

 lake region. A few years ago a pine-straw road could be con- 

 structed for about $40 a mile, but the straw has to be renewed 

 every few years. 



The terminal buds of the cabbage palmetto have been used more 

 or less for food, and they yield a coarse fiber which is made into 

 brushes, brooms, etc., at Cedar Keys and perhaps elsewhere. Two 

 carloads of them are said to have been shipped north from Titus- 

 ville recently to be used for ceremonial purposes on Palm Sunday. 

 But to destroy a whole tree just for a few ounces of food or fiber 

 is a rather wasteful practice. Its leaves are often used to make 

 thatch roofs on fishermen's shacks and other more or less tem- 

 porary structures. The hardwoods are little used as yet, except for 

 fuel. 



*In April, 1920, the writer traveled from, Tampa to Tarpon Springs behind 

 a wood-burning engine. In the last few years the Florida East Coast Railway 

 has run its engines with crude oil, which is almost as accessible to Florida as 

 coal is, and incidentally less annoying to passengers. 



