352 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



m) 



NOTES or TRAVLL 



< BY . . A. I. ROOT. 



**te 



Taking up my travels from where I left off 

 in tlie last issue, after we got well out of 

 sight of the old castle, my companion, Mr. 

 Brjwn, commenced something like this: 



"Mr. Root, did the mail -carrier say any 

 thing to you about my house being haunted?" 



" No, he did not mention it ; but while I 

 was looking it over on the evening of my ar- 

 rival, waiting for you to come home, I made 

 up my mind that something of this sort was 

 at the bottom of finding such a place away 

 out here in the wilderness, so thoroughly 

 equipped and furnished with every thing." 



" Well, Mr. Root, since you are not likely 

 to go back there again, at least not right away, 

 I think I shall have to tell you that a great 

 part of the people around here could not pos- 

 sibly be induced to step foot into that house, 

 especially to go in after nightfall. Some years 

 ago the owner of the place was found dead in 

 that sime house, under very peculiar circum- 

 stances." 



"What did he die of?" 



"Well, he died in the very room you occu- 

 pied last night, and, as nearly as we can make 

 out, of the very same trouble you had, or some- 

 thing very much like it." 



"Look here, Mr. Brown, this begins to 

 sound a little supernatural. What sort of a 

 man was he ? What were his habits ? ' ' 



" Well, to tell the truth he was an intemper- 

 ate man, and the wine cellar and its contents 

 might have had something to do with it." 



When I was in such distress the night be- 

 fore, it did occur to me that Dr. Dowie says 

 all sickness is of the Devil ; and I confess it 

 was an easy thing to imagine that Satan then 

 had me in his clutches for sure. In any case, 

 my earnest and honest prayers to Him who 

 has been casting out Satan ever since the be- 

 ginning of the world were not, in my case, 

 out of place. 



I said Mr. Brown was located away out in 

 the wilderness. Well, so he is. But after 

 driving through the woods a little more than 

 a mile we came in view of one of these sad- 

 den contrasts that are often met in Florida. 

 It was a beautiful oasis, not in the desert, but 

 in the wilderness. Years ago a canal was pro- 

 jected, and quite a good deal of money spent 

 in cutting it through the swampy lands, with 

 the view of running boats clear up to Palatka. 

 The project was carried out until the canal ex- 

 tended some little distance beyond Bulow. 

 Well, on the side of this canal Mr. Knox 

 has planted not only some fine orange-groves, 

 but has built one of the most beautiful resi- 

 dences in Florida. I had to rub my eyes and 

 look again to be sure I was not dreaming when 

 I first caught a glimpse of the beautiful place. 

 Where every thing else all around was woods, 

 swamp, and the home of the wild fowl and 

 the waterfowl, all at once we find a beautiful 

 home with all modern appliances. The green 

 lawn dotted with rare and beautiful exotic 



plants — plants that brought forth exclama- 

 tions of surprise at every turn — seemed too 

 pretty to be reality. 



As this locality is subject to frost, many of 

 the plants were protected with cotton cloth, 

 boxes made of light wood veneer, and some 

 of them with neat structures covered with oil- 

 ed paper. And- here I commenced getting my 

 first ideas in regard to protection from frost 

 in Florida. Of course, since the severe freeze 

 of six years ago many experiments have been 

 made. I was astonished to hear Mr. Knox 

 tell me, as others told me repeatedly after- 

 ward, that cotton cloth alone, even in the form 

 of a square box or tent, is no protection from 

 the frost whatever — in fact, that trees are oft- 

 en injured worse under the cloth than those 

 with no protection at all. With the tent or 

 box, or any such covering, there must be at 

 least a little artificial heat inside, and the 

 cheapest way of furnishing this for individual 

 trees is coal-oil lamps or a cheap form of lamp 

 made especially for protecting trees of differ- 

 ent sizes. Another thing, there must be a ven- 

 tilating-hole at the top. Where one has, say, 

 an acre of trees to look after, he can not very 

 well examine each lamp every hour to know 

 the temperature ; and sometimes more harm 

 is done the trees by too much heat than by 

 too little. Now, aside from quite a good-sized 

 orchard where each tree had its own box or 

 tent, Mr. Knox has one solid acre under 

 protection. Around the outside is a tight 

 board fence 18 feet high. Overhead are cloth 

 curtains supported by a light framework of 

 wood and galvanized wire. The cloth is in 

 strips, say six or eight feet wide. Well, by- 

 suitable mechanism each strip of cloth is pull- 

 ed up or shoved up together so that the top is 

 virtually open to the sky. Now by a suitable 

 mechanical contrivance these cloth strips can 

 be spread out or gathered up in four or five 

 minutes, simply by the power exerted by one 

 man. This one man winds the wire on a sort 

 of capstan by walking around as a horse goes 

 around in an old-fashioned cider-mill. Now, 

 inside of the one-acre shed there are piles of 

 dry wood ; and when the top is closed, or 

 nearly so, by spreading out the cloth strips, a 

 very little fire at different points inside of the 

 shed will raise the temperature so as to hold 

 in check effectually any freeze yet known in 

 Florida. Mr. Knox said this structure was 

 going to cost him, if I remember correctly, 

 something over $1000. W. S. Hart, at Hawks 

 Park, who lives quite a way further south, has 

 something similar that cost less than half 

 as much.* 



At this place, Bulow, I first saw an arrange- 

 ment for making the artesian water pump 

 water of a better quality. Most of the arte- 

 sian water tastes strongly of sulphur and 

 sometimes of other minerals ; but the volume 



*As we get further south, instead of a covering 

 overhead that can be opened and closed they make 

 simply a slatted roof, say a three-inch slat and then a 

 three-inch space. Sometimes the space is made nar- 

 rower than this. Well, these slatted roofs with a lit- 

 tle fire inside answer every purpose, and the expense 

 of constant manipulation of the overhead covering is 

 saved. In a future issue I will give some pictures of a 

 similar arrangement, although on a smaller scale, for 

 covering pineapples. 



