1908. 
'TPiEC RURAL NEW-VORKER 
19 
“A MIGRATION TO THE SOUTH.” 
On page 893, under tbe above heading wo mentioned a 
case where a cow and flock of chickens were carried to 
Florida for their Winter’s work. This has interested many 
northern people and we are now able to give the full story, 
which follows: 
I had taken advantage of a widely advertised excur¬ 
sion from Cincinnati to Tampa in November, 1905, to 
visit some relatives in Tampa and attend the Florida 
State Fair at that place. The clerk of the weather 
was in good humor, no doubt, for we had the entire 
three weeks that I was there the most delightful 
weather I had ever experienced at that season of the 
year, and I went back home in love with the climate 
of Florida. The first thing I said to my 
wife on reaching home was: “We are go¬ 
ing to spend the Winter in Florida.” 
“Why, how can we?” she replied. “What 
will you do with the horse and the cow 
and that big flock of chickens?” 
“I don’t know,” I said, “but we’re go¬ 
ing, that’s sure,” and I told her what I 
heard one man in Tampa say in speaking 
of the soil—white sand. I spoke of it as 
poor; he replied: “Yes, that’s so, ’tisn’t as 
rich as some of your northern land, but 
our climate is worth a hundred dollars an 
acre.” So I commenced at once to “fig- 
ger” it out how we were going to Florida. 
The result was that I chartered a freight 
car to take our 325 hens and pullets, our 
cow and a lot of furniture from Catawba 
Island to Tampa, Fla. For this we paid 
$126, and an attendant was allowed free 
passage to go with the car to care for the 
live stock. The household goods were put 
in one end of the car, the cow in the other 
end and the 325 chickens in 24 coops occu¬ 
pied the center, being placed four coops 
long, two coops wide and three coops 
high, which left plenty of room for feed¬ 
ing and water en route. This car left 
Gypsum on the Lake Shore road the night 
of December 28, 1905, and was hauled via 
Toledo and Cincinnati, Ohio; Chatta¬ 
nooga, Tenn., and Jacksonville, Fla., to 
Tampa, arriving at the latter place on the 
morning of January 4, 1906. The car 
was detained at several transfer stations 
from five to 10 hours each time, or it 
would have made a quicker trip. The 
stock, however, came through in excellent 
condition, the cow giving milk and some 
of the biddies laying eggs on the way. 
The remainder of our family started from 
home January 1, and landed in Jackson¬ 
ville over the Queen & Crescent Railway 
January 4, and .Tampa that night. We 
found our young man had arrived that 
morning and had moved into the house 
and had cow and chickens on the lots, en¬ 
gaged for us by friends. On January 5 
we set to work and soon had sheds—not 
houses—built with roosts and rests under 
them for our chickens, enclosing them 
with wire fencing. The cow we stabled in 
one corner with small yard for her to 
run in. She did not fall off in her milk, 
but continued to give us a generous sup¬ 
ply of good milk during our stay in 
Tampa. What milk was not used by the 
family was readily disposed of at 19 cents 
per quart. We sold the cow for $50 to 
“Major,” an old colored man who owns 
her yet, and in reply to a proposition to 
buy her made to him the other day, said : 
“No sah, dat cow ain’t fur sale; my ole 
woman wouldn’t take no hundred dollahs 
fur dat cow.” After “Major” had bought 
her she was taken with the “tick fever,” 
but he called in a “cow doctor” who soon 
cured her with the aid of the owner, who 
combed the ticks off and washed the cow 
with strong soapsuds. She soon recov¬ 
ered and has presented her owner with 
a heifer calf which he values almost as 
much as he does the cow. Both are flour¬ 
ishing in the balmy climate of Florida. 
As to the poultry, they proved to be a 
veritable gold mine. We fed them with 
corn, wheat and oats; kept grit and oyster 
shells by them all the time, and gave them 
plenty of fresh water three times a day. 
We sold 25, which left us 300. They 
commenced to lay right away, and soon 
we were getting from 100 to 150 eggs per 
day. During the month of February we 
often got 12 to 14 dozen a day. At first 
we sold eggs for 35 cents a dozen, then 
30 cents, and by the last of February 
prices fell to 25 cents a dozen. But the result finally 
footed up like this: The feed for cow and chickens 
cost us $30 a month; rent of house and lots $30 a 
month, and besides the eggs used in the family we 
sold enough to pay for feed and rent and had nearly 
$50 over, though some of this was for milk sold, 
probably $15. March 1 we sold the outfit and went 
back to our delightful Summer home on Catawba 
Island, in Lake Erie. We left three of our family 
here; they spent the past Summer with us, and now 
we are back in Tampa to spend the Winter with them. 
I sold off 450 choice hens and pullets before leaving 
Catawba this time, that being what was left out of 
nearly a thousand Rocks and Wyandottes I raised 
A UTAH HOME BEFORE THE WATER CAME. Fig. 10. 
THE RESULT OF IRRIGATION IN UTAH. Fig. 11. 
CEANOT11US GLOIRE DE VERSAILLES. Reduced. Fig. 12. 
last Spring with incubators and brooders. Our peach 
crop on Catawba Island this year was a bonanza; fruit 
of all kinds being scarce east of us. Commission men 
from almost all the large cities east of us came and 
paid $2 a bushel and up for our peaches, some as high 
as $4 and even $5 a bushel for very choice large fruit. 
Catawba Island shipped this season about 100,000 
bushels of choice peaches. j. w. gamble. 
THE “EARLY ELBERTA” PEACH. 
About September 15 we received by express from Dr. 
Sumner Gleason of Utah, a basket of peaches. They came 
in excellent condition—a fair-sized specimen being shown 
at Fig. 9. The quality seems to us a little better than 
Elberta—otherwise the peach is much like its parent. Dr. 
Gleason’s letter follows : 
When I settled here in 1897 I was told 
by an old “residenter” that it was useless 
to plant an orchard; there was not water 
enough, and as there is practically no 
rainfall between the 1st of June and Oc¬ 
tober, it did seem as though trees might 
suffer. I found the city was supplied with 
a reservoir, and a nice stream of water 
came down every week. It appeared as 
though my informant must be right, as 
but little fruit was raised, and what trees 
there were did not look healthy or thrifty. 
Figs. 10 and 11 show former and present 
conditions. As I knew nothing about 
growing trees and less about irrigation, it 
was two years before I commenced to 
plant, and then with little expectation of 
success. At this time I studied up the 
possibilities of cultivation. I found that 
a day or two after irrigating the ground 
baked hard, allowing the moisture to es¬ 
cape by evaporation, and at the next 
watering the ground was too hard to al¬ 
low the water to soak in. In the Spring 
of 1901 I planted two rows of Alton 
peaches, and during that Summer one row 
had no water at all, and the other was 
watered every week, and to the surprise 
of everyone the trees which had no water, 
but were well cultivated, grew nearly as 
large as those irrigated. I kept this up 
until the trees came in bearing, when I 
found the unirrigated trees bore better 
fruit than those which had water. This 
year none of the trees was irrigated, and 
they have made a new growth of eight 
feet, some of the branches measuring nine 
feet. The ground was plowed early in the 
Spring and cultivated with a one-horse 
cultivator every two weeks up to August 
1. This remarkable growth, while due 
partly to the fact that all the blossoms 
were frozen and therefore no fruit, shows 
the effect of cultivation, and is an object 
lesson to the people here, and I am glad to 
say to their profit. Among the trees 
which I planted in the Spring of 1900 was 
one marked “Elberta seedling; gratis.” 
This I planted beside an Elberta, and you 
can see it in Fig. 11, where the little girl 
is standing. When this came to bearing I 
found it a yellow peach, similar to its par¬ 
ent in shape and size, but far better qual¬ 
ity, finer grain, higher color and a week 
earlier. I budded several trees and dis¬ 
tributed them throughout the county. This 
year those trees have borne, and I have 
sent you some of the fruit, so that you 
can judge its taste and appearance as well 
as its shipping and keeping qualities. 
Utah. SUMNER GLEASON, M. D. 
A VERMONTER TALKS.—I do not 
raise pigs, peppers or peaches, Alfalfa, 
cabbages or children. But I raise apples, 
and the trees are all in sod. Most of 
them stand where they sprung up along 
the fences, one large group in the pas¬ 
ture; I fertilize with stable manure only; 
do not mulch at all; top-graft with King, 
Spy, Pearmain, Baldwin, Pippin, etc.; 
prune and thin, but do not spray; get two 
crops of grass and a good crop of apples. 
I never saw San Jose scale or a borer, 
and for 20 years no tent caterpillars. 
Apple maggots get the sweet ones. I have 
100 barrels per year; local market, $2.50 
per barrel this season. There is one mean 
thing about The R. N.-Y. When a man 
gets done milking in the evening and finds 
The R. N.-Y. has arrived, and thinks 1 e 
will just look it over a little and go to 
bed, and doesn’t get to bed till late, be¬ 
cause the paper, unlike others, just sticks 
to his fingers, he not only loses sleep and 
injures his health, but sets a bad example 
for the kids, and worst of all, has no 
fresh paper to read next night. D. k. 
