CHAPTER XIII
JUST FISHING
I have now decided that I will not live for the
remainder of my days in the country between
Okeechobee and the sea. I had thought it a place
peculiarly fitted for the abode of mankind, but I
have learned better. It is lacking in one product
very necessary to the welfare of humanity; that
is, a proper growth for fishing poles. Think of
it! Hundreds of square miles of wilderness and
not a fishing pole fit to be cut in the whole of it;
and this with rivers that teem with fish that
easily put the Maine lakes to the blush. The tree
growth of the barrens and the savannas is pitch
pine and palmetto. By the time the pitch pine is
nine feet tall it has a trunk three inches in diameter,
more or less. Even by cutting this and
shaving it down you could not make a fishing
pole.
The palmetto is even more absurd. When a palmetto tree really starts from the ground its trunk is of its greatest diameter, say almost a foot. As the tree grows taller this remains about
