It is certainly appropriate that some steps be taken at once to erect a memorial to Colonel Fort. Nothing would be more fitting than a "mountain school." It is better than brass or marble. Mr. Newell has communicated his suggestion to Editor Henry McIntosh, of Albany, and also to Hon. Clark Howell.
The thought-forces worked strongly in Colonel Fort, making him a centrifugal force, a builder for humanity. He lived to see his visions become realities—blessings to mankind. He felt the responsibility resting upon him. He never permitted his faith to trail, but walked uprightly, full of good deeds and useful thoughts.
Colonel Fort was certainly the "practical scientist." Albany is known as the "Artesian City." Colonel Fort gave to Dougherty County its first flowing artesian well. His apples from the "hills of Habersham" and Rabun took the premium over all others at the fairs of the great Northwest.
Throw a rock into the air and by force of gravitation it falls. Yet right in the face of that power of gravitation, that life-giving principle called sap, flows to the top of the tallest tree, resuscitating its remotest branches. Colonel Fort's attempt to discover flowing artesian water was likened by his friends to the rock that falls to the ground. But his thought-forces within, in the face of discouragement, were like the ascending sap, bounding in hope and carrying triumph and beauty and health to every branch of his tree of endeavor.
Every flowing artesian well in Georgia is a never-ceasing tribute to Colonel Fort—the "practical scientist," as Mr. Alfred Newell calls him.
Colonel Fort drove mosquitoes from his Dougherty County plantation by the simple device of putting up martin-gourds and bird-houses at the homes of his tenants. He had discovered that the swallows and martins fed on mosquitoes, and determined to locate them on his premises by building little houses for them. On his recent visit to Macon he told the writer, his countenance lighting up with expressions of pleasure over his triumph, that his experiment had been a success and that the health of his tenants was excellent.
Two years ago he advised me to try the martin. But the tenants considered martin-gourds a relic of slavery times, and in their superstition would not erect the martin-poles. Colonel Fort also said the martins fed on boll weevils, and he expected to largely increase the number of martin-houses. And this was our last conversation, not many weeks ago. Yes, he was like Colonel Hunt, of Eatonton, "a practical scientist"—the most useful of men.