This tract of land was planted by a celluloid factory, which is utilizing the gum for its own purposes. Another company last year bought eighteen square miles of land in the same locality, and is rapidly planting it in camphor, 1,600 acres having been planted this year.
Enough seedlings are already on hand to plant nine square miles. Several methods, and also some new machinery, have been devised for camphor production in Florida, which will offset the cheap labor of Japan and insure a sufficient profit.
A Clever Invention.
To combat the cotton-boll weevil, a Mississippian has invented a device which, suspended from a man’s shoulders, brushes the insects from cotton plants into a receptacle holding oil.
Owes His Life to Rise in Price of Zinc Ore.
To one-hundred-and-thirty-dollar zinc ore, J. H. Worth, mine and other property owner of Joplin, Mo., owes his life. Two men, Royal Cardwell and Samuel Houston, prospectors, had been waiting for nearly a year for the price of ore to rise. They knew of an old, abandoned drift in a certain mine, where, if ore prices would go high enough, they might make some “easy money” by scrapping material that had been left years before. Their wish was realized last week, when zinc concentrates went to one hundred and thirty dollars per ton.
Entering the old drift in question, they found an unconscious man tied hand and foot and gagged. He was taken to a hospital, and a few minutes later, when he had recovered his sense, he told a strange story.
Worth had been accosted in a Joplin hotel by a stranger who said he wanted to look over some of the former’s mining properties with a view to obtaining a lease. The stranger’s partner then came up and was introduced, but Worth does not remember either of their names. The three entered a taxi and were taken to the old mine first mentioned, and, after sending the motor back, proceeded to investigate the underground workings. When they had at last entered the old, abandoned drift, Worth was seized by the two men, gagged and tied to a mining timber, where he was left for about an hour.
When the two men returned, they carried a box which had one end of a long fuse attached to something inside. They placed the box at the bound man’s side and stretched the fuse out on the floor of the drift, lighted the far end, and, as they started away, one of them remarked:[Pg 66]
“The fire will reach the dynamite in an hour, and that will be your finish.”