putterings       412   <   413   >   414       index

and soon flickered out altogether
 

...But if so it was more or less a puttering description. It got nowhere, was not seriously intended to get anywhere, and soon flickered out altogether. Santa Rosa died when the Judge left Florida, an embittered man, in 1832, and retired to Tarentum, Pennsylvania. A good half century was to elapse before government was to engage seriously in the planting of trees — years after the topsails of the last “74” had faded into the horizon line of history.

ex Jenks Cameron, The Development of Governmental Forest Control in the United States (1928) : 67
U Michigan copy/scan (via google books) : link
same (via hathitrust) : link

from the close of Chapter III, “Santa Rosa,” which concerns the projected creation ca 1827-32 of a government plantation for the cultivation and propagation of live oak on the Santa Rosa peninsula, near Pensacola, Florida. Live oak had strategic importance in the construction of warships (specifically, “stern posts, heart hooks, and knees”), and thus of a strong navy. The project failed.

Fort Pickens (on Santa Rosa Island) was in Union hands throughout the Civil War. Interesting discussion at wikipedia : link.

this and other titles by Jenks Cameron (1879-1957) are listed at his online books page : link
 

24 March 2024