_The Clayton "Tribune," Friday, May 9, 1913_
Col. John P. Fort, a graduate of Oglethorpe College, and one of the
men who first got a vision of the future possibilities of Rabun
County's apples, was in Clayton, Wednesday. Colonel Fort owns one
of the finest orchards in the county at Mountain City, and has done
more in the way of growing fine fruits and advertising northeast
Georgia, thereby enhancing the value of our mountain lands, than
any other one man. Colonel Fort is now about seventy-one years of
age, but is still very active. He joined the Confederate army in
the beginning of the Civil War as a private, but was promoted and
at the close he came out with honors and as a lieutenant. As Dr.
Fort is able to talk with nature, we might compare him with Benjamin
Franklin; he has been honored by our University with the degree of
Doctor of Science. Dr. Fort was not satisfied with growing apples
in northeast Georgia (in Rabun County), which took the prize in
Spokane, Washington, at the great apple show, and for the last
year or so he has been studying the conditions and needs of south
and southwest Georgia, and while he was on duty as a Confederate
soldier, he saw the beautiful Wakulla River on the coast of Florida,
as it bursts forth into the Apalachee Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
Dr. Fort's ability to reason and know things told him that this
beautiful clear river had its origin away up in the "old red hills
of Georgia," and last year he made another trip to see this great
spring or bay and to learn more about it. Dr. Fort traced the
formation and vegetation up through Florida and on through the
counties of Decatur, Grady, Early, Miller, Baker, Mitchell, Calhoun,
Dougherty, etc., and he is satisfied that it heads in the counties
of Laurens, Twigg, and Bibb. Dr. Fort owns a large plantation in
Dougherty County, containing some three thousand acres, and last
year he bored an artesian well on this farm about seven hundred
feet deep, at an expense of about three thousand dollars, and not
to his surprise, but to the surprise of his neighbors, Georgia,
and our United States Government, he tapped the undercurrent of
the beautiful Wakulla River and through a three-inch pipe, it has
been estimated, a flow of eighty thousand gallons per day can be
attained, and the expense of obtaining this flow and building
reservoirs from which to conduct the waters to the crops is much
cheaper in comparison with any other method of irrigation known
to the world. This discovery by Dr. Fort will probably make it
possible for other such discoveries to be made, and it has more
than doubled the value of the farming lands in south Georgia, which
are so subject to drouths. This theory of Dr. Fort's is thoroughly
demonstrated as the water of this well rises and falls with the
Gulf tide and the water is inexhaustible and his discovery is
so highly prized by the Irrigation Bureau of the Department of
Agriculture, that it has conferred upon Dr. Fort the signal dignity
of "Collaborator," and monthly there comes and will come to him
during his life a treasury draft as a token from his country of its
government's appreciation and value of his discovery, and the time
is now here that not only northeast and southwest Georgia will tip
their hats to Dr. Fort's name, but the whole nation will recognize
Dr. Fort's ability as a scientist, and his name will go down to
future generations as one of America's greatest men.
_Macon "Daily Telegraph," September 30, 1913_