Cane Day at Dudley Farm Delights Visitors

Cane Day at Dudley Farm Delights Visitors

Dudley Farm, the historic Cracker farmstead which is part of the State Park system of Florida, holds a Cane Day every first Saturday of December in honor of the birthday of Miss Myrtle Elizabeth Dudley who left the family farm to the State of Florida. As would have been common as part of the farm's operations this time of year, sugarcane is harvested, cut, pressed, and boiled to produce cane syrup on Cane Day and the public thereby gets to view a special farm chore that at one time was essential to early Floridian homesteads. However, the production of cane syrup is not the only activity on hand for Cane Day: traditional musicians played old-timey music, volunteers in period costume demonstrated various daily farm chores and crafts, and goods associated with traditional living were for sale as well as food from a variety of organizations. The turn-out for Saturday's Cane Day was surprisingly strong: in example, the park's main parking lot could not provide enough parking and additional parking had been set up in a field, which was nearly full of cars by early afternoon. Cane Day was obviously an event that a lot of area residents desired to attend this year.

The Dudley Farm is unique within the State Park system as it provides an example of what a

working 1880s farm would have been like complete with original buildings (and not reconstructions like many "living-history" open-air museums) and even actual crops and animals to provide the most comprehensive vision of what life was like on a Cracker homestead. Saturday's Cane Day may, however, mark the last time the public will enjoy such an experience for sometime though as Dudley Farm is one of nineteen state parks that are slated to be closed to the public if a bill designed to cut the state budget passes in the Statehouse and is signed by Governor Crist in May. The State Park service, as a mechanism for saving money, selected nineteen parks across the state to close off from public use and place in a stewardship status until funding would allow for these parks to return to normal use. One of the primary functions of Dudley Farm is to educate grade-school students about the way that Floridians lived in bygone times.

Mike Walker

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MIKE WALKER is a journalist based in Gainesville, Florida, who writes for this and other newsmedia on topics concerning ecology, natural history, and social history. He studied architectural history at the Savannah College of Art and Design and remains keenly interested in historic architecture and efforts to research and retain Florida's rural history. Mike can be reached at: cloudrace@prontomail.com