The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-09-28
rIoruDa asAs SUGAR STATE.


Commercial Bulletin
Seven years ago the editor of this pa
per announced through local journals In
Florida, and in an official report to the
proper authorities at Washington, the fact
that in the Big Cypress Swamp region ne
had found, on hammock, near Semi
mole camp, sugar cane OF extraordinary
size and sugar producing quality. lie
had camped With the Indians, had seen
them crush the cane with their rudely
constructed mill and had joined with them
in eating the syrup they had made from
the rich Juice From what he saw at the
Indian camp and elsewhere in that, even
today almost unknown country, he came
to the conclusion that it was possible to
turn those myriad fertile swamp islands
into cane fields from which an almost
measureless amount of excellent sugar
could be produced. The cane which he
had found growing, practically uncared
for in cold Tommy's Field" was more
than two inches in diameter and from fit-
teen to eighteen or more feet in length,
and it was heavily filled with sap The
stalks were crowded together in dense
tangle, almost sprawling over the black
soil that hore them. The writer had seen
the sugar cane of Louisiana, but he re-
membered it as small and sapless COM
pared with these wild overgrown sugar
stalks of the hammocks Of South Florida.
Now that the sugar question has be-
come one of the prominent SUBJECTS OF
political discussion, and since the atten-
ZION of manufacturers and investors is
turning towards Florida as district in
which possibly to enlarge the present cir
cumscribed limits Of the American sugar
industry, we direct notice anew to the
district of which we have been speaking.
We have no interest in South Florida
except as an American citizen. But we
have the best OF reasons for believing that
the richest sugargrowing region in the
United States lies in the swamp district
south and southwest of Lake Okeechobee,
and are confident that an enormous addl-
ton to the nations wealth would be made
by proper culture of sugar cane there.
Already, we learn, something has been
done in that direction. The Baltimore
journal Of Commerce, in late issue, says
For several years it was claimed that
South Florida, in the neighborhood of
country in the world, surprising even the
West Indies, and two or three years ago
Mr.. Hamilton Disston and other Philadel-
phia capitalists determined to test the
natter The cultivation Of the cane in
Florida was nothing new, as that had
been done for generations, but only on a
limited scale These gentlemen went into
it very extensively and built a sugar mill
at reported cost of several hundred
thousand dollars. SO successful were they
that $50, 900 worth of new machinery has
been ordered for increasing the capacity
of the mill, and railroad is now under
construction from Kissimmee through the
sugar district, simply to open it up and
afford adequate transportation facilities.
The St. Cloud Sugar Co., under which
name these gentlemen Incorporated their
company, in addition to their own enor-
nous cane crops, agree to contract with
other growers to pay $3.50 per ton for all
the cane raised, and as the average yield
is 40 rs an acre, this is an offer of 1892
per acre.
We are familiar with the district here
spoken Of 1t is well adapted to sugar
cane culture and will amply pay the en-
terprsing investors who are developing
it. But the true land of promise lies south
east of the Caloosahatchie river, land
as mach better prepared by nature for
sugar culture than the flats of the Kis-
simmee, as the Kissimmee is better en-
dowed than the lowlands of Louisiana
There is no tenable reason why the
United States should longer regard Louis
lana as its only sugar State. An imperial
domain for sugar culture lies ready for
occupancy in Southern Florida. There is
a region practically untraversed by the
white man, occupied by only few more
than two hundred Seminole Indians, and
ready with tens of thousands upon ihous-
ands of acres to give more bountifully this
great food necessity, sugar, than possibly
any other region in the world. In addition
to the sugar cane, that district can be east
ly made to yield most Of the foods and
fruits for which our countrymen now send
many millions of dollars to the West In.
dies and farther away. Some time we
shall know that in the Florida south of
the Caloosahatchie river there is large
part of the true topics as part of our own
country, capable of supplying to us, as a
member Of our own household, most of
many necessities and luxuries which at
great expense we now import from for
eign lands.