The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-11-29
For THE FLORIDA AGRICULTURIsT
Some Points About Gardening IN
Flor ida.


AGRICULTURIsT, your valued contributor
Mr., Sherman Adams, inquiries, Why can
not those who have had some experience
with garden cropping in this State give
to the publc-and especially to such as
are interested in this line OF production
some points OF prac' ical utility in regard
to time OF planting, method OF feriilizlng,
what to plant, etc., etc? In the same
number another esteemed contributor, MIR.
H. j. M. Porter, sets forth some of the
trials and difficulties that lie in the path
way of the Florida garden cropper and
SHOWS quite forcibly they are neither
few nor easily remedied. Mr.. Adam s
has had good measure OF experience,
is a close observer and withal very in
teligent cultivatOr, one who is we'll cal
culated to teach the larger body OF those
engaged in garden cropping. Assuredly
if he has need to learn so have we all
without exceptions worth naming.
Bot in view of the fitness Of Mr.. Adams
inquiry in a general way, it may be of
some usefulness for us to compare notes,
to set forth, in part at least, some OF our
varied experiences, that in so doing we
may possibly aid one another in more
clearly reaching safer ground to stand
upon. An experience and observation
OF ten years gardening in Florida has
given to me some object lessons not ap-
parently available when first [ sought to
grow garden crops in this State. An
acquaintance Of mine said to me only
three Or four days ago that he had just
purchase some land not so conveniently
located as he wonld liked it to have been
but upon which he could make such crops
as he wanted to grow. By this statement
he meant to emphasize this fact, that
where he had of late been trying to make
general line Of garden crops the land
was not we'll adapted to such cropping,
and where he purposed to move the land
was suited to that line of crops. LII
Florida, more pArticularly than elsewhere
so far asl bavehad opportunity of judg'
ing, the character of the land andsoil varies
greatly in the same localities, for in-
stance two ten acre tracts lying side by
side are more likely than otherwise to be
of quite different character and adapti
bility; in forty acre tract there is likely
TO be two Or three different strips Or
parts that are very dissimiIar ia quality
as to fertility, as to holding moisture,
as to temperature, as to acldity, etc.
This is probably due to a wide rarge Of
the condition OF subsOi!s. 1t is presum-
able that at an early date in the folm
alton OF the area OF land now known as
Florida there were innumerablelake and
as the dry land rose up, or the lakes
filled up, whichever way it may have
been, the underlying strata of earth
close beneath the present surface became
widely different from that of adjoining
tracts previously raised above the sur
rounding waters. This is the only So
luton that seems to my mind to fully
account for such varied conditions of soil
a1d subsOil as we find now existing, and
we know bV the formation of our rivers.
by the high and the low hammock tracts,
by the fiat piney wood and the scrub oak
tracts, by the cypress swamp and little
basin tracts. by the lake foundations