The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1895-12-27

arc never BdIutTeu cACcpt uS ucCuOut
and are allowed to rot upon the ground
and self seed in the case Of squashes or
pumpkins or to reproduce In the case
of potatoes and other plants. We saw
several gardens Of white people where
the sweet potato and Irish potato had
grown for several years without re-
planting. They dig them when they
need them, thinning out the mature
plants, leaving the green ones. This
would seem queer to a northern farm
er. 1t certainly struck us as peculiar
method of cropping. But they can do
no other way. If dug and stored they
would spoil. Cellars are not necessary
and there are none.
Southeastern Florida Is largely fine
sand land. There are O few "ham-
mocks" of small extent of sandy loan
nature. These are low places Of muck
land; but the majority is fine sand. In
Michigan it would be worthless for ag-
riculture. Only the climate of Florida
makes it very valuable. A successful
southern Florida farmer spends more
than double the amount for fertilizers
each year per acre than Michigan
man takes off his land in value of crops.
In some places for certain crops he
spends as high as $S5 per acre for fer
tilizers He cannot afford to do with
out this heavy fertilization. His farm
produces no fertilizer as does the north
ern farm. He has no barnyard to
furnish manure. He has no rotted
straw. He turns under no cloverseed
as he raises same. He does sometimes
SOW heaving sowing Of COW peas after
he has taken off his garden truck in
February or March and turns it under
before he plants his next crop in Octo-
ber-long enough before to allow it to
rot
If he raises June apples he scatters
about two tons per acre Of cottonseed
meal over the ground and rakes it in
to produce the plant. Before the plant
fruits he again goes over the ground
andsprinkles into the head of the plant
his phosphate for purposes of fertiliZa-
ton. If he has an orange grove and is
near the coast he gathers seaweed and
cultivates it into the soil and mulches
the roots of the trees with it, and per-
haps plows under two crops of COW peas
per year. Yet with all this, which fur
nishes a heavy body for the land, he
lacks phosphates, ammonia and some
other ingredients to cause his fruits to
ripen and fill perfectly. He may add
the phosphates by catching shark, tar
pom, Porpoise and several other kinds
of fish, bury them until they decom-
pose, and then add them to the soil for
phosphate. But this must be done in
diligently: he must know what his soil
contains and what it lacks, then sup
ply the deficiency in an intelligent man
ner. This intelligence Is easily ac-
CURED. Before a pinery is in bearing
twenty months) or an orange orchard
produces fruit four years. the man Of
average intelligence knows his bust
ness. His truck gardening is easily
learned. His soil contains muck and
lime only. The rest must be added.
Any produce dealer will furnish the
necessary ingredients. Remember that
the high pine land or the muck land
or the hammock land will produce good
crops, farmed as the average northern
farmer farms, the two latter for sew
eral years without fertilization; but a
farmer cannot afford to do with an Or
binary crop, where his muck land Is
worth from $500 to 81 900 per acre, as
these lands are selling in places on In
dian River, and where he can get from
$3.50 to 81 per crate of three pecks for
string beans, 81 to So per crate of three
pecks for tomatoes, where his onions
are worth say from 81 500 to $4,000 an
acre for the Bermudas and his straw
berries anywhere from so cents to $3.50
per quart. He must raise full crop
and must add fertilizers largely. The
soil never has a rest in Florida. If 1t
is not growing crop Of vegetables or
fruits it is growing crop of weeds;
continual drain Is constantly being
made upon the soil. We have seen pig
weeds, the red root, growing upon the
muck lands at and near Lynton, fully
fourteen inches in diameter. This is
upon land recently reclaimed from the
salt marshes by the drainage canal, be-
longing to the Florida Land Company
at Saginaw, which Is being sold In two
and one-half acre tracts for $125, and
is equally as good as the land on Indian
River selling for $1,000 per acre, and
has the advantage of being 200 miles
of therebouts further south.
There is condition of atmosphere in
southern Florida very peculiar-its
at the same time irriga-
ton is not necessary, as is the case in
soutern California. The rainy seasons
rains may be extended over into April
and the September rains over into Oc-
tober, as was the case this year, but
during the winter scarcely any rains &C.
cur, as is the case during the summer.
In northern Florida the atmosphere Is
very humid. In southern Florida the
opposite condition exists. 1t seems to
be more like Arizona in this respect
than any other section. For example,
while passing by meat shop at Lem
on City, on Biscayne Bay, we noted that
the butcher had quarter of beef cut
up into pieces Of from five to eight
pounds and hung up in the hot sun at
the side of his shop. In response to in
quiry he stated that he was curing it in
the sun without first having been salt
ed--was Jerking" it. The Indians in
the Everglades cure their venison and
bear meat by Jerking" it-sun curing.
There were mo flies" on the beef we
saw being sun cured.
Yet in climate as dry as this irriga-
ton is not necessary for good crops.
Some farmers think it pays well to irri-
gate, which can be done comparatively
inexpensive. We gave some attention
to one system used by pineapple
prowor at palm Reach He had sunk