The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-01-16
WATER HYACINTH WINS.

"N'N
 water hyacinth problem. The govern
 ment was originally asked to make a
 fght for extermination on the ground
 that the plant was a pest, as clearly as
 the gipsy moth in Massachusetts, and
 that It lmpedes the navigation of riv-
 ers 1t now transpires that the farmers
 ot Florida think the water hyacinth a
 pretty good cattle food, and that they are even propagating it in places where
 it had not before existed. In the hot
 months the cattle like to go down into
 the shallow water and eat the hya-
 cinths floating on the surface, and
 while not a food of high superiority, it
 constitutes a decided addition to the
 bill of fare of the Florida COW. This
 strange development in the case has
 made it impossible to continue a war of
 extermination against the plant, as
 has been purposed, and efforts are now
 directed toward keeping it out of the
 great paths of navigation, and letting
 the rest of the water surface of the
 state take care of itself. Since the hy-
 acinth has become problem of navi- gation it has appropriately been trans
 ferred from the Departent of Agricul- ture to the engineers office of the War Department, and under five thousand dollar appropriation from congress Q party of engineers has been studying the subject all summer and will report
 to congress in few weeks.
 This problem Is of general public in- terest as showing what a tremendous
 strength in combination harmless little ornamental Towering plants come to possess. Had the author of How doth the little coral workers, by their slow but constant motion, build up pretty is- lands in the dark blue ocean," known of the water hyacinth, he might have found an illustration nearer home. Henry Ward Beecher's tribute to the power of the snow, showing how the soft little flakes are able to baffie the power of the locomotive and of the strongest human enginery, might be paraphrased in the case of this plant. When a large steamer at full speed strikes a bank of hyacinths it comes almost to standstill. A screw pro- peller finds it impossible to penetrate a very large mass of the plants, as they DeCOlle SO GHluuBlCQ dppul NiiV SSiNN as to prevent it from revolving. Pad dle-wheel steamers are able to pene trate masses of the plant much better, but they are frequently entirely blocked. The plants collect between the wheel and bulkheads. packing in 50 solidly that it is almost impossible to reverse the engine. This makes it very difficult to approach a landing. The steamboat becomes like train of cars without brakes Steamers with low pressure engines are troubled by the in- jection pipes becoming clogged so that sufficient water cannot be secured for the condensers. In parts of the river which are very wide, it sometimes hap pens that steamers are blocked between floating masses of the plant, carried out of their channel and stranded. The timber industry has also been severely crippled Where logs were formerly rafted down the St. Johns to the mills, they now have to be dragged by the strongest kind of tugs through these beds of water hyacinths, and at a very great expense. Fishing by net has, of course, had to stop, But perhaps the 
 bridges. In case of a flood the hya- clnth banks up against the piles of the bridge and makes of the structure a dam which holds the water back until the pressure becomes great enough to force away the obstruction, bridge and all. A new construction will have to be adopted if he plant is allowed to conue it's course.
 It is less than ten years ago since the flower was first introduced into the St. Johns river, and that was at Edgewa- ter, about four miles above Palatka At that place it had bean grown for some time in pond, and to clear it the plants were thrown into the river. As an ornament about the fashionable ho- tes it has for many years been under cultivation. When 1t first began to grow in the river no one supposed that it would ever become nuisance, and | settlers up and down the stream car ried punches of it to beautify the slug gish places. It was not until 1894 that | people began to think the charms of | the hyacinth had been overestiamted, | and that perhaps the St. Johns had | had enough. It then appeared much i harder to stop the thing than it had | been to start it. For distance of two l hundred miles of the St. Johns river it | Is now very abundant, and on the Ock- awaha river it lines the shores for about a hundred miles, and there is no | cling how far it may spread. It will | not grow in brackish water or where he current is strong. The effect of | 'rost upon the plant is not all that night be desired. A single frost cuts t down only to the surface of the water. and the great freeze in Florida few years ago, which killed off the did not seriously disturb the lyacinth. On the other hand, it is be- ieved that the repeated frosts of riv- IT as far north as the Potomac would )e too much for it.
 Since the project of extermlnating he hyacinth has been abandoned, the present. scheme is to construct a series if booms, made of floating logs, which will mark off such part of the stream IS is necessary for navigation. Within ] hese limits a boat specially construct d for the purpose might ply back and orth clearing out the weeds as often as hey grow, The material gathered by his "hyacinth- catcher" might be used $ fertilizer on the land or fed to the ows and hogs, or burned, and perhaps he most profitable disposition ov it