The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1912-11-08
.FLOR|DA'S SOIL
AND CLIMATE
THE STATE OF FLORIDA ONLY
STATE IN UNION TO PRODUCE
WINTER VEGETABLES.
YEAR BOOK BOOSTS STATE
Worthless Lands Transformed 90
Grow Celery Worth TWO Thou
sand Dollars Per Acre.
Tallahassee.


The year book of the department
of agriculture is the strongest kind
of booster for Florida. The year
book for 1911 says:
Florida produces the most delicate
fruit and vegetable crops in the dead
of the Northern winter"
This is clear gain. Other states
do not produce any crops at all in
the dead of winter. The Florida win
ter vegetable crops, bringing enor
nous prices because they have no
| competition, are out of the way be-
fore the farmers of other states plant
and SO the Florida grower after har-
vesting this highly profitable crop can
compete with the growers of other
states for the balance of the year.
Florida land has been known to
produce $1,000, $500, $4,000, $1,000
and in one well authenticated in
stance over $4,000 worth of products
on one acre. Here is a statement
from the year book of the depart.
ment of agriculture for 1911
"A combination of irrigation and
drainage at Sanford, Fla, has trans
formed worthless lands into those pro-
ducing crops of celery valued at 49,.
600 per acre for one crop"
Besides the celery three or four
other crops can be grown on the
same ground in year, for Florlda's
growing season is twelve months
long.
The year book of the department
of agriculture does not furnish tables
showing the production by states of
small crops such as cabbage, onions,
lettuce, celery, tomatoes, nor of fruits
and berries. These are Florida's prin-
cipal sources of wealth. But a COM
parison of the larger crops of which
this state produces comparatively lit,
tie because the fruit and vegetable
crops are so much more profitable.
On $4,000 acres of land Florida
produced last year 9,286,0OO bushels
of corn-not quite fifteen bushels per
acre. The United States produced e.
52,19000O bushels. on 105,S25,000
acres-about twenty-four bushels per
acre. The Florida corn was worth on
the farm 80 cents per bushel or $12
per acre, while that of the whole
country averaged 81 cents per bushel
or $14.64 per acre. The average of
the United States is only 1884 more
grown on an acre than the Florida
grower gets on one of number of
crops.
So little wheat is grown in Florida
that the state is not mentioned in the
list of wheat producing states. On
$4,000 acres of land Florida produced
$4,000 bushels of oats worth $435,'
900. The United States produced
1872, 1885, 1893 bushels worth $414,663,O 900
on 37,763,O0O acres. The average
value of the product per acre in Flor
ida was $1O12, and in the United
States $10.9S per acre.
Florida produced an average of 80
bushels of potatoes worth $130.50 per
acre. The United States produces an
average of eighty-one bushels worth
$64.6O per acre. Florida beat the av-
erage of the country a little more
than two to one.
Florida averaged 1.3 tons of hay |
worth $23.67 per acre. The United
States averaged IL tons worth $16.15 |
per acre. In hay Florida averaged
nearly so per cent more in value per
acre than the United States.
Florida produced on an acre an av- |
erage of $40 pounds of tobacco worth |
$263.2O against an average for the |
United States of 1874 pounds worth |
$S413. Flordas tobacco yields |
more than three times as much per |
acre as that of the country taken as
a whole.
Florida grows cotton-a little less
per acre than that of the other |
states-the figures are not given, but
it is of the Sea Island variety worth |
about twice as much per pound as the
uplands cotton grown in other states.
The average farmer of the Middle
West could sell 100 acres of land and
with the proceeds buy 300 acres in
Florida which would yield him at
least as much value as 600 acres of
Western land could produce and
which in very few years will sell
for more than Western land per acre.
Crop by crop Florida will average
higher than nearly any other state,
and the crop compared is the only
one in other states and only one of
a number grown on the same land in |