The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1919-05-19
Farming In
Florida And
Elsewhere
(Tampa Times)

The Kansas farmer has long been
held up as about the climax of success
in the agricultural line. We are told
If his hundred million bushel wheat
crops and the limitless number of au-
tomobiles and pianos and other ct
ceteras which he purchases with the
proceeds thereof, and we have come
10 consider him a very fortunate in
diyidual. Some of our farmers per-
haps have been inclined to envy him,
forgetting the scorching winds that
occasionally sweep across his fertile
prairies destroying every green thing
in their course, or the cyclones that
sometimes send him scurrying 10 his
cyclone cellar while his livestock,
barns and fences are riding the wings
OF the wind over to the next county.
But the Florida farmer has no
cause to envy his brother farmer in
any part of the world. Where else
but in Florida is there such long
growing season, making it possible
to raise three and even four crops
from the same bit of land? In what
state do the annual returns per acre
approach those of Florida? Where
but in Florida is there possibility
of growing such variety of crops?
Even wheat which has enriched the
Kansas farmer has been grown in
Florida the past year, and that with
a production per acre surprising the
general average of the United States.
Florida is just coming into it's own
as a stock state. Recent estimates
place the value of the cattle in the
state at $4O,000,00O, and that will be
doubled and trebled when the tick Is
finally eradicated, and the breeds Of
cattle improved.
There are $30,000,000 worth of
hogs, which is doing pretty well for
a state whose razorback swine have
been a joke and curiosity to the trav.
eler from the north for a quarter Of
a century. There has been an enor
nous increase in the numbers and
values or both W. and cattle in the
last two or ida years and the i'm
crease has onl, just begun With
improved breeds, the eradication o.
the tick, and the immunization o
swine to the pest of cholera, with bet
ter care and feeding. the profit il
which our farmers are just beginnint
to realize, Florida will have grea
future as a stock state.
But stock raising is only one of tn
lines open to the enterprising Florid
ian. Remember that Florida and Ca
ifornia have practical monopoly o
tropical and semi-tropical fruit grow
ing, with a market of more than on
hundred millions of eager consumer
at his door he may if he likes engag
in that, the most seductive branch G
farming. Or he may prefer to engag
in the growing Of winter vegetables
where again his field is practically III
limited, as is the demand.
No, the Florida farmer has no caus
to envy his brother farmer in an
part of the country. If he will SUI
up all his advantages Of climate an
the great adversely of productic
which that climate makes possible, !
will realize that nowhere else In a
the wide world is the lot Of the farr
er endowed with so many blessings
right here in Florida The farm
from Kansas is glad to come he
enjoy our winter sunshine, our fret
grown vegetables and our immuni
from the billiards which sweep wi
resistless force across his bare, brow
prairies. And we are glad to ha