ARTICLE VI.

FLORIDA: ITS SOIL AND PRODUCTS.

Although settled by Europeans at an early period in the history of this continent, yet Florida still remains in the condition of a new country. Containing no mines of the precious metals, it possessed little attraction for the more enterprising Spaniard of the sixteenth century and the mildness of its climate was not calculated to inspire the few emigrants who settled on the coast, with the spirit of industry.

A few trading towns contained the principal part of the population of East and West Florida when they were ceded to the United States; and since the cession many causes have operated to prevent its settlement. Some of these have ceased; but others remain, which can only be removed by the growth and progress of improvement in other States. Florida is remote from the great highway of emigration from east to west; there are no great rivers flowing from other States through her territory, affording commercial and social communication with her neighbors, and, consequently, were the climate more conducive to habits of industry, the people of Florida could scarcely be expected to keep pace with the improvements of the age.

But, happily for Florida, its climate and productions are calculated to minister to the comfort and gratification of the inhabitants of the Middle and Northern States, and it will not be long before facilities of commercial and social intercourse will be opened between the Peninsula and the great West by means of railways, and Florida is destined to become the winter and spring garden of this region.

The rich luxuries of St. Augustine and of Tampa-whether of the garden, the orchard, or the ocean-can be transferred by railways to the market in St. Louis in less than two days, and in less than two more they may reach Pembina on our northern boundary.

Looking forward to this state of things, which we consider as comparatively near at hand, we regard Florida as the Italy of North America; and though less grand in its physical outlines, yet it is more abundant, perhaps, in the appliances of comfort and luxury.

Imagine the valley of the Mississippi to contain 100,000,000 inhabitants, and every fertile acre of Florida will be put in requisition to supply them with southern fruits and early vegetables.

Connected with the Northern and Western States by railways, Florida will attract vast numbers from every part of the Union, who will annually resort to her shores to enjoy the luxury of a winter season where frost is almost unknown.

We copy the following notice of the climate, soil, and productions of Florida, from the "Ancient City," where we find it credited to the "Jacksonville News."

EDITORS.

ON THE CLIMATE, SOILS AND PRODUCTIONS OF FLORIDA.

It is not merely in the tropical productions that East Florida possesses advantages over every other State in the Union; it is now established, beyond a doubt, that the Sea Island or long staple cotton (the production of which has heretofore been confined to a few small islands in South Carolina and Georgia) will grow luxuriantly even in the very centre of the peninsula. A superior quality of this article has been produced extensively on the Suwannee, and in the very centre of Alachua, as well as on the eastern coast. This important fact is no doubt attributable to the almost insular position of East Florida.

The importance which the production of this valuable staple must give to East Florida will be duly estimated when it is considered that it can be cultivated there without the fear of competition. The few islands in South Carolina and Georgia which yield this staple are now so nearly worn out that their average product per acre does not exceed one hundred and fifty pounds, and there is no other portion of the United States, with the exception of East Florida, where it can be produced. Neither can it be produced in Texas, Egypt, or India; and it is more than probable that there is in no part of the world a country of much extent so well adapted, both in climate and soil, to the production of this staple as East Florida.

The cultivation of this valuable staple in East Florida is well worthy the attention of planters in general, but especially those Southern planters who are wasting their energies in the profitless production of the common short staple cotton, which competition has already reduced to so low a price.

Although the lands of East Florida, which yield on the average three hundred pounds of Sea Island cotton, six hundred pounds of Cuba tobacco, and two thousand pounds of sugar per acre, can at this time be purchased at a much lower price than the common agricultural lands of the Northern and Middle States, or the common short staple cotton lands of the South, it is not in the nature of things that such can long be the case. It is quite certain that, as soon as the character of these lands becomes generally known, they will sell at a price corresponding with their intrinsic value, which, as has been already shown, is greater than that of any other lands in the United States.

Besides coffee, cocoa, sugar, Sea Island cotton, Cuba tobacco, rice, indigo, arrowroot, cochineal cactus, silk, Sisal hemp, New Zealand flax, oranges, lemons, limes, pineaples, olives, grapes, and other fruits and staples too numerous to detail, East Florida

produces corn, potatoes, cabbages, and, in short, all the vegetables that are known in the Northern States.

The climate of Florida does not allow corn to be planted so close as in the Northern States, and there are not, therefore, so many bushels produced to the acre. The good lands in the interior ordinarily produced from thirty to forty bushels per acre without the aid of manure of any kind, and it is doubtful whether the best corn lands in New York would produce more under similar culture. Much more might no doubt be accomplished by the people of Florida with the aid of manure, rotation of crops, and judicious culture, and it is to be hoped that they will resort to these expedients to preserve the fertility of their lands from deteriora

tion.

With regard to roots, it requires the whole of their summer in the Northern States to produce a single crop. In Florida, on the contrary, a crop of Irish potatoes and a crop of sweet potatoes or yams can, with great facility, be produced on the same land within the year. If Florida cannot rival the North in the amount of the production of Irish potatoes per acre in a single crop, she accomplishes at least as much by producing two crops within the year on the same land, one crop being planted in January and the other in July. But admitting that Florida is inferior to the North in the production of Irish potatoes, she has still the sweet potato or yam, (a more valuable root,) which ordinarily produces as much per acre as the Irish potato yields in the North.

There is no soil and climate better adapted to the production of turnips and ruta bagas than those of East Florida. It is common to see turnips of eight pounds weight growing in poor sandy soil. East Florida certainly surpasses the North in the production of turnips and ruta bagas, both as to the amount per acre and the size and quality of the roots.

With very little care and attention East Florida enjoys every delicacy of vegetable culture at all seasons of the year. Beets, onions, egg-plants, carrots, lettuce, celery, cauliflowers, &c., of superior size and quality, are produced with the most indifferent culture. Watermelons, canteloups, pumpkins, cucumbers, and in short every thing that grows upon vines come to great perfection in East Florida.

Every one knows that, in the North, tenacious clayey soils bake or consolidate, from the drying effect of a summer's sun or the beating of heavy winter rains, to such a degree as to constitute the principal annual labor of the cultivator to restore them to a fine tilth again for the reception of seed. This never occurs in East Florida; principally because the most clayey soils in the State contain an intermixture of a large proportion of organic matter in a state of decomposition, which with a due proportion of very fine sand, imparts to them a porous character, not very susceptible of induration or agglutination. Indeed, so easily is land in East

Florida annually reduced to the finest tilth, that it is not an unusual thing for such as will produce three hogsheads of sugar to the acre, to be broken up, by a single horse and plough, to the depth of six inches or more. This is, therefore, an important advantage enjoyed by Florida land in its preparation and culture over most of the lands in the North; and it leads to the inevitable conclusion that less labor is requisite in Florida to produce similar crops than is indispensably necessary in the North; for it will be readily perceived that the same cause which saves labor in the preparation of the soil also saves labor in its culture. No description of soil in the country requires more than one ploughing to prepare it fully for the reception of any crop which it produces; and but few crops receive more than one ploughing in their culture. Many crops of corn in Alachua, of from thirty to forty bushels per acre, have been made with a single hoeing and thinning, and a single ploughing subsequently. Sweet potatoes are always made with a single ploughing and a few pickings over to free them from weeds, &c. Turnips, ruta bagas, sugar beets, &c., if sown as they should be in August or September, require no subsequent culture to produce as large crops of either of them as can be grown in New York or Pennsylvania. Even sugar, cotton, and tobacco receive less labor in the preparation of the soil for their reception, and much less after-culture, than is given to a crop of corn in New York. There can, in short, be no doubt of the fact that similar crops receive and require much less labor for their production in East Florida than in the Northern States.

The general topography of East Florida may be characterized as that of a low country, so that the surface, in most of the level pine lands, is placed within the reach of a constant supply of moisture, derived from the sub-soil by solar influence. This, together with the heavy dews which generally prevail, accounts for the luxuriant covering of grass and constant verdure which the whole face of the country presents even in the dryest seasons.

A large proportion of a Northern farm is necessarily appropriated to the production of grasses for hay to sustain the stock during a dreary winter of half a year's duration. This is entirely unnecessary in East Florida, where perennial pastures, sufficient to feed any number of cattle or horses, exist naturally, or may be formed artificially with but little labor, by making the requisite enclosures; and where the winters are so mild that there is never any necessity for housing stock. So numerous were the herds of cattle in Alachua before the war that from 7,000 to 10,000 could be seen grazing at once on Payne's prairie; and there was a single grazier on the Wacasassa whose stock had increased in the course of a few years to the number of 3,000 without any other expense than that of herding them.

In most parts of Florida hogs thrive well, and fatten without

any other support than that which they derive from the abundant roots and mast of the country.

There is certainly no portion of the United States where game and fish are so abundant as in East Florida. The fact that a large body of Indians supported themselves well for the space of seven years, while hunted themselves by an army of 5,000 men, is some evidence in proof of this assertion. It was common before the war for a good hunter to kill seven deer of a day, and multitudes of these animals were slaughtered merely for their skins. The country abounds in turkeys, partridges, geese, ducks, curlew, and various other species of smaller game.

The whole coast of Florida, to the extent of at least 600 miles, abounds in the finest fish, and the oysters are not surpassed by any in the world in size and flavor. Sheephead, grouper, redfish, mullet, green turtle, &c., are to be found in inexhaustible quantities at almost every point both of the eastern and western coast; and the numerous lakes, rivers and creeks of the interior teem with fresh-water fish and the most delicious species of soft-shell turtle.

But these are objects of minor consideration which serve to convey but a feeble idea of the importance which its geographical position, its climate, and its soil give to East Florida. The vast amount of soil in the peninsula capable of producing Sea Island cotton, Cuba tobacco, and sugar cane, (all objects of human consumption, of the utmost importance not only to the consumer but to the whole country,) and its fine adaptation of climate to their successful production, must form the basis of a degree of prosperity far surpassing that enjoyed by any of the States, north of her.

The great advantages to be derived from the culture of the orange, lemon, and lime, in East Florida, is a subject little known or appreciated, out of the State. It presents a field for profitable enterprize, unequalled in the United States. "The insect," which for eight years had desolated the beautiful groves of these fruits, which adorned the banks of the St. John's, is rapidly disappearing; and the trees assuming, once more, their healthy vigor and beautiful verdure. The crop of fruit this year, I understand, promises

to be an abundant one.

There is no culture in the world, by which the foundation for an independent fortune can be laid, at the expense of so small an outlay, as the culture of the orange and lemon in East Florida. The method of establishing groves, by transplanting the sour orange trees from the hammocks, where they abound, in the wild state,and which has been in successful practice for several years,-is of great importance; in the first place, because it does away with the difficulty and expense of procuring sweet trees; and in the second place, because the sour trees planted and budded, will bear much sooner than sweet trees from a nursery.

The sour trees may be dug up carefully in the hammocks, at any time from October to June. They should be topped about four