Angels' visits to my farm in Florida

Front matter

Class T Z 3

Book JUlll CnpyiightN” , A 3

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm

Chapter I. A Trifle Personal

I AM not a farmer by the law of heredity. My father was a very capable mechanic, and taught me his trade before I was fifteen years old.

Old-fashioned was father.

He used to say that every boy should be taught a useful trade, so that when the inevitable emergency came along he could turn to with vigor and make his way cheerfully.

How often during the past twenty years have I had occasion to remember father’s words, and not without gratitude for his wise forethought !

For, here, on my farm in Florida, 1 must not confine myself to the ordinary hold or drwe work of the farm, but always there is occasion for the application of the mechanic’s skill as well as the philosopher’s wisdom.

Farm life in Florida is the ideal life. In the great productive West, — to which El Dorado the illustrious

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farmer, journalist, and statesman, Horace Greeley, used to point the way in this characteristic manner : “Go West, young man; go West,” — there are immense fields of wheat and corn, annually yielding their golden bounty in the mere routine of plowing, sowing, and reaping.

1 have heard them called ‘ ‘ the harvest fields of the world, ” and several other comprehensive and poetical abbreviations, and what an enviable, glorious personage is he, who with skill, labor and patience, not to speak of wisdom, guides the subtle powers which slumber in the earth to such beneficent achievements ! But is he a farmer, and are those vast plains of waving corn farms }

In a sense — yes.

According to “Gunter” — yes.

Judged by the activity of the grain market — yes. And so forth.

But from a Florida point of view — doubtful at least.

I say “doubtful” timidly, but deep down in the profound depth of my agricultural consciousness with a Florida bias — by no means. No !

This is not envy on my part.

If I might indulge myself, I could easily demonstrate my point and clearly show, that, while any ordinary, not to say raw, foreigner, just landed on our shores, can plunge headlong, and in any language, successfully into such farming, it takes an accom-

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plished coparcener of nature — a polyglot and polygonal man, so to speak, to seduce from the richer, and more subtle, raw acres of Florida soil the corresponding and seasonable harvests.

Farming m Florida ts farming.

I intend no joke.

I mean to say that, given knowledge, skill, devotion, patience, well seasoned with the cardamom of common sense ; and given likewise a llat-woods farm in Florida, the divine pleasure of farming is realized, — the original meaning of the original commission, given to the original human being, as he stood gazing upon the original farm m the sunshine of the first morning, is understood as it never was in the worn-out glebes of England, and as it never can be in the one-crop blizzard-blasted plains of the West !

“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it."

Alas ! if the record be true, he, the man, did not keep it long,— I guess he went West. But Paradise is rapidly being restored, and now all inspired signboards read : “Go South, young man ; go to Florida."

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CHAPTER 11.

LOCATION.

There is much in location.

One grows into surroundings — and the place and the man come to complement each other. Where the coveted Alpine flower grows would be a poor place for the cultivation of strawberries or of pine-apples, or of suppadillos.

Hills and high lands for homes and observation ; but flat lands, low lands well drained, for gardens and fields.

For the past quarter century, in Florida, the rage has been, under the fostering care of land agents, for ‘ ‘ high, rolling, pine lands. ” Every advertising circular describes such lands for homes, orange groves, farms, etc., and the language of puff has long been exhausted.

Thousands of earnest toilers have been swamped, so to speak, in the “ high, rolling, pine lands,” and, if there are any surviving settlers within one hundred miles of where I am writing, they are looking with wistful eyes towards the long despised bottoms, or “ flat- woods,” lands, just now proving their value and productiveness. In passing through this (South

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Florida) country, before it was discovered by “boomers,” I was greatly impressed with the fact, that every settlement, every old settler, every ‘ *' cracker ” farmer, and every cattle ranger, lived on some gentle plateau in the flat lands. Settlements were few, and far apart, but when found, they would invariably be found on comparatively low lands, and the growing corn, sugar cane, orange trees, potatoes, peas, and rice would testify to productiveness under the prevailing system of “cowpenning.’'

Every wild orange grove in Florida will be found in the low, flat lands — and not on the “ rolling, high, pine lands.” It it quite safe to drive your stake firmly down on any abandoned “patch,” once the temporary home of a “ cow-boy,” or a “ cracker ” farmer.

They knew good land, and never made a mistake in location.

I can now see from my window just such a “ patch.” When I saw it for the first time it was surrounded by very low, flat lands, which, during the rainy season, were much flooded. At times, over portions of it, one could easily paddle his canoe.

But a system of drainage has made it available for planting all the year round, and for miles, in every direction, there is no dearth of available land for homes, farms, and gardens. The soil is sandy loam underlaid with clay — the best of soil. •

This clay is within five inches, twenty inches, two lO ANGELS' VISITS.

feet, eight feet, ten feet, as the case may be, of the warm surface, but there it is, and it forms the basis of successful farming — holding moisture, oxigen gas, retaining fertilizers, and contributing constantly back-bone to the genial surface under cultivation.

Nature's secret springs of action are here in harmonious abundance ; and the sunshine, the rains, the dews, and the human co-operation complete the picture.

The question of drainage is simple enough. The frequent and abundant lakes are almost invariably lower than the flat lands, and drains cut towards and into them, sufficiently drain, even during the rainy season, as a rule.

But an occasional flooding out does no harm, for here we can so rotate and regulate crops, as to be able to lose one or two in a season occasionally.