USA > Florida > Florida, 1513-1913, past and future; four hundred years of wars and peace and industrial development > Part 11
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VARIETIES OF PRODUCTS
Stretching north and south through six degrees of latitude, from the St. Mary's river to the Straits of Florida, a large portion of its area is influenced directly by the tempering winds from ocean and gulf. Florida has a larger variety of soils and, consequently, a larger variety of indigenous and naturalized soil products than any other state. With the exceptions of those products whose perfect maturing requires a colder climate, most of the grains and fruits and vegetables
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that are raised in the northern states, are more easily and quite as profitably raised in Florida.
Of the grains, wheat seems not to reach perfection here. Of the fruits, apples have not been produced in competition with those of the north and west. With practically no other important exceptions, the soil products of Florida that have reached a distinct commercial value, include the entire list of agricultural and horticultural prod- ucts of the other states, besides a large variety of citrus fruits which reach their highest perfection here, and a considerable number of edible products which so far have been grown nowhere else in the United States. Rice, tobacco, long-staple cotton here equal the best grown elsewhere. In the northern counties oats, barley and wheat (as a for- age crop), grapes, peaches, and plums are profitably cultivated. Corn, originally a product of the southern states, is a paying crop in every part of Florida. Sugar cane reaches a more profitable matur- ity than in any other state, because the late occurrence of cooler weather in autumn favors the development of a larger percentage of sugar content.
FLORIDA FRUITS
The fruits of Florida represent varieties from every habitable portion of the earth. They may be divided into three classes:
I -- Temperate and warm-temperate fruits: Peaches, pears, apri- cots, nectarines, figs, plums, grapes, Japanese persimmons, straw- berries, dewberries, blackberries, mulberries and other small fruits that are found in sections further north.
II-Semi-tropical fruits: Oranges, tangerines, pomelo or grape- fruit, pomegranates, loquats, limes, guavas, citrous roselle or tree cranberry, avocado or alligator pear.
III-Tropical fruits: Bananas, pineapples, cocoanuts, sugar apple, sapodillo, tamarind, cocoa plum, Barbadoes cherry, rose apple, sea grape, star apple, Surinam cherry and pawpaw or papava.
Nuts, especially pecans, and the Japanese varieties of walnuts and chestnuts are successfully grown in many parts of the state and are becoming an important industry, particularly in the northern and western sections of Florida.
Florida produces more varieties of grasses and forage crops than any other state. Cattle may be kept in prime condition on growing green pasturage through every month in the year.
FIFTY ACRES OF PINEAPPLES, INDIAN RIVER
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FLORIDA
Of the five hundred varieties of trees that Nature has planted in the continental United States, Florida has more than three hundred, a greater number than any other state, and of hard woods almost twice as many as any other. The list is being increased continuously through importations and acclimatization by the United States De- partment of Agriculture and by private enterprise, of trees and shrubs from every portion of the temperate and semi-tropical zones of the earth.
No honest and intelligent man will claim for the state that its soils are better than those to be found elsewhere. No assertion is made that these rich harvests are gathered without the preliminaries of hard work or without the generous use of fertilizers, for the spontane- ous growths of the soil usually are not worth the gathering. But it is in the combination of soils and of climate that the greatest ad- vantage over other sections is to be found. It is in the fact that cli- matic conditions favor the growth of vegetation in the southern one- half of the state through the entire year, and in the northern part the late arrival of autumn frosts permits the normal development of culti- vated crops.
In the latter section the early opening of spring fosters early plant- ing at the season when the north is buried under heavy blankets of snow and the earth is solid with frost. In the southern counties the time of harvesting the annuals, as of vegetables, may be regulated in large measure, by the time of planting, and practically all of these may be planted in any month of the year. It is this fact that times the ripening of strawberries for the northern Thanksgiving markets, and has tomatoes, cabbage, beans, cucumbers, lettuce, celery and a score of table vegetables ready for carload shipments from December to April.
NATURE FAVORS THE SOUTH
If a traveler were to make his journey from the arctic regions to the equator, he would find his progress marked by an increasing va- riety of soil products. As he journeyed southward he would note the swelling luxuriance and the greater perfection of vegetation. He would discover that Nature has been more lavish in her gifts of soils and of their products in the latitudes of sunshine and warm rains, and that in the tropics the tangles of trees and vines and the productive- ness of the earth from which they spring, reach their highest per- fection. The profuseness of production seems to be proportionate to its nearness to the line that divides the northern from the southern Vol. I-11
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hemisphere. Florida is the most southern state in the Union, and measured by this law of Nature, it is the richest in its endowments for the agriculturist.
GREATER RETURNS FROM LABOR
The favoring conditions, typical of every warm or semi-tropical country, hasten the development of vegetation in Florida. Fewer months or weeks are necessary for the maturing of the annuals than in more northerly latitudes. This fact makes possible the growth of two or three, occasionally four, crops from the same land within a single year. The same conditions that favor the rapid and luxuriant development of plant life, favor also its insect enemies. The Florida farmer, and particularly the fruit grower, have these obstacles to combat. Scientific methods of fighting these pests combined with the rapid growth of vegetation, more than offset their ravages and make them no serious menace to agricultural prosperity.
The claim is a safe one that nature aids the farmer in Florida more generously than elsewhere. He wins larger rewards from his labor and a greater percentage upon his investments of money and time than is possible in any other agricultural community in the United States. Nature gives little by chance or accident, even in Florida, and the hope for the greatest development of the agricultural possibilities of the state, must be realized through intelligently directed labor. The slothful man may starve just as surely, if not as quickly, in Florida, as on the farms of Minnesota or Manitoba. Gold does not grow on trees in Florida ready for the mint, any more than in Maine or Oregon, but richer rewards for the same investment of labor await him who will make the investment.
AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN FLORIDA
With these natural conditions it is interesting to analyze the actual development of agriculture in Florida. It must be recalled that al- though this section of the United States afforded the first asylum for European adventurers and discoverers, its material development has been retarded by various agencies to the extent that, in this re- spect, it is one of the newest portions of the country.
Statistics in themselves are dry and, to the average reader, unin- teresting, but they present in concrete form valuable information for those who desire to make careful analysis of them. They afford also
BUNCH OF PECANS
COWPEAS-ONE OF FLORIDA'S RICHEST FORAGE CROPS
PEAVINE HAYFIELD
BLEACHING CELERY IN THE ROWS WITH PAPER
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FLORIDA
the basis for comparison of the subject to be illustrated with similar conditions in other sections, and for determining the amount and rate of change during a given period of years. For these reasons some figures have been used to illustrate the recent development and present conditions of Florida's agricultural resources.
FLORIDA'S FARM ACREAGE
The most recent statistics of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, give Florida's acreage as 35,111,000. Of this area, 5,254,000 acres, or fifteen per cent, are classed as farm lands, meaning lands enclosed as farms. Of this acreage, 1,805,000 acres are im- proved and the remainder, 3,449,000 acres, is in woodland or otherwise unimproved. In other words, five and one-tenth acres of each one hundred of the lands of Florida, which might be made productive, have been put under cultivation.
With the wasteful methods of cultivation and harvesting that ob- tain in many parts of the state, it is probable that less than five per cent of Florida's agricultural possibilities are being realized at the present time, yet the returns from its farms and groves and gardens approximated seventy million dollars in 1912, and the net value of its soil products from each acre under cultivation averaged more than twice that reported by the United States Department of Agriculture from any other state in the Union.
The progress of agricultural development in the state during the census period from 1900 to 1910, indicates a growth of astonishing rapidity which, however, has been accelerated since the close of the decade. The latest report from the Department of Agriculture at Washington, covering the State of Florida, is based upon the census figures of 1910. It is unfortunate that neither the state nor the United States has made provisions for an exhaustive compilation of industrial and agricultural statistics more frequently than once in ten years. But the facts gathered in the Thirteenth Decennial Census reports are sufficiently recent to denote accurately the forward movement of this development in Florida. With more than one-third of the succeeding census decade already elapsed, it is necessary to allow for correspond- ing growth by an even greater percentage than any in the past, to se- cure approximately accurate estimates of present conditions.
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FLORIDA'S WEALTH IN FARMS
The total value of farm property in the state in 1910 was $143,- 183,000, an increase during the previous ten years of $89,254,000, or 165.5 per cent. In 1910 the land under cultivation was divided into 50,016 farms, with an average acreage of 105 acres. The average area of Florida farms has decreased by the showing of each succeed- ing decennial census since 1860, when it was 445 acres. The entire acreage in farms in that year was 2,920,000, valued at $22,889,000. The improved land in each farm in 1910 averaged thirty-six acres.
Florida has been heralded as the state of small farms. The ex- ploiters of its lands in recent years have made strong arguments in support of the intensive cultivation of small areas. In its classifica- tion, the United States Department of Agriculture lists as farms all areas of three or more acres under one management, and all acre- ages under three acres from which at least two hundred and fifty dol- lars' worth of products were raised in 1909.
SIZE OF FARMS
Of the 50,016 farms in Florida, 4,065 contained less than ten acres each; 22,188 contained between ten and fifty acres; 9,999 con- tained from fifty to one hundred acres; 12,723 contained from one hundred to five hundred acres; 670 contained from five hundred to one thousand acres, and 371 more than one thousand acres. To sum- marize, almost three-quarters of these farms contained less than one hundred acres each, and about two per cent contained five hundred acres or more.
FARM OPERATION
Of the 50,016 farms, 35,399 were worked by their owners; 1,275 by managers for non-resident owners, and 13,342 by tenants. The tenants on Florida farms constituted 26.7 per cent of the entire num- ber of farm operators in the state, as compared with 45.9 per cent in the section known as the South Atlantic States.
Of the 5,253,538 acres classed as farm lands, 4,286,551 acres were operated by the owners; 280,741 by managers for others, and 680,246 by tenants. White owners operated 3,828,108 acres; negro owners, 458,443 acres; white managers, 270,787 acres; negro managers, 9,974 acres; white tenants, 385,958 acres, and negro tenants, 300,288 acres.
The average size of the farms operated by white farmers was
TEN YEAR OLD PECAN TREE
BUNCH OF FLORIDA COCOANUTS
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slightly above 127 acres, compared with 52 acres operated by negroes, but the percentage of land classed as improved was more than twice as large under negro operators than under whites.
NATIVITY OF FARM OPERATORS
The nativity of farmers in Florida is a matter of much signifi- cance. Of these, 35,298 were white, all but 1,215 of them being native born, and 14,721 were non-whites, including twenty-one Japanese and Chinese and two Indians, the remainder being negroes. Among the foreign born whites, England, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Ire- land, Scotland, and Denmark were represented numerically in the order named.
INDEBTEDNESS ON FLORIDA FARMS
A study of the indebtedness resting on Florida farm lands makes a favorable showing for the state. Of the number of farms operated by the owners, 29,614, or more than 85 per cent, were free from mort- gage indebtedness, and 5,160, or about fifteen per cent, had such incumbrance. The proportion of debt-free farms in Florida has de- creased steadily since 1890. Of the farms thus incumbered in 1910, the average value was $3,098, the average indebtedness being $652, or twenty-one per cent, and the equity in each, $2,446.
FLORIDA STATE REPORTS
The Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of Florida issues a biennial report at the first of each odd-numbered year. This time has been selected in order that the report may be submitted to the Legis- lature which, by law, convenes for a sixty-day session through April and May of such years. This report covers all agricultural opera- tions and other matters under the jurisdiction of the Department. It gives the crop statistics of the state for the last previous even-nun- bered year.
It happens that the harvest season for many fruits and vegetables begins early in December and continues through several months into the following year. Other crops are planted and mature wholly within the calendar year, and it has been found convenient in preparing statistical information and for other purposes, to make the crop year begin with the first of July.
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The report from which the following figures have been taken, covered the year 1911-1912. Extracts from this report have been used somewhat freely in order to give an idea of the variety of Florida's more important soil products, to note approximately the aggregates, and to furnish sufficient data from which valuable deductions may be drawn regarding the acreage productions and their values for each acre under cultivation. While no report could be gathered with ab- solute accuracy it would be impossible with the present machinery of the State Department, for the Commissioner to secure more complete or more reliable statistics. It is certain that the results presented in the report show less than the maximum and actual productiveness of the state, and that an uncertain but appreciable percentage may safely be added.
TOTAL VALUATION OF CROP PRODUCTS
Field Crops
$16,051,730
Vegetable and Garden Products.
8,056,685
Fruit Products
9,689,774
Poultry and Poultry Products
3,527,286
Dairy Products
2,518,241
Miscellaneous Products
133,713
$39,977,429
Livestock on hand, July 1, 1912
23,510,479
$63,487,908
This total shows an increase of $6,775,000 in two years, as in- ventoried in the last previous report from the State Department of Agriculture. The value of livestock in this report includes more than the proportion that should be credited as entirely the product of the year, and the figures are, therefore, separated from those of the other land products.
FIELD CROPS
CROP
ACREAGE
QUANTITY
VALUE
Cotton, Upland
123,588
42,013 bales
$2,095,973
Cotton, Sea Island.
117,001
28,071 bales
2,188,830
Corn
460,686
5,453,936 bushels
4,455,161
Oats
23,513
287,708 bushels
232,250
FIFTEEN YEAR OLD PECAN GROVE, ST. AUGUSTINE
HOW COCOANUTS GROW IN FLORIDA
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FLORIDA
CROP
ACREAGE
QUANTITY
VALUE
Sweet Potatoes
27,747
2,953,581 bushels
$2,398,257
Rice
557
14,737 bushels
22,609
Sugar Cane
9,475
67,846 bbls. syrup
920,693
Field Peas
8,165
76,885 bushels
149,456
Field Pea Hay
9,745
9,849 tons
180,894
Hay, Native Grasses
29,732
46,650 tons
516,351
Peanuts
96,695
1,534,736 bushels
1,630,275
Tobacco
1,572
1,444,626 pounds
586,607
Velvet Beans
28,314
320,930 bushels
598,815
Velvet Bean Hay
1,901
2,526 tons
46,673
Miscellaneous
12,575
FRUIT PRODUCTS
CROP
QUANTITY
VALUE
Oranges
4,769,312 crates
$5,665,415
Lemons
11,810 crates
32,763
Limes
35,417 bushels
61,770
Grapefruit
1,405,308 crates
2,684,525
Sugar Apples
2,703 crates
4,169
Avocado Pears
19,373 crates
53,730
Pineapples
355,658 crates
383,155
Bananas
27,061 bunches
18,633
Mangoes
26,559 crates
26,646
Guavas
56,172 crates
49,281
Cocoanuts
77,819 trees
8,441
Pecans
16,893 bushels
94,887
Strawberries
3,513,108 quarts
147,456
Pears
30,993 barrels
72,258
Peaches
178,566 bushels
225,576
Grapes .
1,054,945 pounds
74,581
Grape Wines
20,354 gallons
19,968
Figs
16,534 crates
25,585
GARDEN PRODUCTS
CROP
ACREAGE
QUANTITY
VALUE
Onions
624
65,162 crates
$ 102,067
Lettuce
2,598
625,012 crates
818,307
Celery
932
420,394 crates
482,579
Peppers
1,062
250,918 crates
288,663
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FLORIDA
CROP
ACREAGE
QUANTITY
VALUE
Irish Potatoes
10,647
1,080,215 bushels
$1,640,882
Cabbage
2,307
193,729 crates
295,279
Tomatoes
13,213
1,752,194 crates
2,112,829
Squash
547
98,403 crates
133,183
Egg Plant
438
39,588 crates
39,981
Cucumbers
2,081
363,390 crates
344,423
Watermelons
15,724
6,895 carloads
511,417
Cantaloupes
4,444
280,551 crates
285,023
English Peas
261
12,045 crates
21,165
Beets
281
23,123 crates
35,210
Beans
6,297
768,300 crates
798,221
LIVESTOCK ON HAND, JULY 1, 1912
NUMBER
VALUE
Horses
48,418
$6,009,142
Mules
32,352
5,396,601
Asses and Jennets
248
15,361
Cattle
Oxen
9,320 yokes
292,997
Stock cattle
772,076
7,224,544
Thoroughbred stock
14,188
489,089
Cows kept for milk
39,621
1,215,842
Hogs
661,437
1,858,915
Sheep
114,501
287,699
Goats
43,998
43,854
Poultry
2,793,932
1,370,129
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS
QUANTITY
VALUE
Eggs
8,175,261 dozen
$2,157,157
Milk, used and sold
8,131,761 gallons
2,166,018 .
Butter, used and sold
1,133,887 pounds
351,964
Honey
675,718 pounds
72,363
Wool, spring clip
261,017 pounds
56,588
OPPORTUNITIES IN FLORIDA
The comparatively meager development of the agricultural re- sources of the state suggests the opportunities that exist on its acres for the energetic and intelligent farmer.
Vol. I-12
FLORIDA FARMER'S HOME
HARVESTING IRISH POTATOES
SWEET POTATOES-400 BUSHELS TO THE ACRE
HARVESTING CELERY CROP AT SANFORD, FLORIDA
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FLORIDA
Until within recent years Florida, in proportion to its population, consumed a larger aggregate of canned and preserved goods than any other state. Many fruits and vegetables that were raised in the state and shipped to northern markets at the time of the winter harvests, were returned in cans from northern manufacturers for summer con- sumption, and the consumer paid the freight both ways.
With the possibility of raising sufficient pork for its own needs and for large export, Florida imported immense quantities of bacon and other pork products. With the most extensive cattle ranges in the world, Florida today buys from western packers four-fifths of its dressed beef. Fresh milk and cream are brought under refrigera- tion from New York and other northern cities to meet the demands of the winter resorts at Palm Beach, Ormond, Miami and Tampa. Evaporated milk and cream have large consumption on the farms and in the cities of the state through the entire year.
POULTRY PRODUCTS
Eighty per cent of the poultry and eggs needed to supply the markets of the state are produced in and brought from Georgia, Ala- bama and Tennessee, while the comparatively few poultry raisers of Florida receive prices for their products in the home markets as high, or higher than those demanded in Chicago, New York and Boston.
The first Irish potatoes reach the northern markets in quantity early in April. They come from Florida fields and command large prices, yet consumers in Florida's cities pay even larger prices for the same vegetable in August and September than were received four or five months earlier for the home grown product.
The first vegetables and fruits that appear in the groceries in the east and north come from Florida truck growers, who receive at the rate of hundreds of dollars an acre for their produce, but it not infre- quently occurs that the same varieties of table foods can not be obtained at home during the late summer and autumn months.
The list of such incongruities might be lengthened almost indef- initely. It would merely emphasize the existence of opportunity in the great Peninsular State for the farmer, the fruit grower and the poul- try man.
SELECTION OF LOCATION
There is much to be said concerning the choice of lands and loca- tion by the new-comer to Florida. Several elements in the problem
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should be underscored. The development of the state, as of all new sections, has been made possible more by the establishment and opera- tion of transportation lines, rail and water, than by any other agency. Some of the most fertile lands in the state have not yet been reached by these lines of communication and, accordingly, their actual present values as producing properties are small.
The question of proximity to local markets and the ready avail- ability of shipping facilities to reach the markets beyond the limits of the state, is one of vital importance. The centers of population fur- nishing the greatest consuming capacity, naturally are the best mark- ets and the nearness of such markets to the place of production reduces carriage charges. Every mile of distance from the market increases the cost of transportation and correspondingly reduces the earning power of the land, thereby indirectly lessening its actual and produc- tive value.
Every mile of hard-surfaced highway enhances such value. There- fore, the agriculturist who is seeking a location in Florida, if he is to make a wise selection, has many things to consider. The most cautious and conservative will not trust such selection to others, but he will choose his land and the place of his home only after a most careful and thorough personal investigation.
CHAPTER VIII THE CATTLE INDUSTRY
LORIDA is essentially an agricultural state. From its soils and the products of its soils more than two- F thirds of its annual wealth is produced. Two-thirds of its population are classed as rural, and two-thirds of the farms in the state are worked by their owners. Under such conditions it is natural that the raising of cattle should be one of the most important industries. It is equally certain that success in cattle raising is dependent upon the natural grasses and forage for this pasture.
Millions of acres of land through the southern and central portions of the state have been devoted in past years to great cattle ranges, whereon roamed hundreds of thousands of native stock, unaccustomed to the approach of man and unherded, according to the methods adopted in the western regions. Indeed, not many years in the past. the largest single owner of cattle in the world was a Floridian, and his herds ranged over hundreds of thousands of acres of wild lands in De Soto, Manatee and Lee counties. The gradual breaking up of these lands into farms and their ownership by individuals and corpo- rations, have practically ended range pasturing in Florida.
The growth of native grasses on these acres afforded ample feed from March until the late autumn months. The winter season, unpro- ductive of pasture, reduced the cattle to a condition bordering on starvation and in former years the annual loss from this cause was estimated as high as ten per cent.
It was to be expected that cattle raised under such conditions would not be equally profitable with those raised on the western prai- ries. According to the authority of a prominent cattle man in the southwestern portion of Florida, the cost of raising Florida beef for market was $1.50 per head. The 50 cents was for branding the calf; the dollar was the cost of cutting the animal from the herd and deliver- ing it to the shipping point. The average price per head for such beef, three years old, was $15, leaving a net profit of $13.50. The average weight for such three-year old beef was 525 pounds, and it produced
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about forty-five per cent of this weight in dressed beef, or approxi- mately 235 pounds for the carcass. But this ratio of profit from the herd was reduced by accident, disease and starvation.
CHANGING CONDITIONS
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