USA > Florida > Florida, 1513-1913, past and future; four hundred years of wars and peace and industrial development > Part 12
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However, these conditions have been changed, or are changing very rapidly with the development of the state into farms, grovcs and plantations; and not many years will elapse before the ranges of Florida will be a thing of the past. The development of the state so far as this industry is concerned, must follow the course of change that has come in the western states. So long as Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota and Texas depended upon wild grasses for beef production, the cattle industry was uncertain. The native grasses provided suffi- cient feed to fatten the cattle for beef but not to carry them through the winter in good condition. Under range conditions, thousands of animals perished every year. As the population increased in these states, the large ranges were broken into small holdings. These states are now growing nutritious forage plants and are sending the finest beef to the market; they are producing great quantities of the finest butter. This, however, is not done with the native vegetation as a basis, but by the use of introduced and domesticated forage plants. In every country in the world, it becomes necessary to improve the character of vegetation before domestic animals can be developed to produce large profits in an extensive industry of this kind.
WINTER FEEDING NECESSARY
The argument is frequently advanced that the Florida climate is so mild that it is unnecessary to provide shelter or extra food for livestock in the winter. Unfortunately for this argument, it requires more than climate to make good beef. The vegetation that grows naturally in the pine woods is scanty and non-nutritious during the broken season of winter, and cattle cannot gain sufficient sustenance from it to maintain their condition, to say nothing of keeping up the natural gain in weight. Cattle on a range, therefore, are driven from the open country and flat woods during the winter, and congregate in the hammocks and along the water courses and lakes. These loca- tions afford some shelter and variable amounts of forage, but there are not enough such locations for the cattle that run wild in the south- ern part of the state, and the result is a large mortality among them.
JERSEY STOCK ON FLORIDA FARM
CATTLE ON GREEN PASTURAGE IN JANUARY
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The winter starving period so stunts the young animals that they never attain their normal size.
The entire cattle industry is in the process of remodeling, follow- ing approximately the example of the western states in which the industry is of large importance. The production of better cattle for beef purposes, the improvement of the native strains by crossing them with graded stock, and the consequent betterment of the product for home consumption of for outside markets, are the problem which is being worked out slowly in Florida. Another basis for this improve- ment is in the immense variety of forage plants and grasses which Florida possesses in an abundance unsurpassed in any other section of the country.
EXPERIMENT STATION'S USEFULNESS
The workers at the United States Experiment Station at Gaines- ville have been of inestimable value to the farmers and cattle raisers of this state in the development and propagation of these forage plants. They have produced varieties which furnish sufficient green feed through every month in the year. They have produced varieties of such luxuriant growth and nutritiousness, that more cattle can be fed and kept in good condition upon a given acreage here than by the uses of forage plants known elsewhere. They have been educating the farmers to the use of the silo, and to the idea that the careful feed- ing of cattle throughout the year, including the winter seasons, is an investment that pays large returns.
It is interesting to note and to study results of the experiments that have been made at the Gainesville station during the last twenty years. Among the crops belonging to the grass family are the Natal grass, which grows luxuriantly and abundantly throughout the south- ern half of the state; the Rhodes grass, introduced about 1905, which has been proven to be adopted to every part of Florida. In some parts of the state it has been grown in considerable areas, but the efforts at present are to secure sufficient secd for more extensive planting. Others are the Molasses grass, the Para grass and the Guinea grass, and have been shown to be adaptable to the various sections of Florida.
JAPANESE CANE
Japanese cane belongs to the grass family and is very closely allied to the common sugar cane. It is without a doubt the king of forage
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plants in Florida. It produces large quantities of green forage late in the fall, at the time it is most needed. It is a profitable food from December, since the amount of nutritive sugar content increases rap- idly in the last weeks of its development. Twenty-seven tons of green matter in this canc have been produced on an acre of land which ordinarily would grow eighteen to twenty bushels of corn. The original stock of this cane was brought into Florida more than forty years ago. This first introduction gave only a suggestion of its pos- sibilities, and better varieties were brought from Japan. The seed canes of eight varieties have been brought from Ceylon, which are now being tested out at the experiment station. All of these are easily adaptable to conditions in Florida, and from this propagation it is likely that Japanese cane will be extended all over the United States wherever climatie conditions favor its growth.
The experiment station has tested between thirty and forty vari- eties of alfalfa, the seed having been received from Peru, Turkestan, Mongolia and nearly all of the alfalfa-producing countries of the world. All these seeds germinated into vigorous growing plants, but failed to be sufficiently productive to be profitable. In other words, the conditions throughout most of Florida do not favor alfalfa as a profitable crop for pasture.
From eighty to one hundred varieties of soy beans have been tested out at the experiment station. A few of these produced vig- orous growth, but they have not yet been proven practicable for the southern part of the state.
Nearly two hundred and fifty varieties of cowpeas have been tested. The crop has been grown for many years in the southern part of the United States with success. But the cowpea family is decreas- ing in favor in Florida, largely because other forage products, like the velvet bean, produce a larger amount of ammonia per acre at less expense.
VELVET BEAN
For nearly a quarter of a century the Florida velvet bean has been regarded with high favor throughout the southeastern section of the United States. Originally it was used as an arbor plant; then it was discovered that it was a good feed for stock and came into general use. It now stands seventh in the value of Florida farm crops. A good crop of velvet beans is worth from $30 to $40 per acre to the farmer. The beans themselves sell readily as seed for $30 per acre crop. The large value of the plant is in its power to
SILO AND CATTLE BARN AT FLORIDA EXPERIMENT STATION
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take nitrogen from the air and leave it in the soil, which gives it an equivalent valuc of one thousand pounds of cotton seed meal as a fertilizer.
The Kudzu vine has been grown at the experiment station since 1907. Its great value is for hay production.
At least fifty other varieties of forage plants have been tested out at the experiment station, and the development of these forage plants has made a total of not less than a thousand different native grasses and forage plants among the resources of Florida.
The Peninsular State is located in that part of the country known as the "Texas fever belt," the section in which the cattle tick is more or less a menace to the cattle industry. Under state authority, acting through the State Board of Health, vigorous measures have been taken to wipe out this menacc. It seems probable that within a few years the restrictions imposed upon the exportation of Florida cattle for beef and dairy purposes will be removed; and that the discrimination of from one and one-half to two cents per pound on live cattle will also be removed.
With all its favoring conditions for the raising of cattle, Florida imports about eighty per cent of its beef for home consumption. It buys its butter and cheese in the north, and when the full realiza- tion of the possibilities that exist in Florida shall be impressed upon capitalists, there should be no reason why cattle-raising, both for beef and for dairy purposes, should not place Florida in the lead of all the states.
Vol. I-13
CHAPTER IX ORANGE CULTURE
F LORIDA is preeminently the home of the orange in the United States. Here the several varieties classed under the general description of citrus fruits reach their highest perfection; they contain the largest per- centage of juice proportionate to their gross weight; they have the finest shipping qualities and they are ex- celled in flavor by the product of no other section of the United States or of the world.
In this discussion the citrus products are made to include the more than fifty varieties of sweet orange known to Florida growers, seven- teen kinds of grapefruit, known also as pomelo, nine varieties of lemons, six or more of tangerines, sometimes called the "kid-glove orange," three of limes, besides kumquats, the citron and a few varie- ties which are not extensively cultivated and are almost unknown outside of the state.
The kumquat differs in many respects from other fruits of the citrus class, being small, usually not more than one and a half inches long with half that diameter. It is slightly acid to the taste and the skin, for the kumquat is eaten whole, lacks the bitter flavor that belongs to the skins of other fruits of the citrus class. It usually is grown on dwarf trifoliata stock not more than thirty inches high, although it has been grown on larger trees. It is probably an importation from China. The miniature tree is often used for ornamental purposes and Florida housewives make a delicious preserve from the fruit. So far as is known the kumquat has never been successfully budded on orange stock.
HISTORICAL
The introduction of the orange into Florida, if it be an importa- tion, antedates European invasion of the peninsula. The early writers whose reports have been preserved, refer to the orange and speak of its excellence. It was known probably much earlier among
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the natives and it has been one of Florida's valued assets since history was first written about this section. There are many reasons to conclude that it grew here without particular care or cultivation in these earlier times and until comparatively recent years, and only since the Civil war has it become a commercially valuable crop.
In various sections of Central Florida the first white settlers found hundreds of acres covered with wild orange groves, wherein the trees grew as Nature had planted them in forests and with no regard for the symmetrical arrangement in rows which the modern horticulturist is careful to preserve. Often these trees grew inter- mingled haphazard with indigenous growths of the soil, whose pro- tection from the extremes of cold preserved the citrus trees from serious injury.
The most vigorous and healthy citrus stock has been found to be that of the sour orange, a fruit in which the bitter and the sour are so intermingled as to make it unpalatable. On this and other vigor- ous native stock the choice varieties of sweet and better flavored oranges were budded, new and improved varieties of seedlings were developed and the final result has made the Florida orange known everywhere, without a rival and the best in the world.
CHARACTER OF THE ORANGE TREE
The vigorous and healthy orange tree is almost ideally beautiful among the products of the soil. When left free to develop naturally, it reaches a height of forty to fifty feet; it puts out its first branches four to six feet above the ground and it shapes itself into symmetrical form. Its leaves are of a dark olive green, making a rich back- ground for the bloom, which is of purest white with dainty yellow stamens and a fragrance that is powerful, penetrating, and delightful.
The texture of the orange tree classifies it among the hard woods. Its fiber is close and firm and the wood of a dead and dried tree will test the metal of the ax and the patience of the chopper to cut it up. The tree sends down a tap root into the earth almost or quite equal in length to the height of the tree above the ground, while close beneath the surface it spreads out a network of fine, fibrous roots to absorb the moisture from the soil. It matures slowly, begin- ning to bear under favorable circumstances in the fourth and fifth years and increasing its production with its growth for fifteen to twenty years. The natural life of the tree is from fifty to sixty years, perhaps much more, for the limit is practically unknown in Florida.
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FLO RIDA FLC RICA
NGA
*****
INTERIOR OF FLORIDA ORANGE PACKING HOUSE, WINTER PARK
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The season of blooming is regulated much by the weather con- ditions, from January to March. The dormant season of the tree begins with the full maturing of the fruit in November or early December. In some seasons and in certain sections of the state, high temperatures, accompanied by warm rains, start the sap in January, and with the continuance of these conditions, the tree is likely to put out a profuse bloom. If a later occurrence of cold does not kill this bloom, the fruiting follows, but it is usually the normal bloom of late February and March that brings the best crop.
. . The Florida orange reaches its prime, considering flavor, appear- ance and carrying qualities, about December 15th. It may be allowed to hang on the tree until the warm weather of April without deterioration.
To enter upon a discussion of the methods of cultivation would be to open an almost inexhaustible topic about which every Florida orange grower has his own ideas. The soils adapted to this culture would be almost as difficult to describe. Splendid results have been obtained on half of the many varieties of soils that give such wide diversity to the products of the state.
PROPAGATION
The propagation of citrus varieties in Florida is by budding. It is a well established fact that the seedling will not "come true" to variety. Seeds from oranges on the same tree will not produce trees whose fruit is the same as that of the tree from which they came. Indeed, two seeds from the same orange will grow two trees whose fruit may have characteristics entirely different from each other and both varying from that of the parent stock. Accordingly the only method of perpetuating a particular variety is by budding from the tree whose good qualities it is desired to preserve. This process is not wholly unlike that of grafting, as of the apple or pear in the north.
It is this method by which grapefruit is made to grow on orange stock. Several varieties of orange, besides grapefruit and tangerine, may be gathered from the same tree on which they have been budded.
Citrus growth in Florida has several inscet and parasite enemies, which in times past have caused great financial losses. The scale and the white fly, besides several fungus growths, have been the cause of much annoyance to fruit growers, but their possibilities for harm have been much curtailed by the work of the Florida Experiment
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Station at Gainesville. Persistent scientific study of these enemies in the groves where they appear and repeated experiments have enabled horticulturists to wage a successful war of extermination. The results obtained in this way have made the cultivation of citrus fruits every year more safe and profitable.
ORANGES AND THE WEATHER
But it is the cold in the northern sections of the state and the possibility of cold, that have brought the greatest losses to the grower, for the orange tree is tender, and its fruit filled with juice, will with- stand only a few degrees of frost. Under normal conditions of loca- tion from four to six hours of a temperature of twenty-four degrees, Fahrenheit, with no wind stirring, will break down the cell tissues of an orange and then begins the process of decay and fermentation. The tree itself will pass through such a test without serious damage, but if the trunk and branches be filled with the up-flowing sap, the damage is likely to be much greater than if the tree be in a dormant condition.
Various methods of protecting orange groves from cold have been devised and used in the northern and central parts of the state and with varying success. The proximity of any considerable body of water is of great value, especially if the grove is located on the east or northeastern side of a lake or wide river, for the reason that the cold of the westerly winds, which are most destructive, is modified by the water. The location of a high and thick growth of pines or oaks on the west and south sides of an orange grove is also of much advantage, as a protection against cold.
Huge tents of light cloth, covering the entire tree have been used and with fair success when the temperatures were not too low, but the expense was prohibitive. Fires kindled in variously modeled stoves or fire-pots, with wood or oil fuel, piles of quick burning pine wood scattered through the grove, have prevented serious damage and have saved valuable fruit crops on the trees from ruin by the sudden arrival of frost. But the efficiency of these methods through a long series of years has not been sufficient to withstand the greatest extremes of cold and to prevent the destruction of groves in the northern part of the state. The result has been that orange culture as a commercial investment has been curtailed in these sections of Florida. Much the larger portion of the annual product comes from
A FLORIDA ORANGE GROVE
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south of the latitude of twenty-nine degrees, which crosses the state near the south line of Volusia and Marion counties.
The most recent report from the State Department of Agri- culture shows that more than eighty-one per cent of the orange crop and ninety-two per cent of the grapefruit comes from the counties of Brevard, Dade, De Soto, Hillsborough, Lake, Orange, Palm Beach, Polk and St. Lucie. More than one-half comes from the section south of latitude twenty-eight, south, or about the northern boundary of Hillsborough and Polk counties.
GRAPEFRUIT
Grapefruit, also known as the pomelo, is somewhat more sus- ceptible to frost than the sweet orange. The large popularity of and the increasing demand for this product have been developed since the great freezes of 1894 and 1895, and its center of production is further south in the state than that of the sweet orange.
LEMONS
The cultivation of the lemon has not been made a great success for several reasons well known, and for some possibly not so well understood. The lemon, tree and fruit, is more tender than the orange. It requires more careful attention as well as a more abun- dant supply of moisture during the development of the annual crop. This means the installation and use of artificial irrigation, excepting in unusual surroundings, and the uncertainties of large returns from the crop have not seemed so far to justify the expense. This has given California an advantage in the lemon culture.
There appears to be no reason why the cultivation of the lemon in Florida should not be made as valuable commercially as on the Pacific coast, if the same artificial conditions may be supplied. This fruit was raised quite extensively in the central counties of the state prior to 1895, the product reaching 140,000 boxes in one year, but since the destruction wrought by the cold of that year the culture has not been revived to a large extent, the crop of 1912 being about twelve thousand boxes.
LIMES
Florida limes are among the most profitable of the citrus crops, although their production has not yet reached large proportions. The
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acid of the fruit is in every way equal to that of the Sicily lemon and much superior in most respects to that of the imported fruit. The lime tree grows where no other citrus growth can flourish. It is said to reach its perfection on the coraline rocks of the Florida keys. For many years it was one of the neglected resources of the state, but its value has been recognized in the planting and cultiva- tion of extensive groves in the lower counties of the East coast and on the keys. Dade and Palm Beach counties are the largest producers.
RECORD OF PRODUCTION
The annual citrus product of Florida through the years for which records have been preserved and since the crop has been recognized as of commercial importance, is given:
Season.
Boxes.
1884-85
600,000
1885-86
900,000
1886-87
1,260,000
1887-88
. 1,450,000
1888-89
. 1,950,000
1889-90
2,150,000
1890-91
2,450,000
1891-92
2,713,000
1892-93
.3,387,260
1893-94
. 4,221,000
1894-95
2,809,200
1895-96
147,000
1896-97
218,380
1897-98
359,000
1898-99
1,252,000
1899-00
974,000
1900-01
352,600
1901-02
974,000
1902-03
1,470,500
1903-04 . 1,955,000
1904-05
. 2,377,800
1905-06
. 2,969,500
1906-07
2,909,500
1907-08
.3,800,000
1908-09
5,250,000
FIVE YEAR OLD GRAPEFRUIT TREE WITH TEN BOXES OF FRUIT
LATE FRUIT AND EARLY BLOOM
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Season.
Boxes.
1909-10
6,100,000
1910-11
. 4,600,000
1911-12
4,250,000
1912-13
8,125,000
The figures in this tabulation include oranges, grapefruit, lemons and tangerines. In the season of 1909-10 the production of grape- fruit reached 553,000 boxes; in 1910-11 it was about three hundred thousand boxes, and in 1912-13 it was 1,405,000 boxes. An exam- ination of the wide variations in these figures from year to year and between consecutive seasons, brings vividly- to memory of Florida fruit growers some experiences of the past.
HORTICULTURAL DISASTERS
Occurrences of cold snaps which resulted in more or less serious damage to the citrus product of Florida, are recorded in 1886, 1894, 1895, 1899, and 1900. Extraordinarily low temperatures have occurred in the state, but those enumerated have come since orange culture has reached sufficiently large proportions to be seriously affected. In each of these years, it must be remembered, the larger part of the orange crop was being produced in the central and northern parts of the peninsula, and before the horticulturist had learned by convincing demonstrations the limits within which he might safely and profitably plant his groves.
The freeze of 1886 brought much injury to orange groves in certain limited localities in the northern and central parts of the state, but it was not widespread. What is known in Florida's horti- cultural history as "The Great Freeze," occurred on the night of December 30, 1894. A cold wind swept out over Georgia, Alabama, the South Atlantic states and the northern half of Florida. Record low temperatures were reached-two degrees below at Tallahassee, fourteen above at Jacksonville, and corresponding readings in other localities. Probably one-half of the citrus crop was still hanging on the trees and but little of it escaped destruction. The ground was covered with the yellow globes as solid as rock. The leaves dropped from the trees, the smaller branches broke off and the trunks were split open with the frost. Hundreds of acres of groves were frozen to the ground and below the surface. The few remaining signs of life were effectually destroyed in some sections by a frost, which came some weeks later, on February 7, 1895.
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RESULTS FROM THE FREEZE
It was the most serious and gravest financial disaster that had come to Florida in all its history, but like other blessings in disguise, it effectually taught two lessons. The first was that, with the excep- tion of certain limited localities, weather conditions in Northern Florida were too uncertain to admit orange culture as a dependable business venture. The result was that the growers immediately pre- pared to plant new groves in more favored sections of the state. Suf- ficient data were available to demonstrate that the great area of Southern Florida was safe for the investment of capital and effort in this direction. Accordingly, the growers turned their attention to those counties which since that period of disaster have comprised the great orange-producing section of the state. The records of weather variations in this part of the peninsula preclude any proba- bility, almost any possibility, of a repetition of such disasters in the time to come.
DIVERSIFIED PRODUCTION
The second lesson learned from the experiences of 1894 and 1895 was that the soil products of the state must be diversified, if they were to reach their highest development. The returns from orange culture had been so large that hundreds and thousands of owners, native and non-resident, had come to regard the orange grove as a mine of wealth, whose productive capacity was inexhaustible and unlimited and which would go on increasing indefinitely in the future. They had neglected the cultivation of other crops for their own con- sumption and for export, preferring to put all their efforts into the production of oranges and buying many of the commonest vegetables and supplies for farm animals, which they could have produced with vast saving and economy.
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