GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA I2g 



appears that he had in 1910 115 acres, of which 20 were improved, 

 land worth $4,000 (or $34.80 per acre), buildings worth $1,000, 

 and implements and machinery $150. The one in Orange County 

 was probably Chinese or Japanese and a truck-farmer, for he had 

 only two acres, all improved, worth $100 or $50 per acre, buildings 

 worth $750. and no implements or machinery worth mentioning. 



In several places in this region corporations have acquired large 

 tracts of land and sold it in small parcels, commonly of ten acres, 

 to persons who may have never been in Florida at all, to be planted 

 to oranges or other citrous* fruits. For the sum agreed upon the 

 corporations set out the trees desired, cultivate them, market the 

 fruit when it matures, and remit the profits (if any) to the absent 

 owners; and this sort of business if efficiently managed may be 

 very satisfactory to all concerned. Technically each indi\idua] 

 holding is a farm, operated by a manager, without buildings or live- 

 stock ; but practically the owners are merely stockholders in a large 

 farming enterprise; and different interpretations of this point by 

 the census might make a considerable difference in the per farm 

 statistics. 



The leading crops in 1909. -in order of value, by United States 

 census, were oranges (a little over half the total), "vegetables," 

 grape-fruit, hay, corn, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, sugar-cane 

 (syrup), peaches, and pears. In 1913-14, according to the State 

 Agricultural Department, oranges (nearly half), celery, lettuce, 

 grape-fruit, tomatoes, watermelons, (grass) hay, corn, sweet pota- 

 toes, peppers, (string?) beans, cabbage and cucumbers. In 191 7- 

 18, oranges, celery, corn, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, 

 grape-fruit, watermelons, cabbage, Irish potatoes, "native grass" 

 hay, sweet potatoes, string beans, cowpeas (and hay), egg-plants, 

 Natal grass hay, sea-island cotton, beets, squashes, and upland cot- 

 ton. Peanuts, which constitute something like a fifth of the to- 

 tal crop value in the lime-sink region, make less than a thousandth 

 in the lake region, perhaps on account of the scarcity of lime in the 

 upland soils. 



*It is a common and apparentlj^ growing — but not altogether com- 

 mendable — practice to write the noun citrus, the generic name of oranges, lem- 

 ons, kumquats, etc., instead of the adjective citrous. 



