396 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT. 



little or no fertilizer. In the western division of region 10 the percentage of 

 whites is evidently below the average, but the high expenditure for fertilizer 

 there is mainly due to the tobacco industry, whose concentration there may be 

 very largely accidental. (The influence of the trucking industry on fertilizer 

 expenditure is shown plainly in the eastern division of region 19, and less so 

 in the eastern division of region 10.) 



Although one very rarely sees any such statement in print, it must be a 

 fact that the pioneer farmers in northern Florida (if not in most other eastern 

 states), who of course know little about soil physics or chemistry, and cannot 

 afford to experiment much, in selecting land for cultivation must have been 

 guided largely by the proportions of evergreen and deciduous trees in the for- 

 ests.* And deciduous forests are nearly always cleared first, provided their lo- 

 cation, drainage, etc., are suitable. Just how much the average farmer reacts 

 to the presence of Ericaceae, Leguminosae, and other indicative plants it is 

 hard to say, for he cannot be expected to have an intimate acquaintance with 

 them. But probably almost every farmer knows that huckleberry bushes (Erica- 

 ceae) generally indicate poor soil, and clover and beggar- weed (Leguminosae) 

 the opposite. 



Our very sandy hammocks, which although pretty well supplied with humus 

 (as nearly all hammocks are) are characterized by a preponderance of ever- 

 greens, are quite generally left uncultivated, as are the sour flatwoods and scrub, 

 in which the vegetation is nearly all evergreen. And it cannot be doubted that 

 the early settlers who began to clear up the land around Crawfordville in the 

 first half of the 19th century, when most of Wakulla County was a "howling 

 wilderness," were attracted by the predominance of deciduous trees in the for- 

 ests, and not deterred by the coarse and unpromising appearance of the soil. 



*Quite a number of botanists and soil investigators have discussed the prob- 

 lem of determining the agricultural value of virgin soils by means of vegeta- 

 tion, particularly Hilgard (Tenth Census 5:68-69, 229; Soils, xviii-xx, 313-318, 

 487-526), Mohr (Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 6:821-824. 1901), Kearney (Contr. U. 

 S. Nat. Herb. 5:481-484. 1901), Shantz (U. S. Dept. Agr., Bur. Plant Industry, 

 Bull. 201. 191 1), and Kearney, Shantz and others (Jour. Agric. Research, 1:365- 

 417, pi. 42-47. Feb. 1914) ; but all these studies have been merely or mainly qualita- 

 tive, as explained on page 173, and therefore of little value to one who does 

 not happen to know the plants discussed. And they usually make no special 

 reference to the percentage of evergreens, which is one of the most prominent 

 and easily determined features of any forest. (That evergreens have practically 

 the same significance as far north as upper Michigan — latitude 46° — that they 

 do here has been pointed out by the writer in Rep. Mich. Acad. Sci. 15:197. 

 1914.) 



