CANE FIELt)S AND SIKUP FACTORIES. 



9 



From Cairo the party returned to Waycross and pi-oceeded to Jack- 

 sonville, Fla., where the Florida Agricultural Society was addressed 

 on the subject of cane and cassava culture in Florida. A synopsis 

 of the address is as follows : 



CANE AND CASSAVA CULTURE IN FLORIDA. 

 ByH. W. Wir.KY. 



The problems connected with the sngar und starch ])ro(hicts are four or five in 

 nnniher. 



First of all. the soil is to be considered, and therefore agricnltnral interests 

 should pay some attention to staple crops — that is, crops that have a market the 

 year round, and can he preserved and marketed at any time. Sugar and starch 

 are types of such crops. These substun(tes take absolutely nothing from the soil; 

 they are fabricated by the plant from the atmosphere and water; hence the sale of 

 such products does not tend to impoverish the soil. 



The soils of Florida are largely of a sandy nature — that is, they have been 

 deposited from water; they are typically different from the soils of the great 

 Northwest, wliich were produced by the grinding effect of moving icebergs, and 

 represent the richest soils, probably, in the world. Sandy soils are not suitable 

 for prodiTcing wheat, for instance, but they are well adapted to producing sugar 

 and starch. In Florida it is more a question of climate than of soil, since, with 

 a favorable climate, scientific agriciilture will produce a crop from almost any 

 kind of soil. 



The second problem to be considered is that of fertilizers. Perhaps there is no 

 State more favorably situated than Florida in respect to fertilizers. You have 

 here inexhaustible deposits of phosphate. In the leguminous crops which grow 

 here, namely, peas, beans, alfalfa, and beggar-weed grass, you have a most valua- 

 ble means of assimilating nitrogen from the air. In cotton seed, fish scrap, and 

 other animal refuse you have access to large stores of nitrogen. Through your 

 seaports stores of fertilizing materials, snch as nitrate of soda and potash salts. 

 can be brought from Soiith America and Germany. It would be hard to find any 

 other portion of our country where fertilizers could be sold more cheaply than in 

 this State. 



CHAEACTER OP THE MARKET. 



The third problem is the character of the market. This country is the greatest 

 sugar and starch consumer in the world. We use more than 2,000,000 tons of 

 sugar annually. Of this quantity, before the Spanish war. we made only about 

 300,000 tons — about one-seventh of all. 



Since the Spanish war we have acqiiired Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the Philip- 

 pines, all of which give iis large additional (paantities of sugar. This year we 

 will produce about 100,000 tons of beet siigar, so that at the present time it may 

 be said that we produce about one-third of all the sugar we consume; but still 

 there is a vast foreign market which we might supply with the home prodiict. 

 There is no danger, therefore, of overstocking our home market with increased 

 sugar production, nor is there danger of the beet sugar driving the cane sugar out 

 of the market. For many purposes, as, for instance, the manufacture of sinip, 

 beet sugar is unsuitable, and there will always be a demand for all the cane sugar 

 that can be made. 



The sugar crop of the whole world for the present year is about 10,000,000 tons, 

 of which nearly 7,000,000 are made from the sugar beet. 



