TOS 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Nov. 1 



sure I never lived anywhere where more people 

 made a fortune from nothing in ten years than 

 here. I can name them by the score. By a fortune 

 I do not mean great wealth, of course, but a compe- 

 tence, say from SlO.OOO to 835,000. 



Mr. Graves says that " very few of the truck- 

 growers got any thina (italics mine) out of their 

 crops last season." I wonder where he got any 

 such information. I rented 45^4 acres of celery land 

 from a neighbor, and he furnished the fertilizer, 

 land, celery-boards, water, etc, and I did all the 

 work and gave him half the net proceeds. His 

 share was over SlOO an acre. I did much better on 

 my liome farm, and many celery-growers did far 

 better than I did. although quite a few of them did 

 lose money. Many of these latter, however, did 

 not lose their own money, but the other fellow's, 

 generally advanced by the commission men. I do 

 not know of a single man who had any capital, and 

 who has had some experience, who did not make 

 better than expenses. The truckers all followed 

 celery with other crops without fertilizers, and pro- 

 duced tomatoes, Irish potatoes, etc., as bountifully 

 as I have ever seen anywhere. One neighbor raised 

 250 bushels of potatoes to the acre— the best crop I 

 ever saw, north or south. He told me this week 

 that he got 81.00 a bushel for all of them. 



Year before last the truckers simply coined 

 money. I know of many colored men who did not 

 have any thing when the season opened, but who 

 cleared over SIOOO on celery alone, all the money to 

 make their crops having been advanced by com- 

 mission men, which had to be ijaid back first. 



Bradentown is the most prosperous that it has 

 been for eleven years, the time I have been here. 

 We are having a steady, healthy growth. Money is 

 the most plentiful that I have ever known. The 

 Bank of Manatee has nearly 8300,000 deposits, and 

 the Bank of Bradentown, a newer bank, over 

 8100,000. Compare this with other towns of 2000 pop- 

 ulation, and see if we are short of money. A gen- 

 tleman who has loaned money here for 25 years 

 told me the other day that many of his clients 

 wanted to pay up their loans: ihat the people were 

 getting too prosperous to need money as they have 

 in the past. This is a new country, and rates of 

 interest are high, mostly 10 per cent, and they were 

 just as high when I was a boy in Illinois and Kan- 

 sas twenty years ago. 



Mr. < iraves says that there is only one hard road 

 at Bradentown. That road is fovir miles long, and 

 the others that connect with it on many streets 

 and roads into the country make them aggregate 

 about ten miles, and the county has just bonded 

 for 8250.000, and expects to be able to build with this 

 money about 100 miles more. P'our of our county 

 towns have bonded, and expect to connect with 

 the main roads. 



AVhat Mr. Graves says about Green Cove Springs 

 is doubtless true, and the same could be said of 

 many other places in Florida. I came from such a 

 place myself; and because of the cold there I emi- 

 grated to Bradentown, but we could not get arte- 

 sian wells there, and it was too cold for winter 

 gardens. 



1 am always advising men who are doing well in 

 the North, and who with their families are well, 

 not to give vip a sure thing for any thing else any- 

 where: but the truth will hurt no one. 



Bradentown, Fla., Oct. 8, 1910. E. B. Rood. 



SOMETHING FROM A CHICKEN MAN AND GAR- 

 DENER. 



Mr. A. I. Root.— I do not think that your writings 

 are too flowery concerning Florida. As you know, 

 I have been here winter and summer for five years. 

 I came here from New York (as good a State as 

 there is in the Union), but would not go back to 

 stay for any thing: and I am not the only one ei- 

 ther. But. as you know, there are plenty of people 

 who come here expecting to get rich quick. Some 

 of them seem to think that they can take their lit- 

 tle savings of twenty or thirty years of hard work in 

 the North and come down here and sow it broad- 

 cast, and reap from ten to a hundred fold the first 

 year, without stopping to consider that this coun- 

 try is new and mosily undeveloped, and that con- 

 ditions are materially different here both in regard 

 to soil and climate, also time and manner of mar- 

 keting produce, etc. There are so many things to 

 learn that I don't feel as conceited now as when I 

 first came here, concerning the way things ought 

 to be done: but one thing I feel sure of, and that is 



that there is a great deal of money wasted on fertil- 

 izers here. We have, as you know, many acres of 

 very rich land in Manatee Co. that are as yet un- 

 touched by plow or ax: and all it needs is to be put 

 in proper shape to produce good crops without 

 much commercial fertilizer: but this can not be 

 done in one or two years. It takes time and much 

 hard work, of course. There are large tracts of 

 poor land here, and some practically worthless: but 

 I believe that a majority of the lands here can be 

 brought to a state of cultivation in a few years that 

 will pay well. 



Of course, friend Graves finds some discouraging 

 things, or, rather, disagreeable things, about travel- 

 ing over these sandy woods and roads, and fighting 

 mosquitoes at the .same time: but these are things 

 that are fast improving as the country is .settled. 

 Although we have not many miles of hard road 

 outside the city we expect more soon. 



As for mosquitoes, they are bad out in the woods 

 or thick hummocks for about two months or dur- 

 ing the rainy season: but I can testify that they are 

 no wor.se in Bradentown than in many places in 

 New York: and. in fact, not as bad. There are 

 plenty of houses here that are not screened at all, 

 and good ones too. Flies are not nearly as numer- 

 ous here as where we came from: and climate — 

 well, I guess there is none better. If Mr. G. is so 

 disgusted with conditions here, why is he building 

 up his apiary and trying to buy those of which he 

 had charge this year? He doesn't say that bee- 

 keepiny does not pay here. 



He cites some instances in which truckers lost 

 money last year. We do not dispute this, but we 

 can cite plenty who did clear money last year, poor 

 as the prices were: and I am reliably informed of 

 one man who banked 86000 from five acres of celery 

 two years ago. and another man who netted 85000 

 from eleven acres of grape fruit the same year: and 

 still there are others who say that these things do 

 not pay. You know, Mr. Koot, something of what 

 the Atwood Grove pays. This is said to be the 

 largest solid grape-fruit grove in the world: and I 

 believe we would be safe in estimating its average 

 proceeds for .several years at 8500 per acre. It may 

 be far in excess of this. 



With regard to building we all know that Braden- 

 town is steadily growing — not a mushroom growth, 

 but very substantial in its nature. I can think of 

 about 15 new buildings started since last April, and 

 built during the summer, when there is usually not 

 much doing here. But this is a lamentable fact 

 when there is such a demand for houses. A hun- 

 dred are needed right now. and I heard a reliable 

 man had said that he could rent a thousand cot- 

 tages here this winter. I can't see why people are 

 so slow to build except that they are using their 

 money to better advantage. 



About the carpenters' wages, I think you are a 

 little high. I understand that the schedule is 40 cts. 

 an hour for 8 hours, and brick-layers 45 cts. per 

 hour: and I don't think there is an idle one of ei- 

 ther kind at present. 



Well, I must close with a word for the Florida 

 summer fruits. I think they are grand, especially 

 the mangoes and Avocado pears. 



Bradentown, Fla., Oct. 8. J. E. Stanton. 



gardening during the winter time in 

 fi^orida; some suggestions from 



THE director OF THE FLORIDA 

 EXPERIMENT STATION, 



By way of preface, let me say that my 

 good friend, the editor of the Rural Ntir- 

 Yorker, owns a piece of land near mine, in 

 Putnam Co.; and he is arranging to have 

 it occupied this winter by some members 

 of his family; and he asked me if I could 

 suggest a good book applicable to Florida 

 gardening in winter. I submitted the ques- 

 tion to Prof. Rolfs, and he replies as below: 



University of P'r.oBiDA, ) 

 agricultural experiment station. ■ 

 Gainesville, August 31, 1910. ) 

 Dear Mr. Root: — I may say in this connection that 

 at the present time there is no book published that 

 would be of direct service to the young man. Flor- 

 ida, as you know, is so old and yet .so new. The 



