372 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



June, 1918 



THE ELECTRIC WINDMILL AND SOME MORE 

 PICTURES. 



Mr. L. C. Kaiser, who has charge of the 

 electric windmill in my absence, reports 

 even, better success in chai'ging the storage 

 batteries than we had when I left. The hy- 

 drometer I had been using proved to be 

 defective, so that he really had a better 

 charge in the batteries than the instrument 

 indicated ; and while 1275 degTees is said to 

 be a full charge, he had one set of batteries 

 up to 1300. The first picture shows our 

 neighbor Wheeler, who built the tower, 

 standing on the platform above. His resi- 

 dence, just over the fence from our own, 

 is shown below with the ladder leaning 

 against it. 



Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Slsson and " A. I. R.," with a 

 glimpse of the tower at its base. 



The second picture shows Mr. Wheeler 

 once more, Avho, by the way, is the autlior 

 of the article in this issue on the Floritla 

 everglades. The good friend Avho stands 

 between Mr. Wheeler and myself is a resi- 

 dent of North Dakota, and an acquaintance 

 of our good friend Manikowske. 



FLORIDA EVERGLADES, LAKE OKECHOBEE. 



The writer of the following came from 

 Michigan with his wife and three children. 

 He has been quite a successful beekeeper, 

 is now located close to our home, and has 

 built, unaided, the wooden tower for our 

 electric windmill. With this preface we 

 will listen to our good friend Wheeler. 



THE EVERGLADES AND MOORE HAVEN. 



Moore Haven is very much in the public eye of 

 late. So many stories are told of the place, the 

 soil, and the crops, that many are wondering' just 

 what is true and what is not. I have niade two 

 trips theire lately, and, as I am not interested in any 

 land projects there and do not have any other in- 

 terests in the place, I can write an unbiased account 

 of the things I have seen. 



The trip across the prairies from Arcadia is an 

 intere.sting one. The distance is 70 miles, without 

 a house on the way, and across almost unbroken 

 prairie with occasional sloughs where one has to 

 drive thru water. The road is not muddy usually, 

 as it almost always has a hard sand bottom. Birdu 



and animal life aboind and the plains are every- 

 where dotted with thei inevitable ran^c cattle.. 



The town of Moore Haven is built on a canal 

 just a few miles off the shores of Lake Okeechobee. 

 It is, like most towns of the mushroom type, largely 

 built up of temporary wooden buildings. Some 

 brick and cement structures are going up, and more 

 would undoubtedly be built, if material could be 

 secured. Tlie . town has for its chieif exec,v.tive a 

 beautiful young woman, who is at present one of 

 its chief promotors. She is Mrs. O'Brien, formerly 

 Miss Howitz, and is almost idolized' by her people. 



One of the chief drawbacks to the town up till 

 now has been the lack of a railroad; but this ob- 

 jection will soon be gone, as the track has been 

 laid to within four miles of Moore Haven, and will 

 probably be completed before this article is put in 

 type. 



Like most new places, especially where the popu- 

 lation is made up of homeseekers from all parts 

 of the, country, the people are very cordial and hos- 

 pitable. 



But the thing of vital interest here is the soil, 

 which is of the kind that not only needs no ferti- 

 lizer but is in itself a fertilizer of real value. Dr. 

 Wiley has pronounced it to be actually worth $9.35 

 per ton for fertilizer. Then it is peculiar in that 

 it needs no cultivation. In fact, it seems to do 

 better when not cultivated. About all there is to do 

 after the crops are planted is to pull out thei oc- 

 casional careless weeds which grow there. These 

 weeds grow to be four or five inches in diameter 

 up to fourteen or even eighteen inches, and are so 

 strong that a full-grown man caii stand in their 

 branches. Naturally these weeds are not allowed 

 to grow in cultivated lands. 



Thci w^ater is very fair in the deep wells, but 

 has a pronounced taste of iron in it. Many shal- 

 low wells are used ; but these are dangerous, as 

 such wells always are. Sickness is very little known, 

 the few cases being mostly traceablei to drinking 

 canal water or that from very shallow weUs. 



Some of the interesting things to be seen on the 

 big farms are the great tractors hauling as many as 

 six largei plows at once, and as many as forty disks 

 when disking. Great pulverizers are used to tear 

 out the roots and put the new ground in conidition 

 to work. These throw the roots all on top of the 

 ground, where they are burned. This soil is different 

 from any other mulch soil I ever saw, for it will 

 not burn — probably because it is so full of moisture. 

 One can dig at any time and find moist earth with- 

 in an inch] or two of the top. 



The farmers grow almost everything in the line 

 of crops, altho having the poorest success with 

 celery. I have farmed or lived in a farming com- 

 munity all my life, and have been in several States, 

 but have never seen cabbage to equal what I saw 

 there. The same thing can be said of onions and 

 many other crops. Frost damage has made many 

 fields look ragged ; but wherever there was no frost 

 the crops are tremendous. There is one field of 

 cabbage geven miles out from Moore Haven, of 

 from 300 to 400 acres, from which they are hauling 

 two or three carloads a day, and cannot begin to 

 keep up with the growtb. The manager, it is said, 

 has refused $100,000 for the cabbage in the field. 

 I saw one onion field of 150 acres, and many from 

 20 to 40 acres. As the ground needs no cultiva- 

 tion, a second crop is often planted betwe^ the. 

 rows o£ the first when it is half matured, so that 

 much of the time two crops are growing at once 

 on the same field. The yields are enormous — so 

 great that I dare not tell you the amounts for fear 

 you would not believe me. One must see with his 

 own eyeis or else he cannot believe the reports about 

 Moore Haven crops. 



I drove down the southwest side of the lake to 

 where the Miami canal enters it; and the further 



