160 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



HIGH PRESSURE 



GADDENING 



A.LI^OT 



HIGH-PKESSURE GARDENING DURING THE 

 FIRST WEEK IN JANUARY IN MAN- 

 ATEE CO., FLA. 



While we were discussing winter weather 

 in this region, one of my good neighbors, 

 Mr. Stanton, remarked that he had been 

 here four winters; and as all four were very 

 different indeed, he had ceased speculating as 

 to what the weather would probably be. 

 This is my third winter in this county. The 

 first was unusually wet; the next (last win- 

 ter), iinprecedentedly dry, and, in fact, there 

 was a lack of rain all summer until almost 

 December of this present year. When I got 

 here with my barometer, however, I be- 

 gan giving notice all around that rain was 

 coviing, and we had an abundance. On 

 one occasion I said there was going to be a 

 big rain or wind storm, and advised all to 

 get ready for it. Mr. Rood had his men clear 

 out the ditches and open up all depressions 

 so there would be no standing water, and, 

 sure enough, within 48 hours we had an al- 

 most continuous rainfall of about 2| inches. 

 There have now been five heavy rains in the 

 past six weeks, with a week or more of 

 beautiful wealher between them, and the 

 barometer has given prompt notice ahead 

 of every one, almost as faithfully as a clock 

 gives the time of day. 



On account of the damaging dry weather 

 for a year or more past, some very extensive 

 (as well as expensive) irrigation plants have 

 been put in. Within two miles of where I 

 sit, a plot of 30 acres has been drained and 

 fitted for trucking, and several acres of this 

 are already equipped with the Skinner over- 

 head sprinkling system. It was my pleasure 

 to visit it when the apparatus was giving a 

 veritable summer shower over a good part 

 of an acre. The water is collected in pipes 

 overhead, with sprinklers every few feet; 

 and by rotating these pipes the water can be 

 distributed very evenly indeed. Mr. Rood 

 has finished laying tiles for sub-irrigation on 

 two acres. A well has been dug, and a ten- 

 horse-power gasoline-engine installed ; but 

 the abundant rains have so far prevented 

 even a "trial trip" of the irrigation part. 

 The tiles, laid only 20 feet apart, are, of 

 course, doing their part, and Mr. Rood has 

 now the finest field of Boston Market head 

 lettuce I ever saw anywhere, some of it just 

 heading up nicely. Now, here is a trouble 

 some of you might not think of. At this date, 

 Jan. 5, there has been (besides plenty of rain) 

 most beautiful warm growing weather. The 

 consequence is, every thing is coming on 

 and maturing before the usual time; and that 

 is not all — almost everybody, especially when 

 they had good drainage, has a crop. I have 



just heard a hint that lettuce in the northern 

 cities is bringing only enough to pay the cost 

 of package and transpoi'tation, leaving noth- 

 ing for the grocer.* This is quite a contrast 

 to last winter, when the shipper was astonish- 

 ed by getting a price that almost took his 

 breath away. 



Well, neighbor Rood is all right on his 

 strawberries if not on the lettuce. There 

 are not only more of them, but larger and 

 finer fruit than he ever raised before. It is 

 true he has put the price down to 25 cts., 

 but one day last week they picked 89 quarts, 

 and he usually has his heaviest harvest in 

 March. Whoever comes to Florida will find 

 all garden stuff grown on raised beds, with 

 some kind of open ditch between. Of course, 

 tiles would enable us to have level fields like 

 those in the North (or it probably would), 

 but the cost — 2 cts. per foot for two-inch 

 tiles — is one item, and the peculiar soil in 

 most of Florida is another. Let me digress 

 a little. 



There are no cellars in Florida — at least, 

 next to none. I wanted a cement cellar for 

 my two incubators; but everybody said it 

 would get full of water. I thought I would 

 show them. I dug a ditch along my line 

 fence four feet deep. Such open ditches are 

 quite common, and almost a necessity when 

 you want to grow stuff. Well, I put a two- 

 inch tile drain from this right under the bot- 

 tom of my cellar. Then, to make doubly 

 sure, I set the wall on a trench filled with 

 broken stone, and this trench was connected 

 with the tile drain. My cellar was all right 

 until we had the 2^ inches of rainfall, most- 

 ly in one night. I said in the morning my 

 cellar was all right; but the day after, water 

 seemed to be oozing in from all sides, and 

 up through the bottom. Right over the tiles 

 it was comparatively dry; but everywhere 

 else it was wet, and it took about ten days 

 for that retentive spongelike soil to " let go " 

 of the water from that shower. After re- 

 peated coats of cement on sides and bottom 

 I have got a model cellar— at least I think 

 so now; but the experience taught me a les- 

 son. This wonderfully retentive soil is a 

 great safeguard against drouth, and it en- 

 ables us to transplant lettuce, celery, straw- 

 berries, etc., without watering, in a way I 

 never heard of in the North. One big rain 

 keeps things growing a long while; and aft- 

 er the roots get down two or three feet it is 

 almost perpetual sub-irrigation. Of course, 

 this condition refers mostly to low ground 

 where open ditches have collected the sur- 

 plus water away, and when, even in a dry 

 time, water is running in open ditches three 

 or four feet deep. 



I replied to Dr. Miller that I had never 

 succeeded in getting sweet clover to grow 



* Whenever lettuce is adrug it can be very profitably 

 used for poultry; and where lettuce is being shipped, 

 the refuse will be greedily devoured by the birds. It 

 not only starts them to laying, but when they have 

 access to plenty of crisp lettuce the amount of grain 

 consumed is very perceptibly decreased. Here in 

 Florida fowls must have a large amount of green food 

 of some kind. Ours have sprouted oats all the time, 

 but they seem to prefer greatly the lettuce. 



