146 



r A R M £ ft S ' REGISTER 



But even if made safficiently calcareou.^, the ori- 

 ginal subsoil of "stiff red ciny " will never be 

 made lavorable to grape-culture, as if sandy and 

 gravelly.— Ed. F. R.] 



NATURAL, CAUSES OF THE UNNATURAL FAT-SE- 

 HOODS OF THE UNHEALTHINESS OF THE 

 CLIMATE AND UNPRODUCTIVENESS OF THE 

 SOIL OF THE FLORIDA KEYS. 



To the Editor of tlie Farmers' Register. 



On the authority of VViliiama, the tropical 

 islands called the Florida Keys, commence in 25° 

 35' north latitude near Key Biscano, and termi- 

 nate in 24° 32' north latiiude at the Tortugas 

 Shoals. By the same authority, the .longitudes 

 of the same points counted west from Washinfj- 

 ton, are 3° 13', and 6° 10' west longitude. In 

 other words, the Florida Reef has a curving ex- 

 tension through 63 miles of latitude and 177 miles 

 of longitude south and west of Cape Florida. 

 Now the whole extent of this desolate reef has 

 always been infested by wreckers and by drinkers 

 to so great a degree, that it merits the exclusive 

 title of the wrecking and rumming reef of South 

 Florida. Hence, at the acquisition of the territory 

 in 1819, the only population of the Florida Keys 

 was necessarily a transient population — a cruising 

 population — an exclusively wrecking, fishing and 

 drinking population. They were hence a greatly 

 anti-agricultural population with greatly anti-salu- 

 tary habits ; and hence they could not, or would 

 not discover any agricultural productiveness in 

 the calcareous soils of these arid keys ; and hence, 

 also, they could and would attribute any fatal 

 results of the habitual imbibition of liquid poisons, 

 to their habitual inhalation of the noxious miasma 

 of an unhealthy climate. They saw that these 

 rocky islands were densely covered with the most 

 vigorous growth of the most valuable trees, and 

 yet they said that these soils were barren soils. 

 They were constantly destroying the most pre- 

 cious woods of the tropics, and yet they declared 

 that the islands on which they grew were entirely 

 composed of the most unproductive soils. They 

 were constantly plundering the most valuable na- 

 val timber of the world, and yet they cried that 

 the soils in which they flourished were entirely 

 worthless soils. Various vegetables for food were 

 indigenous to the soil, and other edible plants ran 

 wild on these keys, and yet, these anti-agricultu- 

 rists maintained that these productive soils were 

 sterile soils. Genuine mahogany, Campeachy 

 teak, tropical mastic, more valuable than the ce- 

 lebrated live oak under the special protection of 

 the United States government, have hence con- 

 tinued to be destroyed during the 20 years that 

 these invaluable trees have been within the juris- 

 diciinn of the United States" government. A sin- 

 sle acre ol these slandered keys is naturally co- 

 vered with tropical planis, which, in the green 

 houses and hot houses of the northern states and 

 of Europe, would be worth from one thousand, 

 to one hundred thousand dollars. And yet these 

 calcareous islands continue to be regarded as to- 

 tally unworthy of any serious attention by the 

 aovernment and by the people of the United 

 Slates. Respectfully yours, &c., 



Henry Perrine. 

 Indian Kty, T. F., Jan, 20. 1840, heat 68°. 



WINTER tALLOW. 



From tlie (London) Library of Useful Knowledge. 

 The labors ol winter fallowing, when intended 

 for the preparation of spring crops, though con- 

 ducted nearly in the same manner as those already 

 detailed, are necessarily more confined in their ope- 

 ration : seldom, indeed, exceeding three plough- 

 ings, and not unfrequenily consisting ol" only two ; 

 lor it is a prevalent opinion that light soils — parti- 

 cularly if they be of a sandy nature — are frequently 

 much injured by being overworked ; and it is clear 

 that they neither require, nor will bear, to be more 

 pulverized than -niay be absolutely necessary for 

 the destruction of weeds and the production of 

 a good seed-bed. If the land, however, be of a 

 firmer nature, and especially if it partake of the 

 qualities of loam, the best practice is to give 

 three ploughings, the last of which is preceded 

 by the eflectual operation of the grubber; for 

 although strong loams with a good bottom, hav- 

 ing been once thoroughly cleaned by a well- 

 wrought summer lallow, may afterwards be kept 

 in order by drilled crops, yet to maintain them 

 in that condition requires the most constant at- 

 tention and the most careful management, or they 

 will again inevitably become foul. 



The first of these ploughings should be giverj 

 as soon as possible after harvest, and if it can 

 be effected early in the autumn, then a second with 

 a deeper furrow can be given in the course of the 

 winter: the grubber follows when the weeds have 

 begun to sprout in the spring, and the last plough- 

 ing is the seed-furrow. 



If is thus that the sowings of the spring crops 

 should be prepared ; but on many liirms both 

 time and strength are wanting, and the tenants 

 are obliged to content themselves with two plough- 

 ings, of which the first is not unfrequently very 

 imperfect. Oats being a common crop on poor 

 land, and being put into the ground earlj', are 

 very commonly sown in this manner; but this 

 species of culture is evidently insufficient lor the 

 destruction of weeds, or lor the due amalgama- 

 tion of the manure with the soil ; so that the 

 dung is sometimes Ibund in the following year 

 in hard lumps, like turf, which are not broken up 

 without much difficulty, and it consequently can- 

 not afford nourishment to the ground until the 161- 

 lowing crop. Those who trust to dung for the 

 prnduction of good crops of corn, should also con- 

 sider, that unless the ground be previously re- 

 lieved from the load of weeds with which it is en- 

 cumbered, they can never expect it to produce the 

 same benefit that it would if it had been brought 

 into proper order. 



It has not been inaptly remarlced by a man of 

 known experience in husbandry, that the science of 

 agriculture is nothing more than an endeavor to 

 discover and cure nature's defiects ; and the grand 

 outlines of it are — " Aow to make heavy land lighter, 

 and light land heavier ; cold land hotter, and hot 

 land colder. He that knows these secrets is a farm- 

 er, and he that does not know them is no farm- 

 er.'"* From want of attendins to these general 

 ideas, many absurd doctrines have however been 

 propagated concerning it, and in no instance more 

 than in that of fallowing land, which it has been 

 very common to condemn in the gross, as a mere 



* Davis's Survey of Wiltshire. 



