IN THE EVERGLADES 45 



have some beneficial results in a medicinal way, preventing certain 

 blights and rusts of plants. I think, however, this has not been 

 proven very clearly, but am of the opinion that on sandy soil it is 

 safe to use it in large quantities without injury. Another low 

 grade of potash containing fertilizer imported from the same 

 source is called kainit, which seems to have a decided effect in 

 preventing blights and rusts among tomatoes and other plants, 

 and I would strongly recommend it for this purpose. To get the 

 best results from kainit, it should be applied directly to the land, 

 in quantities of about six hundred pounds per acre, after the 

 ground has been plowed and harrowed once. It should then be 

 harrowed in shallow, allowing the rains to wash it in further ; it 

 must, of course, be scattered evenly, all lumps being first broken 

 up finely. As kainit has the power of fixing and absorbing 

 ammonia, it is advisable to add some to compost heaps, sprinkling 

 it through and over them. Being a powerful digestive agent, it 

 is a proper application for swamp lands and should prove of great 

 benefit on the Everglade muck lands. For these reasons kainit, 

 compost and wood ashes seem, each for a separate reason, to have 

 an agricultural value greater than their chemical analysis would 

 indicate. 



The wide awake trucker should look upon his fields as his 

 factory or workship, and upon himself as the live manager whose 

 duty it is to supply at all times the necessary material and 

 conditions to keep these useful nitrogen-producing germs as well 

 as other chemical actions, at work, and he should always bear 

 in mind that they will work just as long as the necessary materials 

 and conditions are at hand. If the land is not supplied with humus 

 naturally, it should be artificially applied, as before stated, or his 

 soil will become sterile and stagnant a dead, inert mass, which 

 cannot be made to produce profitable crops. 



But no matter how eminent the chemist, or how close he may 

 apply himself to his task, it takes the "man with the hoe" to sift 

 out the actual facts, and by his crude methods, ask the soil the 

 question and virtually coax or wrest the answer therefrom. The 



