i6o TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



Lower Glades and the saw-grass is less dense than in the Upper Glades. The 

 Upper Glades have the deeper muck and much the greater agricultural 

 possibilities. The state dredges working near Ft. Lauderdale uncovered 

 numerous salt-water shells in the sand at a depth of 4 meters (13 feet) 

 below the surface. There are water trails through the Everglades used by 

 the Seminole Indians, who frequently traverse them in their dug-out canoes 

 during periods of high water. They rarely penetrate the saw-grass of the 

 interior, but confine themselves principally to the islands and the timbered 

 edges of the Glades and the water channels through which they make their 

 way to the east coast when in need of supplies. 



"The origin of the muck soil is, of course, vegetable matter.* There are 

 no data for estimating the length of time required for the formation of these 

 muck deposits. The whole of the Okeechobee muck lands is covered almost 

 exclusively by saw grass. This is a cyperaceous plant of the genus Cladium. 

 During the winter and early spring months this dense growth of grass often 

 becomes dry enough to burn, and large areas are often burned over. The 

 muck soils of Florida, as shown by a later analysis, are rich in nitrogen and 

 lime, but are markedly deficient in such mineral constituents as potash 

 and phosphoric acid. The presence, therefore, of so large a body of limestone, 

 mingled with phosphatic pebbles, is a matter of no mean importance when the 

 agricultural future of these lands is considered. A few of these pebbles were 

 picked up at the headwaters of the Caloosahatchee and examined for phosphoric 

 acid. The mean percentage of phosphoric acid found was 0.697. This region 

 has not been prospected at all for phosphate deposits, but it would not be sur- 

 prising if they were discovered to exist here in great abundance, as they are 

 found from 60 to 100 miles farther west, in the Peace River region." 



"The question of the subsidence of these soils under cultivation is also one 

 of considerable importance. If the organic matter which they contain should 

 decay there would, of course, be a marked depression in the level of the soil. 

 The oldest portions of the muck land in cultivation have now been tilled for 

 about eight years. In these lands where sugar cane was planted it has been 

 found that there has been a subsidence of several inches, so that the stubble of 

 the sugar cane has been left protruding to this distance above the surface. 

 This depression, however, seems to have occurred chiefly in the first two or 

 three years of the cultivation, and there seems to have been no such marked 



* Everglades of Florida (Senate Document No. 89), pages 76, 117. 



