SOILS 



= AND = 



MINERALS ) 



* 



Vol. XV 



AUGUST, 1909 



No. 8 



THE EVERGLADES OF FLORIDA AND 

 THE LANDES OF FRANCE 



By DR. JOHN GIFFORD 

 Founder of The Forester (Later, Cons;rvation) 



DURING a recent visit to the great 

 work of reclamation now in 

 progress in the Everglades of 

 Florida, I was impressed with its re- 

 semblance in many respects to the great 

 work the French have accomplished in 

 the Landes of France, and with the fact 

 that ex-Governor Broward, after many 

 trials and tribulations, is succeeding, 

 just as did the French engineers after 

 similar troubles. The drainage of the 

 Everglades is now well under way, and 

 almost every unprejudiced person who 

 visits this work becomes an enthusiastic 

 convert. Just as the French engineers 

 practically added a new province to 

 France, Broward has been instrumental 

 in promoting a work which will con- 

 vert a vast, useless waste into what 

 promises to be the most productive part 

 of Florida, if not the most productive 

 area of land of equal size in the whole 

 United States of America. This drain- 

 age is being done at the insignificant 

 cost of about $i per acre ; and when 

 done the land will be ready at once 

 for the plow and for the produc- 



tion of tender crops, the like of which 

 cannot be produced elsewhere in the 

 United States, and at a time when the 

 rest of the country is frost-bound. This 

 is no small area ; it is many miles in 

 extent, and is capable of yielding, at 

 small outlay, enormous crops of the 

 most delicate tropical products, as well 

 as northern vegetables in mid-winter. 

 A visit to this region, even at this time, 

 at the very beginning of the work, since 

 it is a colossal task, will convince the 

 most skeptical person that this is no 

 idle dream or wild land scheme, but a 

 feasible, practical piece of good busi- 

 ness. After inspecting this work, one 

 naturally wonders why it was not done 

 long ago. It is not a complex engineer- 

 ing problem ; it is merely a matter of 

 digging, so that the water in this great 

 Everglade basin can flow into the sea. 

 Behind the giant maws of these 

 dredges which, when they work day 

 and night, are literally eating their way 

 through rock, mud and sand at the rate 

 of a mile a month per dredge, there are 

 left broad, navigable canals, which are 



453 



