AND AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES. 5 



marl, clay, or limestone. They will produce for several years without 

 the aid of manure, and, when fertilized, they will yield two thousand 

 pounds of the best quality of sugar to the acre, or about three hundred 

 pounds of Sea Island cotton. They will also produce rice, tobacco, oats, 

 <iorn, rye, and all the vegetable varieties, as well as the various tropical 

 fruits, which render them more valuable than the best bottom lands in 

 the more northern States. 



The lauds of the " third rate, 7 ' or most inferior class, are by no means 

 worthless under the climate of Florida. This class of lands may be 

 divided into two orders ; the one comprising high, rolling, sandy dis- 

 tricts, which are sparsely covered with a stunted growth of " black- 

 jack" and pine 5 the other embracing low, flat, swampy regions, which 

 are frequently studded with " bay galls," and are occasionally inundated, 

 but which are covered with luxuriant vegetation and generally with 

 valuable timber. The former of these, it is now ascertained, owing to 

 its calcareous soil, is well adapted to the growth of the Sisal hemp, 

 which is a valuable tropical production. This plant (the Agava Sicili- 

 ana), and the Agave Mexicana hemp, also known as the rnaguay, the 

 pulque plant, the century plant, &c., have both been introduced into 

 Florida, and they both grow in great perfection on the poorest lands of 

 the country. As these plants derive their chief support from the atmos- 

 phere, they will, like the common air-plant, preserve their vitality for 

 many months when left out of the ground. 



These lauds, besides being valuable for their timber and the naval 

 stores which they will produce, afford an excellent range for cattle, and 

 are susceptible of cultivation in the various productions, when properly 

 ditched and drained. 



There is one general feature in the topography of Florida which no 

 other country in the United States possesses, and which affords a great 

 security to the health of its inhabitants. It is this : that the pine lands 

 Avhich form the basis of the country, and which are almost universally 

 healthy, are nearly everywhere studded, at intervals of a few miles, 

 with hammock lands of the richest quality. These hammocks are not, 

 as is generally supposed, low, wet lands ; they never require ditching 

 or draining; they vary in extent from 20 acres to 40,000 acres, and will 

 probably average about 500 acres each. Hence, the inhabitants have 

 it everywhere in their power to select residences in the pine lauds, at 

 such convenient distances from the hammocks as will enable them to 

 cultivate the latter without endangering their health, if it should so 

 happen that any of the hammocks proved to be less healthy than the 

 pine woods. 



Experience in Florida has satisfactorily shown that residences only 

 half a mile distant from cultivated hammocks are entirely exempt from 

 malarial diseases, and that the negroes who cultivate those hammocks 

 and retire at night to pine-land residences, maintain perfect health. 

 Indeed, it is found that residences in the hammocks themselves are 



