74 



FLORIDA: ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, 



followed by bright sunshine, with, a high mean temperature, causing a luxuriant 

 growth of cane that surprises the resident of the tropics. 



With a duty of upwards of three cents per pound on imported sugar it is surprising 

 that the culture of cane in Florida has been so long neglected, more especially when 

 we take into consideration the fact that the people of the United States have paid more 

 for sugar and its allied products since 1849 than the value of the precious metals pro- 

 duced by the mines of the Western States and Territories during the same period. 



Sugar-cane is extensively cultivated in Louisiana, but the climatic conditions are 

 not as favorable as those of Florida. For the perfect maturation of the cane it is ad- 

 mitted that an annual mean temperature of 75 F. is necessary. As a rule, in the former 

 State the summer rains are insufficient for vigorous growth except in the lowlands; 

 the occurrence of cold rains during the autumn, early frosts, and a low thermal range 

 in the autumn seriously interfere with the vito-chemical action necessary to change 

 the starch into sugar. Taking New Orleans as a point of comparison, we find the tem- 

 perature and rainfall to be : 



In Southern Florida the cane need not be ground until after Christmas, but to escape 

 early frosts in Louisiana they are compelled to crush it before it is matured. In a New 

 Orleans paper of recent date we find the following: "Many plantations are grind- 

 ing, but the cane is somewhat too green yet. Estimates based on reports from a large 

 number of plantations promise a yield of about 136,000 hogsheads, a falling off of four- 

 tenths as compared with last year." Even with this diminished yield the State will 

 receive over $15,000,000 for its sugar crop, and these and many more millions should 

 be made to enrich Florida. 



In Louisiana it is necessary to cultivate the cane on the low alluvial soils, but owing 

 to the rainfall in this State during the summer the cane will yield large crops on high 

 and even sandy lands. In his work on Florida, published in 1823, Vignoles remarked : 



" Respecting sugar, the recent successful trials that have been made upon it have 

 determined the curious fact that it will grow in almost any of the soils of Florida south 

 of the mouth of the Saint John's River. The great length of summer, or period of ab- 

 solute elevation of the thermometer above the freezing point, allows the cane to ripen 

 much higher than in Louisiana." 



From the best information we have been able to obtain, the cane produced in Duval 

 County on elevated lands is larger, longer, and more perfectly ripened than the pro- 

 duct of Louisiana. We have examined cane grown on the Indian River which had 

 from forty-six to fifty-four ripened joints. In the beginning of this year Professor 

 MacCauly, of the Smithsonian Institution, visited the Indian camp in the Big Cypress, 

 60 miles east of Fort Myers. On his return he informed me that the Indians were en- 

 gaged making sugar, and that the ripened cane-stalks would measure from 18 to 22 

 feet in length. 



Vignoles says : " Perhaps it may be thought that Florida presents but little to tempt 

 the large sugar planter; granted, but it is undoubted, if the culture of the cane should 

 be adopted on a small scale, by the same proportionate number of cultivators that are 

 in the habit of raising cotton in Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, their labor would 

 be amply repaid and a source of wealth opened ; particularly should some public-spirited 

 and enterprising individual establish, at central and eligible points, sugar-mills to re- 

 ceive the small crops, precisely on the same principle that cotton-gins and rice-mills 

 exist in Southern States. This would augment the population and increase the re- 

 sources of the country sooner and better perhaps than any other inode." 



