THE IERIGATION AGE. 



167 



Florida and Sub-Irrigation 

 at Sanford 



J. N. Whitner, Sanford, Florida. 



The most inviting fields for enterprise, brains and 

 money are the undeveloped resources of new countries, and 

 while Florida is old in point of discovery and early set- 

 tlement, the peninsular, which is the part you know of, 

 is new, very new. From the standpoint of development, 

 barely fifteen years old, for the developments there date 

 from the freeze of February 8, 1895, when in one night 

 Florida lost $100,000,000 in orange groves, her principal 

 industry. 



As far as I know, this is the only disaster of similar 

 magnitude where no assistance was asked or received 

 and it speaks volumes to say there was no suffering and 

 her people turned to other things, thereby making her 

 richer and a thousand times more independent than be- 

 fore. Since then, besides bringing our orange and grape 

 fruit groves to a greater state of productiveness and of 

 better fruit, as well as a more profitable basis, we have 

 begun along other lines. Florida has become and will 

 continue to be the great source of phosphate, naval 

 stores and lumber productions. We are improving our 

 stock on pastures where grass grows and is green twelve 

 months in the year. This field is almost limitless. The 

 production of fine tobacco for cigar wrappers is a big 

 success. Pecan and other nuts are being grown. On 

 the east coast pine apples and other tropical fruits have 

 made that section famous and rich. The trucking in- 

 dustry is reaching magnificent proportions. But as yet, 

 these are all in process of development and the possi- 

 bilities unknown. 



To show what has been done in one locality, Sanford, 

 Florida, I am going to tell you about Sanford Sub-irriga- 

 tion and its results. 



Let me describe the system, its operation and theory: 

 then, with your permission, tell you something of what 

 it has done for us. Its possibilities seem limitless. With- 

 out an illustration or drawing, a description is diffi- 

 cult to understand or remember. I have, therefore, 

 brought a sufficient number of illustrations, a glance at 

 which will give a full understanding. These are for free 

 distribution at the Florida table, or will be mailed upon 

 request. Briefly stated, the water is applied through 3- 

 inch tile, laid in parallel ditches 18 inches deep, with a 

 fall of not less than one inch to the hundred feet. The 

 distance between the rows of tile varies according to 

 quality of soil; in our sandy loam 25 feet affords effective 

 drainage, as well as irrigation. The more clay and the 

 stiffer the soil, the nearer they should be placed. At 

 the upper end of the tile, beginning at the water sup- 

 ply (with us, flowing or artesian wells) and running 

 by the end of each row of tile, is a water main; the 

 cheapest being small sewer pipe cemented at the joints. 

 Between the tile and this water main a joint of 6-inch 

 sewer pipe is used as a stand-pipe, connected by a short 

 iron pipe on one side with the main, while on the other 

 is a connection with the tile. It will readily be seen 

 f hat water turned into the water main, and running 

 by each of the stand pipes, can be turned into as few 

 or as many as desired, in this way irrigating all or any 

 portion of the field. Of course, the tile is in short joints, 

 with us, one foot in length, and the water finds ingress 

 or egress at the joints, porous tile being largely a myth. 

 At the lower side of the field the tile discharges into a 

 waste ditch, and when the ground is level and the flow 

 of water not too rapid, it will be found that capillary 

 attraction supplies all the moisture needed, even for 

 setting plants, but most fields are equipped with stop 

 boxes at the lower end of tile, and when ground is much 

 broken, these boxes are placed at intervals, as required, 

 and the illustration shows how the water is dammed up 

 to any level required, even to flooding the ground. 



This much for irrigation. It is quite as effective 

 for drainage, being laid on an incline, and water applied 



by gravity. In case of rain the excess is taken off very 

 quickly and on our soil if it rains three inches today we 

 can plow tomorrow. This, we find, is of inestimable 

 value, for with the soil saturated with water, as the 

 small boy would say, there is nothing doing, or, as one 

 of your western farmers put it, "You can't get no action 

 out of the ground." The reason of this inertia, as you 

 all know, is that the water excludes the air from the 

 ground. Now with surface irrigation, and without this 

 sub-drainage you have to wait for the water to evaporate, 

 which slowly drying from the surface, inch by inch, lets 

 in a little air from above, while the plants await the 

 life-giving air. With our system, as soon as the water 

 stops running the tile become a conveyor of air, which 

 is supplied, so to speak, from both top and bottom. Our 

 system not only does these things, but furnishes warmth 

 from below, and as warm air rises from the tile, it has 

 a marked influence on the growing crop, especially in 

 winter when our most profitable crops are grown, for 

 with us September and October are seed time, and Feb- 

 ruary and March the harvest. 



You can understand that it matters little to us whether 

 it rains or not, for during the winter of 1906 it rained 

 frequently and in torrents, while the next year we had 

 not a single rain from September 15th to April 5th, yet 

 raised equally as good and profitable crops. So rain is 

 not necessary to plant, grow or perfect a crop. 



As yet your principal crops are celery and lettuce 

 for the northern markets, and I quote from the State De- 

 partment of Agriculture for the crop of 1907-8, Volume 8 

 Page 129, as follows: 



Lettuce.. 139 acres, 97,180 crts., $132,587 or $953.86 per A 

 Celery... 209 acres, 209,185 crts., 402,300 or 1,924.88 per A. 



Total, where celery follows lettuce $2,878.74 per A. 



I have not seen the report for 1908-9, but the results 

 were certainly as good. These figures for 1907-8 do not 

 mean two years, but one, running from November of one 

 year to June of the next, that being one crop season. 

 Now, with your kind indulgence, I want to tell you a 

 few of the things we have accomplished by this unique 

 and wonderful system of irrigation: In the spring of 

 1898, I had the honor to ship the first four carloads of 

 celery from Sanford, this being the first year we used 

 sub-irrigation, and the first carload of produce of any 

 kind following the freeze of '95. The past season from 

 this one point, we shipped 1700 carloads, exclusive of ex- 

 press shipments, making in all close to 2,000 carloads, the 

 estimated income of same being $600,000, from approxi- 

 mately 800 acres of land. It is certain that one broker- 

 age firm, Chase & Company, paid the growers $275,000 

 for the portion of the crop they handled. We have one 

 grower, C. F. Williams, who sold from measured five 

 acres in celery $30,680 in three consecutive years. L. A. 

 Brumley bought l*/2 acres with crop on it, in March, 1908, 

 and in fourteen months sold $5,000 worth of celery and 

 lettuce from the lyi acres. T. V. Denton, a New York 

 commission man, told me that last season he paid a Mr. 

 Allison $1200 for the lettuce on one acre, which was 

 then planted in celery, for which he paid him $1,800, 

 making $3,000 the past season from one acre. Is it any 

 wonder, then, that we estimate a revenue to railroads of 

 $700 per acre on our sub-irrigated farms. And if you 

 will add $700 to the above known yields, and tell me 

 what our sub-irrigated lands are worth, figures on an 

 interest-bearing basis, I will thank you. 



As to the value of these lands, ten years ago, before 

 sub-irrigation was adopted, 1,000 acres of these Sanford 

 Celery Delta lands were sold for 25c an acre. That fall, 

 just ten years ago, H. H. Chappell, being fortunate enough, 

 by the sale of the railroad he was working for, to lose 

 his position, began farming on this then new plan of 

 sub-irrigated lands, practically without means. On the 

 25th of October just past, he bought 35 acres of sub- 

 irrigated lands just across the road from his farm, where 

 he made the money, and paid $35,000 for it. He paid, in 

 addition, for the labor and fertilizer already expended for 

 this season's crop, making the purchase price over $40,000 

 for 35 acres. This 35 acres being a part of the land sold 

 at 25c ten years ago. Please note this was no land 

 boomers' sale to a stranger. 



