Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 397 



with a small-tooth harrow or cultivator. The earth was not stirred 

 deeper than two Inches, bull the surface was kept clean. There was 

 no manure applied. I saw no better corn in Kansas than that Held ; 

 none more uniform and regular. The soil is certainly no better than 

 the Kansas bottom, and if as much pains were taken with all the 

 Kansas cornfields, their average might be sixty bushels to the acre. 

 Mr. Fuller — A piece of thick oak plank, cut in the shape named, 

 or in such other shape as might, upon trial, be found preferable, would 

 answer the purpose as well as stone. 



Farming in Florida. 

 Mr. W. N. Hart, Federal Point, St. Johns River — Those of us who 

 have come here with the determination to succeed in raising profitable 

 orange groves, in bringing our land to a high state of cultivation, and 

 making attractive homes, are desirous to promote the welfare of the 

 State, and ready to welcome all industrious and energetic Dew-comers. 

 As to our soil, properly drained, manured and cultivated, it will pro- 

 duce very satisfactory crops of anything adapted to it. I mean pine 

 land and high hummocks. Our low hummocks need no manure, and 

 are almost inexhaustibly rich. We do not expect our poor pine ridges 

 to produce heavy crops without manure. The natives living on them, 

 by cow-penning, raise good crops. Yet many northern men, unused 

 to farming, having settled on them, perhaps in some worn-out field, 

 have been trying to make a living without the aid of manure, muck, 

 or compost heaps. No wonder they at last get the blues and look at 

 <■■. erything connected with Florida as through a smoked glass. 1 have 

 been digging sweet potatoes to-day on new pine land never manured. 

 One row, thirty-five yards long, produced two bushels. The rows aro 

 five feet apart. Where I reside, the land is what is called flat-woods 

 land, which covers most of East Florida. It needs draining and good 

 cultivation to produce fair crops; and if one wants to raise big crops 

 and make money, let him follow the advice of the Farmers' Club, 

 viz. : "Keep hogs, keep hens, dig imick, haul and mix, mix and haul, 

 draw out and spread on the land." There are some soils along the 

 river, some heavy clay hummocks, which do not appear adapted to 

 Irish potatoes, though they grow cucumbers to perfection. This 

 potato seems to revel in low, mucky situations, and I have seen them 

 grow on very poor pine land at the rate of forty barrels to the acre 

 by a liberal application of potash. Our low hummocks produce about 

 one hundred bushels to the acre, and they pay well, bringing a good 

 price in New York, in May, though freights last year were one dollar 



