February, 1920 
t3he Slower (Brower 
27 
A Nature Study in the Mirror Lake Country. 
“ Glen Arden Farm,” Chipley, Florida. 
By Mrs. Sarah A. Pleas. 
[ Written expressly for 'The Flower Grower. ] 
T HIS PRETTY LAKELET is the 
result of recent excessive rains 
converting a small stream into a 
miniature Lake of the Woods 
where one longs to wade and gaze at 
the reflections in the water. 
For a few years this was my delight- 
ful winter home, with a climate rivaling 
that of Whittier, Cal. Need more be 
said? Where the normal rainfall in- 
sures the uplands to blossom as the 
Rose, with its Dogwoods, Redbuds, 
wild Plums, Magnolias, Azaleas, and 
hundreds of other species equally bril- 
liant and interesting with bushes 
covered with flowers, berries or fruits, 
converting the lowlands, ravines and 
swamps into the modern paradise of 
fauna and flora for the nature research 
student. 
A drive of three miles brings us to 
our natural park where Limestone 
Bluff and Falling Waters are the center 
of attraction ; where a small stream 
swollen by each successive rain falls 
over a twenty foot precipice disappear- 
ing into a self made sink hole appar- 
ently bottomless. These falls with 
their setting of overhanging, vine 
draped evergreen trees, with berry 
bearing bushes and big Ferns on the 
sloping, slippery, forbidding moss cov- 
ered earth, are in themselves an en- 
chanting panorama not soon forgotten, 
but the surrounding scenery is scarce 
less impressive, where the professional 
landscape gardener may well take les- 
sons from Mother Nature. 
Beginning at the waters’ edge with 
tiny mosses, lichens and lycopodiums 
on up through all shades and degrees 
from berry bushes to the stately long- 
leaf-pine, countless cedars, a five foot 
Magnolia Grandiflora with branches of 
bloom within reach, its moss covered 
trunk fostering communities of small 
orchis. It would seem as if no species 
or variety has been left out. 
Within a rod or so of Falling Waters 
are two ten foot trumpet-shaped open 
wells, said to be bottomless ; probably 
created earlier by these same waters. 
Their sloping open tops like the larger 
sink hole are also bedecked with large 
Ferns overhanging, growing less as 
they recede from the light, intermingled 
with mosses. The wells have a wall 
of earth between, its twelve inch top 
bears evidence of being used by wild 
animals, and perhaps by our nature 
student, but should he lose his balance 
he will go direct to nevercomeback, 
probably landing in the subterranean 
stream of Falling Waters. 
There are numerous small bodies of 
water but three or four rods across, 
with or without fish, called sink holes, 
that are practically bottomless. Natur- 
ally some of these have had their 
tragedy, so have some wells, yet they 
are a most desirable appurtenance to 
the stock farm since a freshet will not 
carry the fence, ducks and geese down 
stream. 
The earth in Florida is of such com- 
position that whilst the surface of a 
travelled road soon works up into loose 
sand, by digging down into the clay 
underlying and properly mixing the 
two, the same road is made as smooth 
and hard as one of cement. In time 
these roads will be as general as are 
the gravelled highways in the East, 
and no more expensive. 
Here the wells require no curbing ; 
all open ditches have perpendicular 
sides that never cave down, but in 
time are covered with moss and lichens. 
On taking our annual joy ride with 
friends to St. Andrews Bay and the 
gulf, some sixty miles distant, we en- 
countered a fresh demonstration of 
what Mother Nature and Old Father 
Time are continually doing somewhere. 
By the wayside, since our last trip 
through this uninhabited district, one- 
half acre of earth, more or less, has 
dropped out of sight leaving what is 
locally known as “ D1 s Pit,” be- 
cause it is bottomless and has no water. 
There being no witnesses to report 
when, how, or why it occurred, or 
whether the earth surrounding trem- 
bled or even groaned, as it certainly 
had just cause, we are left to conjecture. 
Who shall say but that all those old 
sink holes were not produced in the 
same manner ? 
Truly we know very little of the 
earth’s creation except what we read 
in the rocks, stratified earths, the ever- 
lasting hills, some of them with fossil 
sea shells on their summit, travelled 
boulders, volcanoes, earthquakes, 
buried cities, and on seeing the things 
that he who runs may read. 
Cultivation Brings Results. 
Upon the cultivation of the soil will de- 
pend the successful growth of your garden 
crops. If you do not cultivate, do not blame 
any other factor if your crops fail. 
Briefly, cultivation conserves the moisture 
in the soil, as it reduces evaporation to a 
minimum. By reducing evaporation it makes 
the soil warmer. All surfaces from which 
moisture evaporates rapidly, quickly cool. 
From an uncultivated soil moisture evapor- 
ates very freely, consequently the temper- 
ature is lowered correspondingly, and in 
some instances the difference in temperature 
between cultivated and uncultivated plots 
side by side has been found as much as 
eleven degrees, at a depth of eighteen inches ; 
this of course is an extreme. What does this 
mean to the grower? Simply that if he cul- 
tivates properly the crops will mature much 
earlier than on a soil not properly cultivated, 
due to the increased warmth of the soil, and 
the yield will be larger, due to the moisture 
which was conserved. 
Cultivation favors the access of oxygen to 
the soil, and by so doing aids materially in 
releasing or in rendering available the plant 
foods which are usually present for use by 
the crop. The chief of these, the nitrates, 
cannot readily be formed in a soil which is 
not cultivated, or improperly so. Soils which 
do not receive proper attention in the matter 
of cultivation, may under certain conditions 
become acid. In acid soils, substances pur- 
ify. They do not nitrify, thus nitrates are 
not formed. This condition may be reversed 
by applying a dressing of agricultural lime 
to the plot. 
Cultivation kills weeds. This is the third 
great purpose . — Canadian Horticulturist. 
Effect of Cold on Color in Plants. 
It has often been noticed that at the ap- 
proach of cold weather, plants with red in 
their tissues tend to deepen in color. Dur- 
ing a cool spring, even white flowers incline 
to a rosy tinge and plants with ordinary pink 
or pinkish flowers take on a more vivid tone. 
The red hues in flowers are almost always 
produced by a substance called anthocyanin 
which occurs in plants combined as a gluco- 
side. Glucosides are substances which may 
be split up into sugar and some other sub- 
stance. Thus chromogen split from a gluco- 
side forms anthocyanin by oxidation. It is 
well known that cool weather checks the 
formation of starch and causes the food 
made by plants to accumulate in the form of 
sugar. A cool spring, therefore, makes more 
color in plants by causing an excess of sugar 
with the consequent formation of more 
anthocyanin. The same effects are caused 
by the increasing coolness of autumn days — 
American Botanist. 
