312 
FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
injurious substances (as in the alkali soils of the West), can be 
cultivated with profit, and this is the fundamental reason for the 
modern demand for the drainage of swamps, marshes, etc. The 
principal physical drawback about peat soils is of course that they 
are saturated with water; and as agriculture began and has had its 
greatest development on dry land, human ingenuity has as yet de¬ 
vised very few crops adapted for growing in water. 
In many cases the water can be removed by drainage without 
much expense, and after the acidity of the peat is corrected by 
weathering or the application of lime or manure, the proper fer¬ 
tilizers can be applied and crops raised in the usual manner. Peat 
has the advantage of being very easily tilled, and never suffering 
from drought. It shrinks considerably in drying, however, and 
this has to be taken into consideration in making plans for drain¬ 
ing it by ditching. 
Some peat which is unavailable for fuel on account of being too 
shallow or too impure, or both, is for the same reasons all the better 
adapted for cultivation. Most of the peat deposits or “muck 
lands” which have been cultivated in Florida are of just this char¬ 
acter, shallow and sandy. Other things being equal, calcareous 
peat ought to be better for agricultural purposes than typical sour 
peat. One advantage possessed by the Everglades is that they are 
everywhere underlaid by limestone, which is just the proper thing 
for correcting acidity; and at many places toward the south end 
there seem to be all gradations between peat and marl, which 
ought to afford the right combinations for quite a variety of crops. 
Not all crops are adapted to peat soils, but it would be beyond the 
scope of this report to make any recommendations along that 
line. 
