FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
9^ 
between two and three inches in perfect¬ 
ing the crop. 
As the evaporation in a season of av¬ 
erage warmth and sunshine is doubtless 
fully as much more a minimum rainfall 
of between five and six inches must be 
registered, provided it is well distributed 
over the growing period, and no fall is 
SO great as to run off in the drainage 
ditches. 
Measured by the Weather Bureau rain 
guage, the rainfall the past winter was 
as follows: November .06 inches; De¬ 
cember .44; January .47; February 1.07; 
March .96. The total during the grow¬ 
ing months of January, February and 
March being just two' and one-half inches, 
mostly in small showers that wet in very 
little, the greatest fall being just one inch 
on February 5th. The soil was already 
dry from the only one-half inch com¬ 
bined rainfall of November and Decem¬ 
ber, and the evaporation owing to the 
unusual number of warm, sunshiny days 
was greater than the average. The rain¬ 
fall, therefore, was less than half what 
was necessary for an average crop, while 
the crop averaged about two-thirds; the 
deficiency of rainfall having been some¬ 
what made up by the subsoil water rising 
by capillarity towards the surface. 
I noted exceptions, however, that were 
interesting. New Year's eve one man 
had over two acres of seed dropped by 
hand in ridges split by a bull tongue, 
so that the fertilizer mixed in the soil 
was practically exposed. That night 
there was a shower of .05 inches, and the 
man woke in fear and trembling lest his 
seed should freeze before morning. He 
covered it early next day with a disc 
ridger and harvested 45 barrels per acre, 
the average annual yield being about 40 
barrels. This .05 inches of rain, there¬ 
fore, by dissolving his fertilizer and sur¬ 
rounding his seed with wet soil nearly 
doubled his yield over an adjoining field 
planted two days earlier. 
Another man had his fertilizer in the 
opened ridges exposed to two showers, 
December 20th and 21st, aggregating .29 
inches, and harvested 35 barrels per acre. 
Another man irrigated with an artesian 
well running the water in ditches between 
his lands which are some forty feet wide, 
and harvested fifty barrels per acre. 
Later planted potatoes are usually more 
prolific, and some irrigated fields at Has¬ 
tings are reported as yielding 80 barrels 
per acre, while newly broken, unirrigated 
fields were not worth digging. 
This illustrates the advantages of dis¬ 
solving fertilizers and irrigation in dry 
seasons; but, on the other hand, the prob¬ 
lem of very wet seasons is equally serious. 
The previous winter the rainfall was 1.42 
inches in November, 3.54 in December, 
3.72 in January, 3.51 in February, and 
2.25 for March; the total for the three 
latter months being 9.48. There was 
much cool, cloudy weather with small 
evaporation, and the rainfall was twice 
what the potato crop needed. This sea¬ 
son, nitrate or soda applied to the mix¬ 
ture befoi'e planting was undoubtedly 
nearly all lost, and similarly tO' other 
seasons, the crop was so slow growing 
and maturing, I judged large percentages 
of the potash and phosphoric acid leach¬ 
ed also. I therefore sent a sample of 
soil to Prof. Blair for test tube experi¬ 
ments of leaching. The soil was about 
one foot deep in the test tube, and the 
first application of four inches of water 
leached 37.8 per cent, of the solul)le phos¬ 
phoric acid. The second application of 
