Newspaper Page Text
2
THE SOUTHERN WORLD, AUGUST 16,1882.
I
thought, will assort that there is no percep
tible difference in the climate o( its various
sections ? Or that the tender fruit of Bre
vard, Manatee and Sumter counties will do
just as well in the counties of Escambia,
Nassau and Jackson ?
“Render unto Cocsar the things that are
Ctesar’s" and give to each of the divisions
that nature has so clearly defined, its just
dues; don’t try to gather figs from thistles,
nor to raise tropical fruits on the Georgia
line.
The general impression of Florida, as dis
seminated by the superficial observation of
tourists, is that of a vast level expanse of
sand, whereon grows tall stately pine trees.
Right as to the pine trees, wrong as to the
universal dominion of flat plains and dreary
sands—taking Florida as a whole, her sur
face is gently undulating; no mountains, no
peaks, no very high hills even, though the
shores of many of her beautiful lakes are
steejrand bold, and terraced by saw-palmet
to, the cabbage palm, oaks, hickories, and
hundreds of other indigenuous trees and
shrubs, except where the enterprising set
tler has taken possession, and ousted the na
tive monarchs of the forest, in favor of the
golden-fruited orange.
The extreme southern portion of the pen
insula, whose average breadth, by the way,
is ninety miles, is occupied by the curious
Everglades region, well known during the
Seminole war as the stronghold of our In
dian foes.
“What is the Everglades region?” you
ask. We doubt if many Northerners could
answer that question. The general idea is
that a vast amount of sticky, slushy mud-
one immense marsh, with treesgrowing here
and there, where a bit of solid land crops up.
Now, the truth is, it is not a swampy place
at all, but a great flat prairie, just like the
prairies of our Western States, only in the
Everglades the prairie is perpetually over
flowed with clear pure water—a shallow
lake—from three to thirty inches deep, ex
tending over thousands of square miles, and
dotted all over with islands, big and little,
having a dense growth of cedar, gum, mag
nolia, oak, cypreip, pine, bay, and in fact, a
true tropical luxuriance of vegetation.
Here dwell the remnants of the old pow
erful Seminole tribes, and even here, in
these dreary fastnesses, they are again
threatened expulsion, inasmuch as a con
tract lias been lately made, for the drainage
of this vast region, which, when it is
finally accomplished, will drive out the
poor Indians from their place of refuge, and
open up millions of acres of rich lands for
cultivation.
Four-fifths of Dade county and nearly, if
not all of Monroe, are comprised in the Ev
erglades, and for some distance to the north
of these tracts, the country is a dead level,
further north it becomes undulating, and
gentle eminences, knolls and lakes of all
sizes, from a quarter of an acre to ten and
twenty miles in length and breadth, diver
sify the quiet, peaceful beauty of the land
scape.
Going further north still, west of the neck
of the peninsula, the country becomes ac
tually rugged, the hills higher, the roads
firm and good, and springs and rivulets
abound, thus totally upsetting the precon
cievcd northern notion of Florida levois,
and universal sands.
As the climate diflTers, so does the soil,
though not with the same regularity ; that
is, each natural division of the State pos
sesses localities where limestone rocks, clay
and sand, respectively predominate; neither
East, West, Middle or 8outh Florida, is all
limestone, all clay or all sand, neither is any
one section composed , entirely of great
"barrens” as they are termed, in other
words fine forests, or entirely of the rich
hammock lands, where flourish oaks, hick
ory*. cypress, cedars, magnolias, wild orange
trees, and—malarias—but each kind of land
is found scattered broadcast through the
State, the one sometimes merging almost
perceptively into the other, and at others
marked out by a sharp division line.
Only a few miles from the writer at this
pr^ent moment is a tract of hammock land
bordering lake Griffin, which reaches back
only half a mile then stops short, os by a
chalked line, the piny woods commencing
right then and there. The rich hammock
mold lying not five feet from tho poorer
piny woods soil, and tho tall pine trees
reaching out to shake hands with their low
lier, broad-girthed moss draped brethren of
the oak family.
The oak drops its acorns beneath the pine
tree, the pine tree tosses its seed-bearing
cones beneath the shade of the oak, yet
neither acorn or pine seed sprouts nor
grows, because they are "out of bounds,”
yet only u few feet away, each sprouts and
flourishes on its rightful side of the divis
ion line.
And then, half a mile away is another spot
where the hammock creeps out so gradually
into the piny woods, that it is hard to tell
where one may be said to begin or the other
to end.
This debatable land is termed “scrub ham
mock,” and is better than pine soil, as a
rule, though poorer than hammock land;
and there is still another kind of land called
“black jack" because there flourishes the
“black jack" oak, a small stunted tree, a
sure indicator of poverty of soil.
Moral, don't settle on “black jack land.”
In the Everglades region there are exten
sive pine barren tracts, but here timber is
the exception, os compared with its lavish
distribution over the rest of the State.
The whole peninsula of Florida is of di
luvial formation, the substratum of the
eastern portion is clay, either pure or mixed
with sand, but that of the western portion
is rotten limestone, which is frequently un
dermined by subterranean streams, form
ing cavities large and small, which are
termed “sinks,” these from the surface yiew,
are conical hollows, often with running
water or springs at the bottom, and varying
from a few yards to several acres. Of these
sinks more anon.
Florida doesn't boast much of her rivers;
she has not many to boast of, to tell the
truth, the average height of her backbone is
not over three hundred feet above the level
of the sea, so we can’texpect her to shoulder
many large streams, but she makes up in
lakes, large and small.
A few rivers she has, however, and of these
she has no need to be ashamed. The St.
John’s, well known to fame and the tourist,
rise in Brevard county, and reaches the At
lantic, after a quiet, peaceful journey. of
three hundred miles.
For a distance of one hundred miles from
its mouth, it is so wide and sluggish as
more to resemble a lagoon than a river, and
this may also be said of Indian rivor, whicli
is more like a long narrow lagoon or sound,
than a veritable river; it runs parallel with
the ocean, from which it is only separated
by a narrow strip of land, and with which
it is connected by the Indian River Inlet,
in the same category is the Halifax river,
following the coast line a little north of In
dian river and communicating with the At
lantic through (oh, too significant name)
the mosquito Inlet
Of the other principal rivers, the famous
Ocklawaha, the Suwannee, Caloosahatchie
and Withlacooche, are the only ones of
special interest to the settler, for it is towards
the regions watered by these streams, that
the great tide of immigration is already set
tling, a tide that is constantly increasing in
volume and rapidity, until it seems des
tined to attain the force and power of a great
tidal-wave And so we believe it will,—a
wave that shall sweep from end to end of our
great peninsula, carrying away before it
the old time listless ease that “hog and hom
iny” require, and scattering far and wide,
seeds—literally seeds—that shall flourish and
bear fruit in the comfort, health and pros
perity of her people.
The Turnip-—Mwede.
Hinds, Mississippi.
Editor Southern World—This valuable
vegetable, which created such a revolution
in England within the memory of this octa-
genarian, in the agriculture of that people,
os to place them a decade in advance of
others, and make them independent of the
outside world by increased facilities of feed
ing stock and improving land, has very few
admirers in our Southern world. Tho straw
of wheat, oats, rye, and barley, if kept from
exposure and fed to cattle and sheep with
turnips, will carry Btock through a winter, if
in good condition at the opening of winter,*
properly protected from tho weather. Mr!
Mark W. Johnson keeps, no doubt, a proper
collection of varieties of seed to please any
farmer. Tho Strap-leaved will be needed for
early turnips for the table, other varieties
for fattening. I am constrained to allude to
a variety of the Swede, name I forget, but
think it is Seven-top Swede. The Yellow
Swede, (Ruta Bags,) Is well known, but not
so good in my opinion. May be more pro
ductive. I doubt if our turnip raisers have
tried tho White Swede for the table. It Is
the best I have known and hogs eat them
raw as readily as the sweet potato. Prepare
at once, make your land rich and sow as soon
as possible. The production is immense if
the land is in high culture and rich. Order
seed at once and try a littlo patch. I have
tried and know it is the best of all turnips.
H. or H.
The Farmer a Mechanic.
No. 2.
A good grindstone well balanced and true,
is one of the necessities of the farm as well
os the work-shop, and it is bard to under
stand how a farmer can get along without
one, and to the writer it is almost as bad as
no grindstone at all, to be compelled to use
the wabbling, bobbing, rickety, creaking
contraption, so often seen on the farm. A
writer says: “Allow me to see a farmer’s
grindstone and I will not ask to see him nor
his fonts, nor his gates, nor his fences, and I
will "grind out" for you his traits of charac
ter with infallible certainty.
If it is as hard as a nether mill stone and
hung upon a wooden crank, and supported
by a couple of old rails set against a fence,
or on two stakes driven into the ground and
bobs up and down and wabbles sides ways
when revolving, likean old rickety, “drunk
en” carriage wheel, and utters a mournful
squeak which sounds like the last requiem
of an old dilapidated ox-cart, he may be set
down as a slack, unskillful, unsuccessful,
thriftless, pcnny-wisc-and-pound-foolish sort
of a nonentity, who does not take an agricul
tural journal; and who always performs ei-
ery job just as if lie thought his time was
consumed to no good purpose, and his money
thrown away."
A grindstone may be too hard or it may
be too soft; it may be too coarse-grained or
too fine. For the general purposes of the
farm it should be of medium hardness and
rather coarse than fine, since many of the
tools to be ground are heavy and with coarse
edges. In selecting a grindstone care must
be used to get one that is free from hard
spots. These can only be certainly detected
by using the stone. Therefore it is well to
buy one on trial.
To mount the grindstone, by all means get
one of the patent iron axles that are to be
found in every hardware store—one having
collars and nuts toadjust and hold the stone.
The “friction” wheels that are commonly
sold with the shafts, are of little practical
use, as the main friction when grinding is
at the point of contact of the tool upon the
surface of the stone, and this friction is un
avoidably incident to the operation. If the
bearings of the shaft are perfectly true and
round, and run in well-oiled wood or lead
boxes, the friction at those points will be at-
most nothing. The axle should be long on
the side of the hand crank, so that the hand
that turns will not interfere with grindinga
drawing knife, or other long tool; and
the other end should have a short crank
for attaching a foot-treadle. This latter is
very convenient when no one is handy to
“turn the grindstone.” The frame which
supports the stone should be strong and
rigid so as to preserve perfect steadiness. If
preferred to run the stone in a trough of
water, the trough should he so arranged that
it may be lowered when not in use, so that
the stone may not stand in the water, which
would tend to soften the stone and soon
cause it to lose its perfectly circular form by
unequal wearing.
(A better way to apply water is by means
of a small vessel mounted above the stone
and having a very small hole near Its bot
tom through which the water may slowly
trickle.) Neither should agrindstone bo ex
posed to the rays of the sun, as this has the
effect to harden the exposed portions. When
mounted, tbo stone should turn perfectly true
If it is not true it will constantly become
less so, and the defect should be remedied at
onoe. First, set it so timt it will run in the
same perpendicular plune-by mean of thin
wedges driven where they will effect the ob
ject. If the shaft is put through tho exact
centre of a stone that is }>erfectly circular
undat a right angle to its side, the stone
will run correctly. Any deviation, how
ever, slight, from a perfect circular motion
should bo corrected at once by applying an
old file or thick glass bottle to the revolving
stone, using a steady rest and touching only
the portions that are too prominent.
The grindstone being all right we now
need appliances for holding tools properly
while grinding them. Some mechanics uw
nothing but the hand and rely on tho eye
and the sense of feeling; but most work
men need something to aid in bolding the
tool at a uniform angle. All tools for cut
ting wood that are finished with a basil edge
should be so held too the grindstone that
the basil will be concaved, so that when ap
plied to the oil-stone the cutting edge and
back angle, only will touch the surface. In
the case of chisels this may be done by rest-
Ing the end of the handle against one of a
series of notches cut in a rest board which
may be fixed to the frame of the grindstone,
or the notches may be cut lh a convenient
post or otb&r upright near the stone. For
holding plane bits a clamp is thus made:
Saw a cleft in the big end of a large wheel
spoke sufficiently deep to hold the bit firmly
and securely, and drive a small spike or
lieadlesss nail into the other end. Wi th the
bit fixed in the cleft and the other end of
the clamp against the rest board, the grind
ing may be done with the greatest ease and
precision. A stock is almost indispensable
to properly grinding a drawing-knife:
Take a piece of stuff about 3X1 inches and
eight feet long; fasten with screws a similar
piec<>—equal in iengtii to the drawing-knife,
across one end of the long piece, and pieces
—equal in length to the handles of the
drawing-knife—to the ends of the cross
piece, forming together a clamp about like
the figure:
The description and the figure together
will enable the reader to get the idea. The
handles of the knife are to bo securely fast-
tened or held under the projections of this
cross-piece, and the other .end of the clamp
is to rest on the ground or floor against a
pin. A clamp for holding an axe or hatchet
may be made similar to the plane-bit clamp,
but somewhat stouter and with a cleft large
enough to receive the pollot the axe.
These clamps and others that may be de
vised forother tools, are very convenient and
when once used will not afterward be dis
pensed with. They enable the grinder to
grind a tool with mathematical exactness,
with the least waste of metal, with very
little muscular effort and in much less time.
In the next number we will endeavor to
sliow how different tools should be ground.
^ R.
Farmer’s Habile.
After all that is said about the healthful-
ness of life in the country, it cannot be de
nied that a very considerable proportion of
our most active farmers are very far from
robust in form and vigorous in digestion.
We are not sure that the active working-men
?* lr / owns an *i cities are in any-wise in
ferior in physical stamina and healthy bod
ily powers to their brethren on the farms.
The truth is, the habits of many farmers are
not in accordance with the laws of health
and physical development; not in that they
do not work enough, or that they eat too
much or sleep too little, but that work, and
eating, and sleeping are not properly adjust
ed to each other. It is a common notion
that “early to bed and early to rise, will
make you healthy, wealthy and wise; ” but
the old proverb has been construed too
literally by many. It was probably the
idea of the author to condemn the practice of
late suppers and night dissipations, and nine
or ten o’clock breakfasts, but not to enjoin
tlie habit of rising “ before day ” and work
ing until dark.
Tlie best authorities are ugreed that one
should not go to work in the morning before
taking food into the stomach, even if noth
ing more than a few mouthfuls of solid food
and a cup of hot coffee; and common reason
ought to teach ns that there is no good sense
in the habit of rising from bed an hour
or two before day, breakfasting at day
light and working until dark—intermitting
labor an hour only or less, at noon. By such
a course a man may and will accomplish
more work in a given period of a few years,
and he may possibly grow rich; but it will
be ut the risk of health and premature old
age—if not early death. The laws of health
may bo violated with apparent impunity for
a time—longer or shorter—but the penalty
must at lust be paid when it is too late to
retrieve the error.
Not only should the fast be broken and
the system fortified with food before the
regular day’s labor is entered upon, but suf
ficient time should be consumed for the
proper mastication of the food. The prac
tice of hurriedly bolting a meal, in five or
ten minutes, cannot be too strongly con
demned as the potent cause of more dyspep
sia or indigestion than all other causes com
bined. A perfect set of teeth cannot prop-
erly prepare for digestion a hearty meal in
less than thirty minutes time, and a longer
period would be better than a shorter. The
noon meal should not be commenced until
the body has been refreshed by a little rest;
and a period of at least half hour—better if
one hour—of perfect rest should intervene