The Sunland Tribune (Tampa, Florida), October 12, 1878, page 1, columns 3-5
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THE LIMONA AND CORK RIDGES
Eight miles east of Tampa commences there ridges, or series of ridges. Some of them rise to the hight of 100 feet above sea level; and interspersed among them are large numbers of beautiful clear, fresh water lakes abounding in fish. Near these are found the most lovely, and enchanting spots in the United States. The ridges are generally covered with tall straight pines, with an undergrowth of oaks, and other deciduous trees, and many hammocks are found. This is an other geological formation, than the flat woods, ot the balance of the county. The subsoil is red with iron, and the soil is admirably adapted to the growth of the orange, banana and oil or semi-tropical fruits. Wherever it has been plowed a heavy coat of sand spurs, crab and other grasses spring up, and these are followed by tall weeds, which, if turned under by the plow, must in a very few years have the same effect on the soil, as does the turning under of clover in the northern States. This land may also be enriched by the use of cowpeas, and the Maryland beggar louse. Cowpeas, require planting for every crop, the earliest planting may be in hills three by four feet, and cultivated like corn, the vines will cover the grounf by the middle of June, when seed may be picked, and the vines turned under, and another crop planted in drills four by one and one-half feet, and cultivate in one direction. When these begin to ripen their seeds, the vines may be cut off four inches from the ground with sickle or grass hook, and two tons of excellent forage to the acre. The land should then be worked with a cultivator, and the roots will give forth another crop larger than the first, which may turned under. Ten quarts of seed is sufficient to plant an acre.
The beggar louse is the best manural plant we can grow. Where the land is well seeded, the plants grow as thick as hump, as high and give more leaves. No plant is more greedily eaten by all animals than this, and few that is more nutritious when eaten. This might be cultivated for itself as the soiling plant; or planted so as to grow after the corn has matured to be turned under to enrich the soil. When the seeds have matured as they do in September and October, the stalks laid in swaths would cover the entire ground to the depth of two inches, all of which can be turned under without cutting. Undoubtably there could be produced a fine forage made from this plant, by cutting, and binding it, when about two feet high. The roots would then send up new shoots, which could finally again be cut, or left to mature seeds and turned under. If allowed to perfect its seeds, it reproduces itself the next year, even though the land is cultivated with corn.
With this use of cow-peas and beggar louse, these ridges may be made the richest lands in the State of Florida, if not in the Union, for sugar-cane, ens?ava, arrowroot, potatoes, rice and corn. If the cows, hogs, and horses are kept up so as to save their droppings and with muck of which we have an abundance, leaves from the woods, and other b??dings be sent to the compost pile, and all applied to the soil, this land would become of unequaled fertility.
This belt may be reckoned in this county as a tract ?X20 miles. The water is almost universally good, and pure in the well, and the entire tract is characterized by healthfulness. The only exception is when the house is located in or near a thick hammock, or water for drinking is taken from a pond, pool or brook, or from a hole sunk near a pond in the black soil, and the water steeps in. Immigrants from the most healthful localities in the North may come to this tract, at any season of the year, with impunity. No danger of sickness. The yellow fever would no more spread here than in Wisconsin.
The day is not far distant when those ridge lands will be sought for above all others in the State, and command such prices as no others ever in Florida can command. On them are now grown many things almost unknown elsewhere, but the list is not yet one-half filled. Not a fruit grows on the coast of the Mediterranean, or plant in China or Japan, on the Canaries, Madierias or Burmudas, which will not grow here in perfection. To these can be added many from Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, and Cape of Good Hope.
The visitors from the North, who come to spy out the land will find much they do not expect. Some will be disgusted, many will be happily disappointed, and will remain. The others will go back with lying reports about us. But, notwithstanding all they say or write, Hillsboro County will become the most famous of all the Counties of the State, as well as most wealthy. Our ???? are yet open, and the good, the industrious, and even those suffering with disease of liver, nerves and lungs, will here find an asylum.
J. G. KNAPP
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