a vast swamp with little or no land above water, four or five land companies are operating and I find reports of sales something as follows during the past year. The Bolles Co. have sold about 10,000 farms in ten acre lots at $20 to $24 per acre. The Everglades Land Co. 2,000 farms at the same prices, the Everglades Plantation Co. 1,000 farms at $50 to $100 per acre, and the Everglades Land Sales Co. 1000 farms at $30 to $50 per acre. It is estimated that forty per cent of these sales are to actual settlers, the balance going to the small speculator who is willing to chance the investment of a few hundred dollars in the hope of a great increase in price of these lands later on-when they come out from under the water. For it is a fact that much of the Everglade land sold is at present to be traversed only in boats or in rubber boots. I think as a rule the buyers understand that. If they do not it is their own fault. It is a well-known fact that one big sale of Everglade land was by the state, a half million acres at $2 per acre, the state agreeing to put out one dollar per acre in draining this land, no time being set for the completion of the drainage contract. The state now has four $50,000 dredges at work and has so far dredged about 25 miles of canal and nine of river. Bids have just been received for 300 miles more of canal and optimists think the drainage of the lands sold may be completed in ten years. As a sample of the rush on the part of the small speculator and small farmer for these Florida lands may be cited the cutting up of a big tract near Tampa about a year ago. This was advertised by a Jacksonville firm in one of the best known weeklies in the world and money came by mail for these five and ten acre lots from Honolulu, South Africa, Panama, Philippine Islands, Ceylon, in fact, from almost every country in the world, the whole tract being sold out almost immediately. Probably not one man in ten that invested from a hundred to a thousand dollars in this land saw it before purchasing, the reputation of the publication in which the advertisement was inserted being considered a sufficient guarantee of the transaction. colonies and may select the one at Bunnell as typical of those which seem trying to give a square deal to the incomer. Bunnell is a little station on the East Coast Railroad, east of the St. Johns river and about a third of the way down the state. A year ago it was a turpentine station in the flat woods of Volusia County, just about squeezed dry of its turpentine and with the lumber pretty well cut off. Judicious advertising sold 28,000 acres of this land, which no longer had value to the lumber and turpentine people, for $20 to $50 per acre, in blocks of five, one man at least whom I saw on the place and who was well satisfied, buying 80 acres. The whole town was sold out in a few weeks. Adjoining the Bunnell colony the St. Johns Development Co. sold thirty thousand acres under similar circumstances in just five days. It is safe to say that nine out of ten of the people purchasing never saw the land until it was theirs, though the Bunnell people gave the purchaser ninety days in which to see his land and, if dissatisfied, get his money back at eight per cent interest. On the West coast similar developments are in progress. Near Tampa the Pinellas Groves Company is colonizing a large tract on the Pinellas peninsula, most of the land being set out to grape fruit. This enthusiasm as to the value of Florida soil has a broad and deep foundation in fact. Conditions in the state are such as may be found nowhere else in the Union. For five hundred miles the peninsula of sand, almost as level as a floor, practically without a rock, extends down toward the tropics with vast bodies of water on both sides of it. Winds from the great ocean temper its climate in the winter, and, though on some winters the northers drive freezing weather almost to Key West, the temperature in the main is such that, when all the rest of the country is frozen up, fruits and vegetables may be grown, at least in the southern half of the state, successfully. What the northern farmer does in January, painfully and with much cost in labor and coal under glass, the Florida farmer may do in the field. Portions of the land, moreover, are ex I have visited several of these sudden traordinarily fertile, the sand and rich humus being mixed to great depth in somewhat the same proportion as the careful florist mixes them for his carnation beds. Add to such a soil the proper fertilizer and the conditions for successful crops are theoretically perfect. As a matter of fact there are certain other conditions which enter into the matter, of which more will be said. Orange and pineapple growing have been very successful in Florida for years and much has been written about them. Of late, winter truck growing has received a great impetus, some men having made small fortunes in a short time by it. Let us pass all these and come down to certain staple crops which all farmers understand. Such are Irish potatoes, field corn, and hay. It is just recently that the farmers are finding out what they can do with Irish potatoes in Florida.. The region about Hastings, well up in the northern part of the state, has lately jumped into prominence in potato growing, the name of Hastings, Florida, being now almost as well known in that connection the world over as Aroostook, Maine. Hastings has never had a boom; it was built by no "colony" scheme. It has just grown, along with its potatoes, till now one may see there great farms, as level as a floor, where all the farm work is done by machinery in true Western style. Hastings has this year 4,000 acres in Irish potatoes. Last year it had 3,000 and shipped from its single railroad station 176,000 barrels at prices averaging, little and big, $3.50 per barrel F. O. B. Hastings. Shipments from the immediate neighborhood of Hastings swell the total to 204,000 barrels. This is the way they do it. In late December they work into their soil by machine 1,800 pounds of fertilizer to the acre. Then they flood the soil with artesian water and let it soak for a week or two. In early January they begin planting potatoes, the variety decided upon as best for this region being Spaulding's Rose, Four, yielding 32 to 4 barrels to the acre, put in by machine. Then they irrigate this land again. Cultivation to keep the land clean follows and the crop is harvested in April, usually by the 15th. A fair average of returns is 40 barrels to the acre though as high as 126 have been dug. But this is the first only of the season's crop from the land. After April all possibility of frost is over and a crop of corn may be put in, no further fertilizer being needed. The corn is harvested in October at the rate of 40 barrels "slip-shuck" to the acre, netting 60 bushels, shelled. Then cow-peas are sown broadcast. With these grows, without seeding, the native crab-grass, the whole making an excellent hay which is harvested just before breaking the land for the next season's crop of potatoes. The hay averages 21⁄2 tons, though 5 have been cut, to the acre, and brings $12.50 per ton, baled, F. O. B. Hastings. Such is the three crop round in the neighborhood of Hastings, though after potatoes various other various other crops may take the place of the corn and hay, according to the taste of the farmer. I cite these three because they are most common and are in no wise speculative crops. There is no danger of the potato business being overdone in Florida. New York City alone consumes 5,000 barrels of potatoes daily, and the Hastings potatoes reach the market just after those from Bermuda, thus bringing early crop prices. As a result of the Hastings success land in that region is being rapidly cleared and brought under cultivation. It sells at a mile from the station at $200 per acre, raw land being worth from $65 to $100. But-conditions in the region about Hastings are peculiar and in this peculiarity lies the success or failure of the greater part of Florida farming. Here about Hastings is a vast section, level as a floor, with a clay subsoil underlying it within a foot or two of the surface. Hence it holds water and fertilizer when these are put upon it. The land is thoroughly ditched and drained so that the torrential floods which occur at certain seasons in all parts of the state will quickly run off, saving the crops from the drowning which would otherwise be their lot. Artesian water in great quantity and of a quality that is not detrimental to crops is had by boring to a depth depth of about 225 feet. This is so piped that it may be turned on the crops in profusion when wanted. Otherwise at certain seasons the drought and fierce heat to which all portions of the state are liable would burn up the crops. These three conditions will doubtless be found in other parts of the state and in many sections. The whole country is so flat that this drainage is absolutely necessary. So is the water for irrigation. To try to farm without the two is to invite failure. And yet certain crops are being raised successfully without these conditions. One of these is pineapples. The pineapple is a sort of air-plant, anyway. It is propagated from slips, or suckers, which are set out in August in bare sand and fierce heat without watering. Strange to say these are never known to fail and the whole crop is grown without water, producing the juicy fruit in eighteen months from the setting of the cuttings. After that the crop comes yearly in summer without further planting, the plants covering the ground and needing no other care than fertilizing and harvesting of the fruit. Many men, however, have made a comparative failure of the business. Only certain portions of the state are favorable to the crop and even in these winter frosts sometimes do much damage. Many of the "colonies" being planted out in the state are doomed to failure and disaster because of the unscrupulousness of their promoters. Florida land is "spotted." Rich alluvial soil in places lies beside barren sand that "will not grow cactus." Many big swamps seem incapable of drainage. Yet many promoters have no care for this. They advertise profusely and build on the true stories of fertility their own tissues of lies. They sell land to people at a distance who can afford to make but one trip and who do not see their land until they come with families and household goods to occupy it. Very many such are doomed to bitter disappointment. They are being herded into sections where neither a Florida Cracker nor a Seminole Indian could find a living. Of course, a man who buys land for settlement which he has never seen is a fool, but that does not alter the misery of it. Unless a purchaser knows that his land can be easily and thoroughly drained, unless he knows that-in most instances -water for irrigation is available, then however indomitable a farmer he may be he is inevitably doomed to failure sooner or later. that the snowflake to conform so rigidly to its laws? Here is a gem-bestrewn realm. of nature possessing the charm of mystery, of the unknown, sure richly to reward the investigator. car For something over a quarter of a century I have been studying it and the work has proved to be wonderfully fascinating, for each favorable snow-fall, during all these years, has brought things that were new and beautiful to my hand. I have never yet found a time when I could entertain an idea of relinquishing it. During the time that I have ried on the work, I have secured sixteen hundred photo-micrographs of snow crystals alone, and no two are alike. Is there room for enthusiasm here? Doubtless these pictures serve to represent with some fairness almost every type and variety of snow that occurs in nature but they show scarcely an infinitesimal fraction of the individual variation of form and interior design among the countless myriads of crystals comprising each type. The clouds, and the tiny liquid particles-water dust-of which they consist, play no part in true snow crystal formation. They coalesce only to form the amorphous-granular-varieties of the snow, or to coat true, mature crystals with granular material. The true crystals, forming the bulk of the snow fall, are formed directly from the almost infinitely small and invisible molecules of water in solution within the air, and floating between the vastly larger cloud particles. Most of the crystals are, of course, By Wilson A. Bentleys imperfect, so especially thick and snowfalls, lar a result of cro and bunching development, fracturing made during heavy gely as wding during or to due to violent winds. In general, the western quadrants of widespread storms furnish the majority of the more perfect tabular shapes. As a rule, low clouds, if relatively warm, tend to produce the more rapidly growing open branching forms, and the intermediate and upper clouds, if relatively much colder," the more solid, close columnar and tabular forms. Sometimes, however, crys tals differing but slightly or not at all from those falling from storm clouds, drop out of apparently cloud-free skies. Much wonder has been excited, because the snow crystals exhibit such a bewildering diversity and beauty. They form within a very thin gaseous solvent, the air, and this allows the molecules of water an unexampled freedom of motion and adjustment while arranging themselves in crystal form. The fact doubtless largely explains why the crystals of snow far exceed other crystals in complexity and symmetry. Snow crystals, like all crystals of water, develop under the hexagonal system and invariably divide into six. Nothing absolutely certain is known, as to why they grow thus, except as it is assumed that the number and ar rangement of the attractive and repellent poles possessed by the molecules of water, impose this habit of growth upon them. This dividing into six is necessarily discussed and best explained in somewhat technical sounding terms. We may assume each water particle or molecule possesses two opposite primary poles, positive and negative, corresponding in direction with the main tabular axis of the crystals, and in addition three or six equi-distant secondary poles, arranged around what may be called the equatorial diameters of the molecules. Water, being a dia-magnetic substance, and susceptible to polar repulsion, presumably has a tendency to arrange itself thus, in a position between and at right angles to the primary electro-magnetic poles. This alignment of the lines of growth, opposite to the lines of greater magnetic force, would compel the crystals of snow to grow mainly outward in the directions of their equatorial diameters and secondary poles. This theory would perhaps best explain why the crystals grow upon thin tabular or in the hollow columnar form, and increase so little in the direction of their main axes, that is, in the direction in which, it is assumed, their main positive and negative poles lie. Each of the six parts or segments of the crystals, while in process of growth, increases simultaneously outward, yet each one usually grows independently and by itself. So each of the six parts may, for all practical purposes, be considered as being a separate crystal by itself, and the whole as being an aggregate of growing crystals. And the law under which they form not only gives them a general hexagonal plan of growth, but in addition gives them two specific secondary habits of growth, under the same plan. We may best distinguish these as the outward or ray habit, and the concentric or layer habits of growth respectively. The ray habit causes growth to occur always outward and away from the nucleus. This tends to produce open branching forms. Crystals that grow rapidly, or within relatively warm low clouds, usually build upon this plan. In the case of the concentric or layer habit, growth tends to arrange itself in massive form, around the nucleus. This tends to produce the close, solid flakes. Slowly growing crystals, as the columnar, form solid tabular hexagons, and all such as crystallize in a very cold atmosphere, or at great altitudes, usually grow according to this latter habit. Snow producing clouds, if single are perhaps as a rule of some depth, or if double, or multiple, vary one with another in temperature. The growth habits and conditions under which the crystals form therefore are commonly unstable, with a multiplicity of diverse conditions, tending to hasten or to retard their rates of development, and momentarily, at least, to change or modify their forms. This state of things may cause them to grow after solid plans at one moment and altitude, after branching plans at another, after composite plans at yet others, and tends to cause them to become increasingly outline as growt In th cases wh tals for wholly gle rela complex in outand structure h progresses. ose especial ere the crysm and grow within a sintively thin form cloud, and uni as within low detached clouds, for instance, they are likely to follow from start to finish after one single, uniform plan, and all be very much like each other. The frail branching snow crystals, falling during snow flurries, are ofttimes of this character. In cases, the crystals will form composite fash- some |