effects of over training with its sudden. decrease in vigor.

But the most important development in Dr. Weichardt's work was the artificial production of the poison and counterpoison of fatigue-or "kenotoxin" and "anti-kenotoxin" as they are called. Supposing these substances to be merely oxidation and reduction products of muscular albumen, he submitted solutions of animal albumen to the action of electric currents, hydrogen, peroxide, chlorine, colloidal, palladium, etc., and tested the biological effects of the residues thus obtained. Animals inoculated with these substances would undergo the same detrimental effects-suffocation, drop in temperature, torpor-as in case of a treatment with the natural toxin extracted from exhausted muscles. After having thus obtained the poison of fatigue by artificial means, the experimenter succeeded in producing the anti-toxin by a similar process, independent of any animal organism. The artificial stuff produced from albumen, in the form of either injection fluids or soluble powders, can now be obtained by anybody at a relatively low cost.

It is expected that the artificial antidote against fatigue will lend itself to many uses. A number of scientists are at present at work to ascertain the effects of the anti-toxin on the most varied maladies. Some have, for instance, obtained rather promising results in the treatment of tuberculosis, and in this connection, it will be interesting to note a fact discovered by Dr. Weichardt himself, that the serum known as tuberculin, with which such good results have been obtained in many cases, contains besides the tuberculous virus proper, poison

related to the very toxin of fatigue itself.

Extensive experiments go to show that animals treated with the antidotes offer much more resistance against the bacteria of a number of diseases than those left unprotected. This shows the extent to which the method is likely to prove of value in medical practice.

Another question will be whether the artificial antidote really is a means of increasing physical strength, enabling the body to do better work than without this treatment. To this is suggested an affirmative reply not only by the results of the experiments above described, but by a number of tests made by Dr. Weichardt both upon himself and upon ofher persons. Though further observations will be required to reach any definite judgment, it can doubtless be asserted that the artificial anti-toxin deserves the fullest attention of all those engaged in physical training. In fact a marked decrease in the feeling of exhaustion, and accordingly, a decided increase in vigor, is invariably produced by the treatment with this substance. The invigorating effects will continue about half a day or more following treatment, and leave no disagreeable after-effects. While the capacity for work is thus augmented, the want of sleep is reduced to some extent, but nonervous excitation is noted. In fact, as the antidote is a natural product of the body, it is free from those detrimental effects necessarily connected with foreign bodies introduced into the organism.

Whether it may be possible to extend these invigorating effects to the capacity for mental work will have to be ascertained by further experiment, though the information so far gained seems to point in this direction.

"I

WANT a million acres of land in the state of Florida, in a section running right across the state, from tide water on the east to tide water on the west." Such is the request which a New York capitalist made of the Land Department of the Florida East Coast Railway. The request was made in dead earnest and price was no object, yet the demand could not be filled, partly because the conditions. were unusual, but more because land in Florida is already so well taken up that a location of such size was not to be had. Applications from people handling big capital and wishing an outlet for it in safe and good investment come daily to responsible parties here in the state. One sees advertisements for land in fifty or a hundred thousand acre tracts in the state almost daily in the principal Florida papers. The rush for land in Florida is surely on.

There are many reasons for this great and comparatively sudden de

mand. One reason is that the lumber and turpentine kings are beginning to release their grip on the state lands. Having turpentined the trees to death over vast tracts, and then cut them and sold the lumber, the land is useless for their purpose. This land. which cost the turpentine men from

twenty-five cents to a dollar and a half an acre, they are now glad to sell in large lots, thirty to a hundred thousand acres, to land speculators at three to five dollars an acre. These divide their purchase into five and ten acre plats, advertise them as extraordinarily fertile, in a state where the climate is wonderfully favorable to agriculture, and sell them, to people who have never seen the state, at from fifteen to fifty dollars per acre. Land is to be had in quantity for the first time, for farming purposes, and the big real estate men who follow the world's map and the world's markets with ever vigilant eye are making a rush for it. Among them are many who, through the construction of roads, drain

age ditches, demonstration farms and telephone systems, and through their intelligent aid and instruction to the

adding in measure the value represented by the difference in the price they have paid and the price they will receive for the land.

"Colonies," literally by the score, are being planted all over the state, from Nassau County on the north to Dade and Lee on the south, a distance of about five hundred miles. In the very Everglades themselves, a section that our geographies once taught us was but

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.

I have visited several of these sudden

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 joining 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 extraordinarily 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 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 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 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. 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.