RECLAIMABLE SWAMP REGIONS
If only Dame Nature had distributed the rainfall of the United States a bit more evenly, land enough to feed about fifty millions of people would not have required an expenditure of half a century of time and several hundred millions of good, hard dollars. One must bear in mind, however, that if Dame Nature had done otherwise, it is just as likely that the same time and the same amount of money would have been required elsewhere for those same fifty millions of people.
The reclaimable swamp lands of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains aggregate about one hundred and twenty thousand square miles in extent—an area nearly equal to that of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois combined. Of this, Louisiana has about fifteen thousand square miles, a tract about as large as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined, and Florida has about half her entire area in swamp land. West of the Rocky Mountains, California takes the lead, with enough swamp land to make a state of respectable size.
In the case of California, if the "forty-niners" could have waited about a thousand years they would have found the precious swamp lands all properly filled in for them and ready for use; for the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers long since have been working at the task of filling up the big hollow between the mountain ranges. But the rivers are a trifle slow, and Californians are always in a steaming hurry. So Uncle Sam's engineers are driving their reclamation schemes with railroad speed. A few years ago these lands were worth nothing; drain them and they are worth one hundred dollars per acre; improve them according to modern farming science and they are worth ten times as much.
The Everglades of Florida
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In many instances even the quick methods of the reclamation authorities are too slow for the California farmer, and so he takes matters into his own hands. First he acquires his land; then he mortgages all his worldly possessions to surround the land with a ditch deep enough and wide enough to make a dike high enough to keep out flood waters. His land after draining is full of the stuff for which he otherwise would pay thousands and thousands of dollars. Phosphates and lime form the coverings of minute swamp life and nitrogen compounds are a part of their bodies. The polders of Holland are not richer than this swamp land; indeed, they are not so rich. One or two crops will pretty nearly extinguish the mortgage and three or four more will put the owner on "Easy Street."
In the bottom-lands of the Sacramento River is an island that for fifty years went a-begging. Then a company with a shrewd head bought it, diked it, and drained it. Now the island has immense celery beds and the largest asparagus farm in the world. The celery and canned asparagus are shipped to the produce markets of New York City.
Another great swamp area covers a large part of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. This swamp was made when the head of the Gulf of Mexico reached half-way up to St. Louis, for the delta of the Mississippi River has been travelling leisurely southward for several thousand years—so leisurely, in fact, that Iberville and Bienville opened the region to settlement fifteen hundred years or more too soon. But Uncle Sam is taking a hand here likewise, and in another fifty years a population half as large as that of New York may not only live comfortably but get rich on the reclaimed lands of this and adjacent coast swamps.
The Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia all have large areas of coast marshes—"pocosons" they call them—only a small part of which has been reclaimed. Formerly these were the property of the general government; then they were given to the States with the understanding that they were to be reclaimed. Large tracts were sold to speculators for a few cents an acre, and there you are! Few States are rich enough to handle extensive reclamation enterprises, and so the general government stepped in again and assumed the responsibility. That means that the work of reclamation will be skilfully and honestly done. Uncle Sam may play some questionable politics, but he never mixes politics and government business.
Of all the swamp lands of the United States, the region in Florida known as the Everglades is the most interesting and the most romantic.
Ponce de Leon, an aged Spanish governor of Porto Rico, who was seeking the Fountain of Perpetual Youth, discovered—not the long-sought fountain, but a peninsula decked with such a profusion of flowers that he named the country Florida.
From that time until years after it was ceded to the United States Florida was repeatedly baptized in blood. From the first there were encounters between the Spanish and Indians in which no quarter was given on either side. Later, an exterminating warfare broke out between the French and Spanish when a Huguenot colony was massacred and not a man, woman, or child spared. In 1586 St. Augustine was burned by Sir Francis Drake, and a century later it was plundered by English buccaneers. Still later, frequent contests were waged between the English colonies and the Spanish in Florida.
Previous to the acquisition of Florida by the United States hostile Indians, together with fugitive whites and renegade negroes who had joined them, made many raids upon the settlements in Georgia, robbing and burning plantations, murdering the whites, and carrying off the slaves. Retaliation to a certain extent was meted out to the blood-thirsty savages until Spain was glad to cede the peninsula to the United States in 1819 for five million dollars. Thereby she ridded herself of her troublesome protégés. The Indian raids still continued after the acquisition, and the United States Government therefore sent troops into Florida to punish the treacherous savages, who gradually retreated southward until they reached the Everglades. There they made their final stand.
In these almost inaccessible sinuous water passages and the dense island vegetation for a long time the Indians baffled our ablest military officers. A seven years' contest followed which cost the United States fifteen hundred men and nearly twenty million dollars.
Group of Seminole Indians in the Everglades of Florida
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After much negotiation and no end of trouble the Indians—they were the Seminoles—ceded their lands to the United States on the promise of an annuity of twenty-five thousand dollars and suitable lands in the Indian Territory. About four thousand of the Seminoles were then removed to their new homes; a small remnant refusing to emigrate were left behind.
The name Everglades is applied to a vast swamp containing a multitude of shallow lakes studded with numerous islands. The region embraces most of the southern part of Florida. The water of the lakes, of which Lake Okechobee is the largest, varies in depth from a few inches to ten feet. The region itself has an area six times that of the State of Rhode Island, and on account of the difficulty in traversing it is but imperfectly known. Countless winding intricate water channels extend in every direction. Many of these are filled with tall sawgrass which, growing from the bottom, greatly impedes the passage even of small boats. The average elevation of the Everglades above sea level is scarcely twenty feet. The water is both clear and wholesome, but the surface is so nearly a dead level that the current is imperceptible; it can be distinguished only by noting the position of the grass.
The islands are covered with a dense growth of oak, pine, cypress, and palmetto trees, together with a jungle of luxuriant tropical vines and shrubs. They range in size from one to one hundred acres and are but slightly elevated above the surrounding waters.
About three hundred Seminole Indians inhabit the interior and live by hunting and fishing. Deer, bears, otters, panthers, wild cats, and snakes frequent the land; alligators, crocodiles, fish of various kinds, and waterfowl dwell in the water. In the western part of the Everglades is Big Cypress Swamp and in the extreme southern part Mangrove Swamp, where myriads of mosquitoes are hatched out. Extending along the eastern side of the Everglades is a long, narrow belt of dry, fertile land which is utilized for farming purposes.
A far-reaching project to reclaim the Everglades has been proposed. Unlike the Western projects, the problem is to get rid of water and not to supply it. The plans for reclamation include the construction of drainage canals and the clearing of the jungle growths. It is purposed to use the land thus reclaimed for sugar growing. At the present time the United States is importing annually over two hundred million dollars' worth of sugar; it is estimated that by draining only a part of this vast area and planting it to sugar cane the local demands could not only be supplied but a large surplus for export would result.
The possibilities of this region, when properly drained and cleared of its superfluous vegetation, are almost beyond computation. It has a rich soil, abundant moisture, and almost tropical climate. Reclaimed land of this character is suitable for raising not only sugar cane and subtropical fruits, but a great variety of other crops. It is estimated that the cost of reclaiming the Everglades, so that the land may be made productive, need not exceed one dollar per acre.
A great impetus has been given to southern Florida by that wonderful achievement of engineering, Mr. Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway. This railway stretches in a direct line along the coast from Jacksonville to the southern part of the State, and has been extended along the Florida Keys to Key West. When all arrangements are completed, the trains will be ferried across Florida Strait between Havana and Key West, and freight will be sent from points in Cuba to New York and Chicago without reloading.
The building of the Florida East Coast Railway is one of the great engineering feats of the world. In its construction from key to key thousands of tons of rock and cement were dumped into the water on which massive viaducts in fifty-foot spans have been built to carry the road-bed. These solid archways, rising from twenty to thirty feet above the water, defy tides and storm waves. This railway has become one of the chief factors in developing the resources of southern Florida and hastening the reclamation of the Everglades.