Agriculture

The number of small farms in the United States has been on the decline since the early 1900's. Farm work, once done by hand, is now made easier by the use of chemicals and machines. Although high crop yields are routine today, modern farming impacts the environment in many ways: less jobs are available for farm workers: petrochemicals, which might better be used for energy production, are in high use; widespread use of pesticides and herbicides destroy non-target plant and animal life and accumulates in food chains.

We should encourage known natural controls and seek new ones such as the Integrated Pest Management Concept. We need to employ crop rotation procedures using nitrogen building plants for soil enrichment.

Our grain, vegetable and fruit crop wastes are not put back into the soil. Some are being used as animal food and a very small amount is being converted into alcohol and methane gas for use as fuels.

Farms which raise animals often generate large quantities of animal wastes that pollute adjacent land and waterways. This waste can be converted into useful crop fertilizer and methane gas for fuel. There are projects which recycle animal waste, and some which are experimenting with sewage sludge and plant nutrients.

In the forest industry, there are moves underway today to collect and use for fuel, all wastes from the forest after trees are harvested. However this procedure will remove much of the nutrients required to restore the forest soil and the habitats that

are provided for forest animals.

Agriculture and plantation life dominated the economic scene in Florida, especially middle Florida. A large plantation was a social and economic unit within itself. It was equipped with a blacksmith shop, stables, a commissary and sometimes a cotton gin and mill. Some had an ash hopper where enough soap for the plantation was made and a work shop stocked with the needed implements of farming. Some even had a brickyard, tannery, and a sawmill.

Cotton planters used wasteful farming methods which exhausted their land. They shallow plowed or “skinned the fields” and allowed them to erode. After 1845, some planters began to import guano from Peru. When poorer farmers were unable to restore the soil by allowing it to “rest” or by using fertilizers, they just moved west and abandoned their farms.

There were few speaking for scientific farming methods and diversification of crops but the low prices for cotton in 1840 started some to thinking.

In May 1853, at a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, a proposal was made to establish an agricultural college, but no practical action was taken.

Not all agriculture took place on large plantations. There was a large middle class of farmers who often lived in log cabins. They allowed their cattle to graze in the woods or on public land. Visitors not seeing their livestock and judging from the appearance of their homes, believed them to be poor.

Some of the homes were built with a breezeway or “dog trot” (Read Interpretive Tour of the Dog Trot House) between two rooms. The open walkway was a favorite place for the family because it was lighter and cooler than the cabin. When a new family settled

in the area, the first work was to build a shelter, The first house was usually a crude one room log structure, but was enlarged as the farm prospered. Sheds were added and other rooms usually separated by the open walk way. This was called a “two-pen cabin”.

Along the coastal plain, farmers and planters were involved in producing naval stores. The pine trees were slashed with an ax and below the cut a box was attached to catch the sap. It was distilled by copper stills into turpentine, leaving a by-product of rosin. Tar was made by slowly burning pine logs covered with turf in a kiln and concentrated pitch was made by boiling the tar.

Tar for filling cracks between wooden boards of ships and treating ropes to keep them from rotting were the major uses for naval stores.

The turpentine planters practiced a highly specialized industry so they had to buy most of their food. However it was not unusual for them to raise a little corn.

A less specialized farmer might have a shopping list like the following when he took his cotton, hides, or other produce to market:

FOOD

It is expensive energy-wise to package, freeze, and keep food frozen. The processing and canning of foods also require energy . There are risks of spoilage with frozen foods in case of equipment failure or long periods of power outages.