hamaca and irreducible happiness

while reading marjorie kinnan rawlings' novel "cross creek" (originally published in 1942) i learned that our word for hammock comes from the spanish word "hamaca" which means "a highly arable type of soil".  (remind me to look into how this word for dirt became known for nap inducing netting hanging from trees) she expounds that she wanted to name her book "Hamaca" to indicate the triumphs and defeats that different kinds of men have encountered in that hammock country, but it was believed the name would be so strange that no one would buy the book.  she also likes to think of the spaniards blazing their trails through the florida hammocks, writing, "...the hammocks were the same then as now, and will be the same forever if men can be induced to leave them alone.  hammock soil is dark and rich, made up of centuries of accumulation of humus from the dropping of leaves.  the hammock is marked by its type of trees...and shares with marsh and swamp the great mystery of florida."  she also takes two full pages to describe her favorite magnolia tree, introducing it with the following paragraph, "i do not know the irreducible minimum of happiness for any other spirit than my own.  it is impossible to be certain even of mine.  yet i believe that i know my tangible desideratum.  it is a tree-top against a patch of sky.  if i should lie crippled or long ill, or should have the quite conceivable misfortune to be clapped in jail, i could survive, i think, given this one token of the physical world.  i know that i loved on one such in my first days at the creek."  rawlings is also the author of the pulitzer prize-winning modern classic "the yearling".