<«< -^^^ < cd c,;«? -e.^ LETTERS FLORIDA, SCENERY, t LI MATE, SOCIAL AND MATERIAL CONDITIONS, AND PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES 'land of flowers " 1883. BY JANE R. GRIFFING. LANCASTER, N. H.: PRINTED AT THE REPUBLICAN OFFICE. 1883. LETTERS FROM FLORIDA SCENERY, CLIMATE, SOCIAL AND MATERIAL CONDITIONS, AND PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES — OF THE — "land of flowers; BY JANE E. GBIFFIXG. vcn %c^^riI77^\^v LANCASTER, N. H.: PRINTED AT THE REPUBLICAN OFFICE. 1883. PREFACE. The following letters were contributed to a north- ern newspaper, early in the present year. They contain the results of several years' experience in Florida, including eighteen months' continuous resi- dence, and as the writer's object was to furnish truth- ful information to those who contemplate making a home there, it has been found desirable to republish them in this form. LETTERS FROM FLORH). No. I. The New England climate, among its many excel- lent characteristics, possesses in a pre-eminent de- gree that of stimulating a broad and unsectional love of our whole country, especially in winter. The man or woman who can face a cutting northwester on a January morning, or feel the east wind penetrat- ing with its deadly chill to the marrow of the best covered bones, who can walk the streets of l^oston with a foot deep of slush on the side walk, and a leaden sky overhead, while all the imps of the Polar regions lie in wait around ever)' corner, and still in- sist that New England, at all seasons, approaches most nearly to Paradise of any terrestrial region, is a hopeless Phillistine, and past the reach of argument. With the average human being, a thorough course of rheumatism, neuralgia and sore throat is sufficient to develop a sentiment of fraternal affection towards the inhabitants of more southern latitudes, which is pretty likely, if there is no insurmountable obstacle 2 in the way, to result in a visit to them at the earhest practicable moment. So I, having suffered the mis- eries of a Boston winter, as meekly as human nature will permit, finally decided that my only alternative was to run away and leave the snow and east wind to wreak their vengeance on some other victim. Much as I love New England, I am compelled sorrowfully to admit, that its winter climate in malignity and va- riety of wickedness, is well calculated to test to the utmost the affection of its otherwise favored inhabi- tants. This winter has seemed to me particularly exasperating, and visions of orange trees and beauti- ful birds and sunny skies were sure to be especially vivid when I shivered in the east wind, and the weather report afforded no encouragement to hope for anything better than "colder temperature, snow or rain." So I decided to go to Florida as soon as possible. That decision made, the next problem was how to get there. Now, as I have many times traveled between those two extreme geographical points, Florida and New England, and am well ac- quainted with all the discomforts, annoyances and inconveniences of each and every route, I found much more difficulty in deciding which to take than a stranger to southern travel, who is likely to be de- luded into a calm confidence and childlike faith, in the ease and comfort promised him by the menda- 3 cioLis transportation companies. I had tried every railroad to Florida, and had always found the last one the worst. As I recalled my various experi- ences with them I was almost ready to shed tears of self pity to think of the rough roads, the failures to connect, sleeping cars put on after midnight, break- fast at six o'clock, no breakfast at all, dinners that would ruin the digestion of an ostrich, and all the manifold miseries which usually have the effect of bringing about a state of mind in which the most amiable and long suffering Cliristian needs to be kept in strict confinement for twenty-four hours after ar- riving at Jacksonville, to prevent his committing hom- icide on the first railroad man he sees. I could go by steamer, to be sure, but the Atlantic ocean in mid- winter presents an aspect sometimes the reverse cJ enticing, and if I trusted myself to its tender mer- cies, contingencies were likely to arise, in which I would think with longing of ^;// method of travel in which my head and feet could retain the same rela- tive position to the horizontal. However, as it was a choice of evils, I, or we, for there were two of us, decided to take the steamer and trust to luck for a smooth sea. We sailed from Boston the middle of February on the City of Columbus — one of the new line between Boston and Savannah — and an exceed- ingly comfortable and well managed steamer we 4 found her to be. The voyage occupied three and a half days, and as the sea was obliging enough to be smooth, and the weather good, the usual miseries of ocean travel were greatly mitigated. There was nothing specially new in the trip, there never is, ex- cept in the first voyage, and even then, sea sickness seems to lack the usual charm of novelty. One feels as if one always had been and always would be seasick, and that the world in general is a miserable nauseated and nauseating world. But on this occa- sion, owing to the smooth sea, the passengers were able to maintain a reasonable degree of cheerfulness, and the ladies even did up their hair, an unfailing test of a pleasant voyage. Having vivid recollec- tions of the wretchedness endured in various Savan- nah hotels at different times, we spent no more time in that city than was necessary in going from the steamer to the train, so we decided to go to Jackson- ville by rail, there being no steamer till the next day. This portion of the railway route has been greatly improved during the past year. Formerly it occupied thirteen hours, and was the very climax of misery to the worn out traveler. The road was frightfully rough, and reminded one of a western corduroy road, the delays were interminable, and the dinner at Baldwin, unspeakably vile. Now, how- ever, the time is shortened to about sevep hours, the 5 new road is smooth, the cars new and clean, and wonder of wonders ! a really nice dinner is furnished at Waycross, something so unusual in southern rail- way travel, that it deserves to be recorded, with spec- ial blessings on the head of the person to whom it is to be attributed. No doubt the gratitude of thou- sands of tired and hungry travelers will follow him into Heaven for he is sure to go there when he leaves this vale of tears and bad eating houses. The scenery between Savannah and Jacksonville is the abomination of desolation, a hundred and sev- enty miles with not a town nor pleasant settlement along the railroad, not three houses indicating thrift and comfort, according to the New England stand- ard, only here and there a Georgia "cracker's" cabin, or a few negro shanties, the inhabitants thereof usu- ally perched upon a neighboring fence, to see the train pass, in dress and attitude more easy than pic- turesque, and evidently well satisfied with their lot and condition in life. The country is low and swampy, the soil worthless, producing little but the palmetto plant, and pine trees, which stand like for- ests of telegraph poles, for miles and miles, till one gets mortally weary of their stiff monotony. I have ' a special aversion to the southern pine, not because ite sap yields turpentine instead of maple sugar — for turpentine is a very useful article, and one might im- 6 agine a tree capable of maple sugar sacrificing itself to the public good so far as to produce the neces- sary but disagreeable commodity. But the whole a pect and manner of the southern pine is in har- mony with turpentine. It is always very tall, straight, and slender, with a few scanty branches at the top, not a leaf in the way of ornament, and not the slightest concession to grace and beauty of any kind. It seems to pride itself on its unbending stiffness and entire absence of ornament, and to look down with an air of conscious superiority upon other trees which pay some attention to the minor graces of line. I imagine I can hear it say, "The extravagance of the trees now-a-days is something dreadful. Look at the magnolias, see how they waste their substance on those great white flowers, and the cypresses, all rig- ged out in that fantastic moss, and even the live oaks, solid and respectable as they are, belonging to one of the best southern families, even they are wearing wreathes of that ridiculous stuff, instead of setting a good example to the younger generation of trees. But / shall never follow such extravagant fashions as long as my name is Miss Florida Pine." And they seem to straighten themselves up in their pride and conceit, till I want to wring their insignifi- cant little tufts of heads off their stiff little bodies. I have felt that same wicked inclination in regard to 7 some human Miss Florida Pines ! We arrived at Jacksonville early in the evening, but I see my letter is growing rather long, so I will leave my old mem- ories and new impressions of that place for another communication. No. 2. At the close of the war Jacksonville was a shabby, dirty, straggling little village, of no more importance to the country in general than a prairie dog town on the plains. Now it is a thriving, busy, growing city of perhaps twenty thousand inhabitants, and a winter population of nobody knows how many thou- sands more. It serves as a gateway to the "flowery land," as it is poetically, and some would say, rather imaginatively called. Every soul that comes to Flor- ida must pass through Jacksonville, and as souls usu- ally have bodies to be fed and carried about, and as this, of necessity, involves hotels and livery stables and boats and all sorts of conveyances, and as the souls and bodies before mentioned are always ex- pected to leave an equivalent in greenbacks for all these facilities, Jacksonville has grown in size and importance with every additional tourist or health seeker who has fled from the wrath of the north wind and the snow, and come to Florida in search of sunshine, flowers and oranges. It is essentially a northern town in a southern latitude, not only exist- ing, apparently, principally for the convenience of northern visitors, but with a large proportion of northern men in every hotel, store or office. Its busy, bustling ways are northern, and one sees con- stantly the familiar characteristics of northern towns, curiously mingled with southern customs and easy, careless manners. The streets swarm with negroes, and the mule pursues his ancient course in calm de- liberation before the same old cart and in the same primitive harness as in the old days "befo' de wah," while the heavy sand necessitates a slow and mod- erate style of driving which does not exactly remind one of Saratoga. But in all essential characteristics the place is northern. The hotels, especially, are as unlike those which one usually finds in southern cities as possible, and are owned and managed by northern men for the northern winter visitors. It has often been said that one must starve in Florida unless he could live on the air, which with all its de- licious qualities, has never been asserted to possess all the elements necessary to sustain life. Even an invalid requires a liberal supply of some other ma- terial, such as beef steak and bread and butter, and various other things, and Jacksonville has had the reputation of being more frugal in catering for visit- 9 ors than exactly accorded with their ideas of what their constitutions required. No doubt this unenvi- able reputation was well deserved in the past, and we know that a bad name of that kind has an adhe- sive quality, compared to which any known plaster is not to be mentioned. But, however well deserved, originally, this stigma has now, no foundation whatever. It would be dif- •ficult to find many hotels, even in our large cities, which furnish their guests with a greater variety, or better quality of food, while at northern summer hotels, with which, of course, they are more justly compared, there are very few that would not suffer by comparison with the best houses in Jacksonville. The St. James and Windsor have long stood at the head of the list, and have enjoyed a well deserved popularity, while the Everett, Duval, and Carleton have their full share of the custom and appreciation of the thousands who flock to Jacksonville every winter. The Carleton is the newest, and con- sequently, least generally known of the large hotels, but has already taken rank with the St. James, in ex- cellence of accommodations, and especially of its cuisine. There are not more than two or three hotels in the White Mountain region that furnish anything like so good a table, that of the Glen House being most nearly like it, and the proprietors, lO Messrs. Stimpson & Donnell, deserve great credit for the manner in which they cater for the throng of guests. There are, of course, many smaller hotels and boarding houses of various degrees of excel- lence and expensiveness, so that almost any require- ment can be met, from the four dollar a day style of accommodations, down to the seven dollar a week sort. But whether one pays four dollars a day or seven dollars a week, he receives as much for the money as at any northern summer resort. Of course, with the rapid increase in size and importance of the place, the resident population of Jacksonville has in- creased in wealth and numbers, and the elegant cot- tages and villas built by its citizens, indicate their prosperity and taste. Many of these dwellings are really beautiful, standing in gardens of orange trees and roses, and when we think of our own ice bound gardens, and plants carefully sheltered in the bay windows, from the frost and north wind, we are al- most inclined to envy those dwellers in eternal sum- mer, the fadeless verdure and bloom of their gar- dens. Along the banks of the St. Johns, a little out of the city proper, has grown up a beautiful suburb, Brooklyn and Riverside. The bank here is very high, and the broad sweep of the magnificent river is in lull view from every house and garden, affording a site for residences which few cities can equal in 1 1 beauty. The ground is level as a floor, and the dretty or imposing dwellings, and grounds lovely with orange trees, luxuriant vines and flowers, with perhaps a group of stately live oaks bearing aloft their dome of living green, and sweeping wreaths of Spanish moss, with the broad expanse of river glis- tening in the sunlight beyond, form a picture not readily forgotten. The suburban quarter will soon be within easy access to the city by those who can- not afford horses and carriages, as Jacksonville can now boast of a line of horse cars, an immense con- venience to both citizens and strangers. The great live oak trees constitute one of the most attractive features of this northern-southern town. The hotels may be wholly northern, but no other State or section shares with Florida the glory of these magnificent trees. Jacksonville is in many respects a commonplace town in its general appear- ance, and the heavy sand and scarcity of grass strikes a northern eye unpleasantly, but no town can be wholly commonplace with these long lines of stately trees, heavy with thick foliage, and garlanded with weird grey moss, and add to this one beauty, the glorious river, the golden sunshine, and the soft, balmy air, and one may easily forget the sand and other unattractive features of Jacksonville. Can it be that it is February, that my northern home is still V 12 locked in ice, and people wrap themselves in furs to face the wintry wind, and I sit by an open window to write this letter, fanned by breezes as soft as those of "Araby the blest," while across the street a row of great verdure laden trees tell of the summer that has no beginning and no ending here, but only grows less fervid in its heat, and occasionally borrows a breath from a northern October, when by some fiction of the imagination, people call it winter. No. 3. There are three classes of people who are disap- •pointed in Florida, and who, on returning north, give an unflattering description of it. One is, of course, those whose tastes and ideas are not in harmony with the conditions which they find here, who do not like a warm climate, or a new, undeveloped country, and are not interested in the scenery, the life, or the pur- suits vvhich to so many others are so fascinating. To such persons, Florida is tedious and uninteresting, and as wc can impart to others only the impressions we receive, they naturally and honestly report it to be "stale, flat and unprofitable." Then there are the chronic grumblers, people who can no more avoid croaking than frogs can abstain from using such vocal has orovidcd them with. 'Wcall 13 know plenty of such people, for whom the brightest day is only a " weather breeder," whose sugar is nev- er as sweet, nor lemons as. sour as they ought to be. Their troubles are always harder to bear than those of other people, and they seem to think that they en- joy the distinction of being singled out as the object of malicious spite- from the whole universe. Florida seems a favorite resort for this uncomfortable class, and in many instances, having left their own homes out of pure discontent with life in general, they find still a degree of natural and human imperfection here, and reseat it as a personal grievance. Perhaps they have left snow and ice and sleet and slush, colds and coughs, catarrhs, pneumonias, diphtherias, and the whole interesting list of winter inflictions, and when they get to Florida it rains for a day or two, or the temperature runs down nearly to freezing point for one night, and with expressions of disgust that ought to, but somehow does not annihilate the whole south, they exclaim, "And this is your lovely Florida cli- mate ! I might better have stayed at home." Not finding perfection in climate, hotels or anything else, and feeling that they deserve it, being so absolutely faultless themselves, they consider that every drop of rain, every degree of temperature above or below that which they regard as exactly the proper one, and every other imperfection, is in flagrant violation of 14 their vested rights. But as such people cannot be suited with anything short of heaven itself, their ob- jections must be regarded as abstract and general, and applying to the whole universe and plan of creation, not specially to Florida. There is another class of persons who are sure to be disappointed in coming to Florida, from the ex- travagance of their expectations. They read some poetical description of the scenery and life here, and they form a picture in their own minds of a land of endless summer, with roses blooming in January, trees heavy with golden fruit, with feathery palms and great white magnolia flowers, with cypress trees, and bamboo vines, with birds singing in the thick foliage, a lotus eating paradise, in which one can lie in a hammock and dream that this is the lost Atlantis, island of the blest, by some happy arrangement at- tached to our prosaic continent for the special and supreme beatitude of a few thousand favored mortals. Very likely every single feature of this imaginary Florida is either actual or possible here, and separate- ly or partially can be realized, but take it as a whole, it is the poetry, the dream, the fancy that can exist only in that airy and unsubstantial form in this world of unpoetic realities. There is always a large pro- portion of prose in the happiest conditions of mortal life, and to use a thoroughly New England illustra- 15 tion, brown bread and baked beans are usually rather in excess of ice cream, as articles of daily con- sumption. The ideal is never realized on this planet, but many persons can never fully relinqui h the expectation of finding it embodied in some coi- dition of life, more or less remote from that in which they live, however, as no one fails to see the prosaic facts of their own surroundings. In Florida, the poe- try does exist, but with a large admixture of prose. The flowers are here, (when they are cultivated), but also the barren sand ; the brilliant birds, but also liz- ards and spiders ; the glorious sunshine, but also days of dreary rain. The oranges must be bought, or if we own the trees they cost so much money and labor, that calculations of profits are likely to take the place of poetic enjoyment of their rich beauty. If one comes as a visitor, he must endure the usual discom- forts of travel and hotel life, and if he comes to re- side and make a living, he will find the crude condi- tions of a new and undeveloped country, and the av- erage amount of difficulty in obtaining a plentiful supply of greenbacks. One who comes here for either purpose, a winter visit, or a permanent resi- dence, will be sure to be disappointed, unless he ''dis- counts" all poetical descriptions, and takes into ac- count the inevitable imperfections of every known condition of life. In writing these letters, I wish to i6 convey to my readers an accurate and truthful im- pression of everything, as far as I treat of it at all, and in any statement of facts or figures they can rely upon there being no exaggeration. But I write from the point of view of one who loves Florida, enjoys and appreciates its many beauties, and while fully re- alizing its disadvantages, considers them as being* far outweighed by its advantages. Perhaps I am a less severe critic from the fact that I always prefer to take a favorable view of anything when I can, rather than the reverse, and I am profoundly impressed with the impossibility of finding perfection in anything in this mundane sphere. I long ago made up my mind that prose as well as poetry, that weeds as well as flower^-, baked beans as well as ice cream, belong to the scheme of creation, and to accept them all with cheer- ful philosophy. The result is that I often find things better and pleasanter than I had reason to expect. I have no doubt that, if I go to heaven when I die, 1 will find that the climate exceeds my expectations, that the angels are uncommonly agreeable, polite to strangers, giving them all necessary information as to the best hotels, or, with truly angelic hospitality, in- viting them to their own homes. But Florida is so far from heaven, that I may be accused of wandering from my subject. I am afraid I have left very little space for writing of the St. 17 Johns Riv^er, as intended in this letter. It is of all rivers, the most fascinating to me, with its vast flood of water, flowing silent and slow, with scarcely a per- ceptible current, from some mysterious source, such a:v gives birth to no other river in the vvorld. It has no water shed, no extensive region to drain, with countless tributaries pouring into it. It has only the rainfall of the narrow peninsular of Florida, instead of that of a great region like the Mississippi Valley, yet it is several miles wide in many places, and in depth from nine to thirty-six feet, and the source from which this great body of water flows remains a geographical mystery. It has, I believe, never been followed to its head waters in the swamps of the Ev- erglades, and is for a long distance navigable only for canoes. The only explanation of its immense vol- ume is that it has some subterranean connection with the ocean. The best scientific opinions agree, I am told, that it is not a river at all, but a lagoon, and was once a part of the ocean. The Atlantic surges once beat upon its western bank, and what is now East Florida, only a few centuries ago had no existence. A fringe of low sand bars and reefs such as are found now along the coast, served as the foundation, and the little continent builders, the coral insects, toilin<.r for ages, at last lifted out of the waves the banks and reefs upon which now the orange trees are growing. i8 Oyster shells have been found deep in the earth twelve miles from the coast, and crustaceous fish such a 5 are never found in* ordinary rivers are in the St. Johns.^ One familiar with the geography of East Florida can imagine the slow building of the reefs that finally wrested from the ocean its sovereignty along the shore and gave to man, a gift from a tiny and insignificant insect, the forests and groves and gardens that bloom in fadeless beauty between the St. Johns and the Atlantic. As the reefs and sand bars rose out of the sea and became dry land, the imprisoned waters formed a lagoon and steamers go up and down the waters that are really a part of the Atlantic ocean, but are known as the St. Johns River. It is affected by the tide for more than a hundred miles from its mouth, though the current is scarcely perceptible, and as we sail along the placid waters that beat no more on stormy breakers upon the shore, we may wonder, if inanimate nature could think and feel, if they might not long to overleap the barrier that imprisons them in waveless calm, and join the foam crested billows of the wild, free ocean. The banks are covered still with the unbroken forest, ex- cept at long intervals a little settlement is growing up, and along the whole navigable course are only two or three villages of a few hundred inhabitants. The river is so wide that below Palatka, especially, as we 19 pass along in the steamers, the forest shore is too dim and hazy to distinguish the character of the trees, so that the scenery is monotonous and to many persons uninteresting, but if we run close enough U) either bank to see it distinctly, its wild vines and vveirel, phantom-like wreaths of moss, swaying silent!)- in the breeze, the shadowy vistas and dim recesses, the lux- uriant foliage and strange forms of vegetation, are full of suggestions to a vivid imagination, of some strange freak of creative fancy in our Mother Nature, when she changed the waters of the sea into a river, and hung its banks with garlands that might have been woven of the gray beard of Neptune himself. No. 4. Florida is the oldest, and at the same time the youngest State in the Union. Over three hundred years ago, St. Augustine was settled by the Spanish, and from that time until it was ceded to the United States in the year 1821, it was never wholl)' aban- doned. Its delightful climate attracted the attention of the French, as well as the original Spanish set- tlers, and over and over again it was the scene of bloody conflicts between the rival adventurers, or be- tween the foreign settlers and the Indians. Settle- ments and military posts were established, and had 20 for a time a flourishing existence, whose very site is now either utterly unknown, or a matter of dispute, while in St. Augustine the remains of the ancient wall that protected the town from the French and In- dians, the quaint old cochina houses, even the "pal- ace" of the governor general, tell of a time when Florida was a part of Spain, and belonged to an or- der of things unknown in any other portion of our vast territory. As one wanders through the narrow streets of the slumbering little town, and notes the slowly crumbling ruins of that far off time, and hears still the ancient Spanish names at every turn, it al- most seems as if the fierce old Spaniards, when they departed from their new world province, laid a spell upon this little city, so that the romance and mystery of their isolated life there should remain forever as an atmosphere into which the stir and rush of mod- ern life could hardly penetrate. Their fierce passion and ambition have been stilled for centuries, the clash of their swords and their strange battle cries, have long since ceased to disturb the calm of this summer air, only the peace and the stillness remain, and St. Augustine basks in the sunshine by the shining sea, and dreams of the centuries that have passed over it, before the railway and the steamship, the telephone and the winter visitors had been conceived of as pos- sibilities. 21 The traces of Spanish domination at St. Augus- tine are not all that hnks Florida to the almost for- gotten past. Here and there, in different localities, settlements were made, and plantations started, in some instances, according to the local traditions, proving profitable and successful, but after a time from one cause or another, abandoned. A wealthy Englishman named Dunn settled at the lake once called by his name, but now Lake Crescent, living there, it is said, for several years, yet after this lapse of time there is not the slightest trace to tell what he did, or tried to do. About a hundred years ago, while Florida was a dependency of England, after- wards re-ceded to Spain, an Englishman named Turn- bull, a man of wealth and influence, procured a char- ter from the English government, granting him land and special privileges, and brought over here a col- ony of six hundred people, from the island of Mi- norca. He was to give them land and other assist- ance, in payment for a certain period of labor. He settled with them along the Halifax river, cultivated indigo and sugar, in which he was very successful, and lived in considerable state, as a small sovereign over his six hundred subjects, as he regarded them, or rather as slaves, for he treated them in a most ty- rannical manner, violating all his promises to them, and keeping them in an actual condition of slavery. / / 22 Finall)', however, his career was cut short by a coun- tryman of his, who visited Florida and determined that the power he had usurped should be wrested from him. Returning to P>ngland, the visitor im- parted to the government the state of affairs with Turnbul! and his colonists, the charter was revoked with all its grants and privileges, Turnbull disap- peared, and the poor Minorcans scattered about, most of them settling in St. Augustine, w^here their descend- ants form a considerable portion of the population. Of the settlement on the Halifax river, with dwellings and sugar houses, not a trace remains. It seems to have vanished like a smoke wTcath from the earth, and that is a rather strange peculiarity in the fate of "nearly all the earlier Florida settlements. In c^\cr\- other new territor}', the early settlers, if only fur traders, have taken and held a foothold, which served as a foundation for a permanent settle- ment, and ever\' pioneer, who "blazed" his way through the trackless forest, or traversed the lonely country in his "prairie schooner," has driven his stake somewhere and kept it there. Hut in Florida, colony after colo?iy, \-illage after village, plantation after plantation, has passed away like names written upon the sand, and washed away by the waves. It seemed as if the time had not come for man to claim his birthright in the sunny land which the 23 Spaniards poetically named l-dorida, the "land o{ flowers." After the state was ceded to the United States, and before the war of the rebellion, it was very sparsely inhabited b}' a class of people who had neither the desire nor the .ibility to develop the resources of the countrv' and attract immigration. They lived b}' lumting and fishing or by keeping droves of cattle, and were a rough, lawless, ignorant class, with few exceptions, obe>'ing no laws sa\e those of the "Regulators," and regarding with suspicion and dislike all who came among them with the inten- tion of culti\ating the soil, and fencing in the land, thus interfering witli their cattle ranges. With the exception of the small communities of St. Augustine, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee, and their vicinity, almost the whole of Morida was a wild, unbroken wilder- ness. During the war military operations brouglit man}- northern men here, and some of them, fasci- nated b\' the lovely climate, remained and made per- manent homes. Then others were attracted here, and invalids began, to escape from the rigors of the north- ern winters to its balmy air, wnth its opportunities for out of door life, and Fh^rida ^\as well started upon its , new career of prosperity, after its Rip Van Winkle sleep n( three hundred years. The spell was broken at last. The thrifty yankee mind began to see possi- bilities in orange culture that had never occurred to 24 the careless southerner, and these two classes, health seekers and money seekers, came in greater and greater numbers every year, until a tide set towards this long neglected land that, rolling still in yearly increasing volume, has not yet reached its flood. The development of the last ten years is wonder- ful, the population having increased more rapidly than in any state or territory, except, perhaps, Dako- ta, while the increase in capital and the value of proper- ty is in still greater proportion. Of course Florida has suffered its full share of woes from "land sharks" and dishonest speculators, men who had no inten- tion of identifying themselves with the interests of the country, or conferring any benefit upon it, but cared only to sell their lands, no matter upon what false inducements. Such men are always the curse of new countries, and retard their development, not only directly by starting "paper towns" and selling worthless property at fancy prices, but by the indi- rect consequences of their fictitious enterprises, the distrust and suspicion inspired in all who know of their sharp practices, towards any one who claims to have as his object the making of a town or the set- tlement of some unimproved region. The genuine and legitimate efforts naturally suffer from the dis- trust caused by the dishonest ones, and no doubt more than one thoroughly genuine enterprise has 25 been smothered by this suspicion and want of confi- dence which might otherwise have developed into a permanent and valuable aid to the development of the state. At any rate, from this or other causes, many enterprises begun apparently in good faith, have languished through a brief existence, and died a natural death at last. A (ew however, have taken root and grown apace, that of Sanford, for instance, . ' being a notable example of deserved success. Gen- eral Sanford, a few years ago, settled upon a grant of some twenty thousand acres' and proceeded to lay out a town, and attract to it the citizens who form an indispensable element in future cities. His efforts were attended by unusual good fortune and San- ford is now a flourishing town, nearly as large as Pa- latka, and with unlimited expectations for the future. The town of De Land, started but a few. years ago, "^ is an instance of the possibilities of growth in a new Florida settlement which combines a fairly good loca- tion with intelligent enterprise and energy and suffi- cient money to make them effective, and it also shows how readily people can be directed to a new place, if the proper means are employed. The location is not exceptionally good, having no water communi- cation nor unusual beauty of any kind, being mere- ly the high rolling pine land of which so much is found in East Florida. It is, however, healthy and 26 pleasant and favorable fur orange grcnving, and these advantages have been so well utilized and advertised by Mr. De Land and his associates, that a town is springing up almost as if by magic, with good store>, hotels and churches, and is quite sure to prove a valuable business and social centre for that part of the state. Palatka, of course, cannot be classed among the new Morida towns, as it has long been an important river port and centre of the winter trav- el, but it shares the wonderful new development of the state, and almost daily grows in size, importance and beauty, with fine hotels and conveniences of every kind for its thousands of winter visitors. It serves also as a distributing point for the travel and business of the growing settlements east and west of the St. Johns, and if it is wise in its own interests, it will do all in its power to promote their growth and prosperity, as it will find in them not rivals, but val- uable aids and auxiliaries to its own growth and im- portance. In fact, nothing could be more absurd and childish than the jealousy and rivalry often seen between the citizens of different places in Florida, each having its own characteristic advantages, and serving its own important purpose in the general development of the state. . They do not interfere with, but promote each other's interests. The lungs and heart of the liuman body might as well set up 27 a rivalry as to their claims and relative importance in the bodily economy, as for one town to be jealous of another in Florida. The more the better, for each and all, should be their motto, and will be, when they study the matter from the standpoint of enlii^ht- ened self-interest. No. 5. One new town whose course thus far has been one of many vicissitudes, and less uninterrupted success than that of Sanford, but which seems to ha\-e a bright future before it, is the village of Crescent City, on Lake Crescent, about thirty miles south of Pal- atka. All infant towns must pass through a period in which they are liable to a variety of unfortunate cir- cumstances, which may be compared to the whooping cough and measles of human infancy. In the case c»f Crescent Cit}', these infantile disorders proved unusu- ally severe, and threatened more than once to put an end to its budding existence, and would have done so had it not possessed, like some children, too much vitality to be easily killed. It is just eight years, since a stranger from New York, wandering about the country in Putnam county, came upon a scene that, from his first view of it, so fascinated him that he de- termined to possess it. He saw before him a beauti- 28 fill lake, with curving shore sweeping to the right and left, its high banks covered with cypress, live oak and magnolia trees. Back of this lake, half a mile, was a smaller one with clear, limpid water and between them, the land rose to a height of seventy-five feet, a smooth plateau, descending gradually to the larger lake on the east. As Florida is almost universally low and flat, this comparatively high elevation with its superb lake view, seemed to the northern stranger a spot intended by nature for the homes of people who could appreciate its beauty and healthfulness, and he wondered to see it lying wild and unimproved. He learned on inquiry, that years before it had been a cotton plantation, but in the vicissitudes of the war it had been abandoned, and by a course of tax titles, judgments, imperfect deeds, and various irregularities, the title had become so entangled that no one had been able to secure a complete ownership of the land. A settlement had been made a few years before, by some Alabama and west Florida families, but they were people unaccustomed to pioneer hardships, and after a short time, sick and discouraged, they aban- doned their uncongenial enterprise, and except three families, returned to their former homes. So the fair plateau lay waiting for the coming of some one who could break its spell of loneliness and desolation. The nortljcrn stranger proved to be that one, and he 29 went to work, first, to disentangle the title, which he accomplished after great expenditure of time and money, and then associated with him a man who seemed to be a suitable person to co-operate with him in developing the possibilities of the place. Sur- veyors were employed to lay out the new town, a steamer purchased to make daily trips to Palatka, and other heavy expenses incurred. Then came the first of the misfortunes which threatened the existence of the embryo city. The original purchaser, in the series of failures that followed for three or four years the "crash of '73," lost the capital upon which he had relied to meet the expenses of his enterprise, and his partner proving to be a man of no corresponding pe- cuniary resources, he was obliged in the very first year to leave the infant town to its own devices, while he entered into business in the north to earn the money to meet existing obligations, and go on with the enterprise. Then followed five years of great discouragement to the little town. There was no one to take the place of the original projector, and carry out his plans, but he would not abandon them, and determined to succeed in the end, he managed to keep the property free from incumbrance, but that was all he could do until his debts were paid. It was five years before he was sufficiently free from finan- cial embarassments to give any personal attention to 30 the place, and during that time it kept ahve and slow- ly improved, attracting a few people who had friends living there, or learned by accident of the beauty and natural advantages of the loca- tion. A year ago the original projector spent a lit- tle time looking after the interest of what had be- come the favorite enterprise of his business life, and by his efforts and the momentum gradually accumu- lated during the years of apparent inaction, the place took a new start, and now seems to have safely passed the period of whooping cough and measles. It has had, all these years, a daily mail, stores, etc., but has been kept back seriously by the want of good hotel accommodations. There was a hotel, but so badly kept much of the time, and so small as to afford little inducement for visitors to seek the place. Since last winter, however, an effort has been made to furnish more satisfactory enter- tainment, and there is a prospect of its being en- larged and improved for next winter, to meet the increasing needs of the growing town. The best assurance, however, of a really good hotel in the near future, is in a small house opened this winter, as an experiment, by a ycning man who had had no experience in the business, but had an innate con- viction that he could ''run a hotel." I have arrived at the conclusion that a hotel proprietor, like a poet, 31 "must be born, not made." A man not intended by nature for the business, can no more do it success- fully than a blacksmith can write Paradise Lost. It seems to require a peculiar genius to keep guests in a state of serene confidence in their steak and cof- fee, and otherwise contented and happy, and woe be to the man who mistakes his vocation, and thinks he can run a hotel when he ought to be keeping a pawnbroker's shop. He might better never have been born, for his guests will be ready to commit murder and suicide at the same time. Mr. Milo M. Potter, the fortunate man who has not mistaken his vocation, has escaped these dangers, for he is a born hotel proprietor. Limited, however, as hjs resources have been this winter, his house being much too small for its present purpose, he has succeeded in a really remarkable degree in providing so well for the comfort of his guests, that those who come, stay as long as they can, and when they go away, invariably speak a good word for "I'otter's" of Crescent Cit\'. As this year's experiment has proved so satisfactory in its results, Mr. Potter has already arranged for the building of a new hotel, that will accommodate be- tween one and two hundred guests, which will afford all necessary comforts, with courteous and thought- ful attention to all who come. Florida enjoys one advantage over other new 32 states, which cannot but constitute one of the most important elements in its future development. Among the people who have already settled here and continue to come for the purpose of making permanent homes, is an unusually large proportion of families of wealth and influence in the region from which they came. The emigration to the West has been largely composed of poor men who went out there to make their fortunes and "grow up with the country," a valuable class of citizens, energetic and ambitious, who have built up the West with marvelous rapidity and laid the foundation for the culture and refinement of the future. But the unde- veloped West off"ered few attractions to people who had means to live comfortably at home, and tastes to enjoy the manner of living which is only possible in old and settled communities. It was only the practi- cal men, influenced by practical motives, who settled the western country. But Florida off"ers attractions to many who can afl"ord to disregard such considera- tions as were of necessity ruling ones with the west- ern pioneers, people who enjoy at home the best so- cial opportunities, and perhaps, the reputation and influence earned by professional, literary or scientific success. They are in many instances compelled to avoid the rigors of the northern winters and seek health and recuperation in the soft air of F'lorida, or 33 they are attracted by the new interests they find here, so utterly different from anything in northern rural life. Many of them have only winter homes here, returning north for the summer, but others remain all the year, from reasons of convenience or health. Crescent City shares with other places in Florida the inestimable advantage of numbering among its citi- zens a goodly proportion of families of cultivation and refinement, liberal means and excellent position, in the northern communities from which they came. Many of them remain during the summer, finding in their new interests partial compensation for the want of the more varied and active life of the north. This class of permanent residents are principally occupied in orange culture which requires constant attention during the summer months. Some of them have been here several years, have passed through the experi- mental period, and become thoroughly familiar with the conditions of the life here. Of course, they made many mistakes at first, especially in cultivating the ground, the best practical farmers finding that north- ern and southern farming are so utterly different, that a thorough knowledge of one is of but little assistance in the other, and also that the few southern people already living here had made little progress in solv- ing the difficult problem of how to induce their dry sandy soil to produce crops of any kind. It seems a 34 little singular that in all the three hundred years since Florida was first settled, the immense value of the orange tree commercially, was fully realized first by northern men. The southern people themselves say that "the yankees first taught them how to make money out of oranges." The Spaniards planted groves, but apparently more for ornament than with any idea of future profit, even after the cession to the United States, very little was done in orange cul- ture till the "yankees" came, after the close of the war. The site of Crescent City, one of the finest loca- tions for orange growing in the state, was used as a cot- ton plantation, though the soil is too poor in quality to make cotton planting profitable. The settlers from Ala- bama, however, had a more correct idea of the mine of wealth that could be found in this barren soil, and planted orange groves, those w4io remained having now^ secured by their perseverance the fortune which the others lost by going away. The northern people who settled here, immediately saw the chance for profitable investment of capital and labor and ha\-e all engaged more or less in orange culture. The orig- inal projector of the town had in his mind this val- uable interest, as a practical inducement for permanent residents, in addition to the exceptional attractions of the location, its elevation above the ordinary level of Florida land and consecjuently purer and drier air. 35 Many persons suffering from asthma, particularly, can live here in comfort, when even a few miles distant, the greater humidity of the atmosphere affects them unfavorably. In beauty and picturesqueness, the lo- cation has no superior in Florida, at least, not in the orange growing portion of the state. In west Florida, the region about Tallahassee, there is high rolling land, but it is a cotton growing country, too far north for oranges, and with a rich soil, which always, in the south, implies more or less malaria. Crescent City possesses every natural advantage possible in Florida, accessibility, being on deep water communication with Jacksonville, superior healthfulness and un- equalled beauty and picturesqueness. These advan- tages are appreciated by all who visit the place, and now that its period of discouragement is passed, it only remains with its citizens themselves, by the ex- ercise of enterprise and public spirit, to make it as nature intended, the garden spot of Florida. It was the intention of its original projector to make Crescent City an educational centre that would attract to itself those families who, while desiring or needing to live in Florida, are not willing to sacrifice the education of their children. There is reason to think that this dream will be realized, as great in- terest is taken by the leading citizens in all projects having for their object the best school adx'antaees. 36 and there are under consideration various plans for the establishment of a high school in which pupils can be fitted for college or business. There is at present a good school under the charge of an ex- cellent teacher, Mr. Covvden, who shows an intelligent comprehension of the educational needs of a new and ambitious place, and by his active public spirit has been principally instrumental in organizing a library association and collecting funds for a building to be used for the library and reading-room, and also for public entertainments. Other valuable im- provements have been projected and commenced, and the little village that so long lay slumbering by the lake, is now fully awake to its own needs and possi- bilities. And so, all over Florida, new life is awakening, and along the slow current of the St. Johns, in the busy streets of Jacksonville, in the dreamy stillness of St. Augustine, in villages starting into life at the magic touch of some ninteenth century man, in orange groves and cotton fields, from Indian River to Tampa Bay, from Jacksonville to Okeechobee, even in the wild, lonely swamps of the everglades, new currents are moving and new forces arc stirring into vivid mod- ern life the fair sunlit land which for three hundred years, has been like an enchanted princess, waiting for the adventurous knight who was to arouse her 37 from her long sleep, waiting till the spirit oi the nineteenth century came and broke the spell. Now, the sleep of centuries is over, and at a bound, Flor- ida takes her place in the life of the modern world, and has scarcely to hold out her hand for the wealth that is pouring in upon her. Those who realize the great climatic and commercial advantages of Florida cannot but wonder that they were so long ignored, but congratulate themselves upon their own superior wisdom and that of their generation, as compared to our respected but somewhat old fogyish and slow predecessors. The enchanted princess, now that she is fairly aroused, proves to be an exceedingly sensi- ble and wide awake young person with no nonsense about her, and fully in sympathy with the practical ideas of the generation to which she finds herself be- longing. The new Florida is so utterly unlike the old, of even twenty years ago, that she is scarcely to be recognized as the same in business and social con- ditions, but the change is all in the direction of pro- gress, enlightenment, wealth, culture, and refinement, and but a few more years of this rapid development will be needed to place the state in the position na- ture intended her to occupy, pre-eminent as a winter home, unrivalled and unapproachable in her own characteristics, and happy and prosperous beyond any other section of this favored land. 33 No. 6. As the conditions of life in Florida, especially those connected with r.iral pursuits, are so utterly different from country life in the north, with which, of course they are most properly to be compared, the difficulties to be overcome, by the northern set- tlers are likely to prove of a decidedly novel and un- expected character, and may be illustrated by an amusing incident in the early experience of one of the northern families. They were determined to raise poultry, and found that Florida is the very par- adise of the domestic feathered tribe, or would be, if it were not for one or two other creatures. The ser- pent that tempted our Mother Eve was not more full of guile than the Florida "chicken snake," a large and formidable looking, but perfectly harmless reptile, except for its unscrupulous habit of gratifying its fondness for fresh eggs and young chickens without taking its pocket-book along for the purpose of paying the owner a proper equivalent for them. As it can crawl through a very small hole, and is not in the habit of advertising its movements by un- necessary noise, it can neither be kept out by locks or bolts, nor is it of any use for the owner of the chickens to rush out in abbreviated nocturnal cos- tume when he hears the mother hen's loud objections 39 to the unceremonious appropriation of her offspring. The mischief is done and the robber reptile safely out of the way when the owner appears with a lan- tern in one hand and a club or pistol in the other. Another creature with the same epicurean taste for "spring chicken" is the 'possum, whose reputation in outwitting his natural enemy, man, is too well known to require any elaboration. The stories told in illustration of this characteristic may be somewhat exaggerated, and its "shamming death" may be, as some assert, less an intentional deception than a fainting fit induced by fright, but making all due allowance, it certainly exhibits a degree of cunning that would do credit to a — well, say a Wall street spec- ulator, for instance. On one occasion a 'possum hunt, in which the younger male portion of my fam- ily were engaged, resulted in the capture of a half grown live specimen, which was decided to need a few weeks feeding before it would be fit for culinary purposes, A box was made for its reception, cov- ered with slats. There was a difference of opinion as to whether the slats were close enough, but the boys decided that they were, and the creature was placed in his new abode plentifully supplied w^ith various kinds of food, everything that was supposed to tempt a 'possum's appetite. He appeared to ap- preciate his liberal bill of fare, and went through it 40 as if he had boarded at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and knew what a tip-top table was, but would not dis- dain such fare as we could provide him. In fact, his appetite was something appalling, and I began to estimate the cost of fattening him. He manifest- ed not the slightest timidity, but ate and slept like a civilized 'possum, all day. At bed time he was sleeping peacefully, as if his conscience and his di- gestion were equally sound. The next morning he was gone, the slats were undisturbed, but a few hairs adhering to two of them indicated the manner of his escape. He was too wise to try to get out when he would be sure to be seen, and evidently thought he might as well get a day's board at the expense of his captors. Now it will readily be imagined that with snakes and 'possums leagued against him, the path of the person who aspires to fortune by means of poultry raising is beset with difficulties. In the case of the family alluded to, their at- tempts had all failed from one or another of these causes, and their hopes of final success all rested upon one hen sitting upon the regulation number of thirteen eggs, in a fairly well protected, but not quite 'possum or snake proof hen-house. The family had occasion to be absent from home for a few days, and after much consultation, decided to protect the hen against her natural enemies, by shutting a dog in the hen 41 house with her, but fearing that he might disturb her in some way, they tied him by a rope just too short to enable him to reach tlie precious nest. Then leaving food and water for both dog and hen, they took their departure, feeling that they had pro- vided for all possible contingencies. Three or four days after they returned, and as they approached within hearing distance, they were alarmed by a fu- rious barking in the hen house. Hastening to the scene of action, they opened the door, and there was the dog, his mouth foaming with excitement, leap- ing and springing the length of his rope, while a large 'possum sat calmly on the edge of the box containing the precious nest, making a meal of the hen, apparently without the slightest concern in re- gard to the dog. The creature's sagacity enabled him to understand that as long as his enemy could not quite reach him, there was nothing to fear from his barking. I am not quite sure whether the un- lucky experimenters in poultry abandoned their at- tempts after that unfortunate experience, but if they persevered, they doubtless found means to circum- vent the wicked 'possum and the guileful serpent. The difficulties in the way of raising poultry were not greater nor more unexpected than those en- countered in every direction, by the northern settlers. All of them planted orange groves, as a matter of 42 course, but with characteristic yankee energy, they cast about for ways of making money while their trees were growing. Many of them had sufficient means to Hve upon during that period, but others had invested the whole of their small capital in set- ting out their groves, building, &c., and were not content to live in "cracker" style on "hog and hom- iny" until their trees became profitable, so they tried sugar cane, vegetables, strawberries, &c. They were met at the outset by the impossibility of ob- taining reliable information as to the proper meth- ods of cultivation. The original settlers were content to live in the most primitive style, and in some cases, families who owned a thousand head of cattle never had a drop of milk nor an ounce of butter on their tables, while as to a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, they were generally regarded as representing a kind and amount of labor uncomfortable even to think of, and only possible to those painfully active people, " the yankees." The few southern families of the better class who were living here, had made some little effort^ in;^ vegetable culture, but as their own methods were still of the experimental order, each one gave different advice to the new comers, so the northern men were obliged to rely upon their own judgment and the result of their experiments. Even as to the time of planting different crops, or such an 43 apparently simple question as whether to " hill up " sweet potatoes, or keep the ground level about them, there were conflicting opinions. There were no es- tablished methods in anything, and as the soil and climate are so utterly dififerent from those of the north, the practical northern farmer found that his previous experience was of no value whatever, and that he had no advantage over a "city man" who had a dim impression that a hoe is an implement not ex- actly adapted to write with, and that either persim- mons or peanuts grow on trees, in fact the "city man" had rather the advantage, as he had nothing to ?/;/learn, while the farmer was pretty sure to lose a year or two in forgetting useless knowledge. Of course all their first attempts invariably failed. Sugar cane, planted at heavy expense, languished through a sickly existence of a few months, but kept its sweetness, if it had any, to itself. Peas ungrate- fully refused to return even the seed used in planting them, and corn evidently resented the indignity of being planted upon such beggarly soil, and sulked till its leaves turned yellow in the hot summer sun yielding not even a "nubbin" to encourage the en- terprising experimenters. If, by some lucky con- junction of the southern agricultural planets, one crop gladdened the soul of its owner by a thrifty and promising growth, it Vv^as sure to be destroyed by the 44 hogs. Now, a northern farmer will ask, contemptu- ously, "couldn't they keep the hogs out?" Ah, but, my dear sir, you don't know Florida hogs, you never dreamed of any variety of swine that could be com- pared to them in their distinguishing characteristics. If you saw one you would be as likely to think it a porcupine as a hog. It is principally snout and legs, with an attenuated body, evidently planned with ref- erence to slipping through the smallest crack in a fence. Having been one of the early experimenters whose sad experience I am relating, I can write feel- ingly upon the subject of hogs. We thought we had a fence that would keep them out, but one day I saw one of them walk up to that fence, contemplate it for a moment with an oblique look of calm self-confi- dence that reminded me of the present governor of Massachusetts, and then — deliberately climb over it with as much ease and grace as that natural climber, a boy, could have done it. My feelings, as I saw the performance, may be more readily imagined than de- scribed ! The place being on the bank of the lake, the fence was run out several rods into the water, but this proved not the slightest obstruction to the enter- prising porkers. They might have kept a swimming school with success and credit to themselves, as far as their proficiency in the aquatic art was concerned, and if that fence had extended two miles into the lake, 45 they could still have easily swam around it. We tried boys, to supplement other means of protection, but boys have a habit, especially during a hot afternoon in this sleep promoting climate, of lying down in the shade of a tree and taking a nap, waking up just in time to see the last hill of potatoes or a head of cab- bage finished by the industrious beasts, who certainly set an example of energy and enterprise which the other native inhabitants of Florida would do well to emulate. This difficulty, however, as well as many others, has been overcome by the permanent northern resi- dents, the shot-gun having been occasionally used as a cheap and effective means of preventing depreda- tions from hogs, a much less objectionable use to make of that weapon than "bulldozing" at elections, a method of securing a "fair and free expression of the will of the people" happily not in vogue in Flor- ida. As it is now several years since the northern set- tlers began their experiments in cultivating veget- ables, they have learned what can and what cannot be done, and the methods by which such success as is possible can be attained. As vegetables can be ready for market before they are even planted in the north, they are enormously profitable when success- fully cultivated. I am not able at this writing, to 46 give exact figures, but know of instances in which from five to seven hundred dollars an acre have been realized, and this is less than reported profits made by some other men. But there are many difficulties to be overcome. Irrigating is necessary to prevent the danger of failure from dry weather, and most of the land in Florida requires heavy fertilizing for veg- etables. Cabbages, cucumbers, and tomatoes are very prof- itable, but do well only on rich heavy land, the kind known here as "low hammock." Cucumbers are subject to the risk of being killed by a slight frost, but cabbages are free from that danger. Egg plant also does well and can be grown on " high hammock" land, which may be described as intermediate between "low hammock" along the riv- er and lake banks and the pine land. Melons have not been extensively cultivated for market, but there seems no reason why they should not be profitable, as they grow well on any soil here, and attain a size and quality which would make a New Jersey market gar- dener turn green with envy. If I ventured to tell their average size and weight, my reputation for strict veracity would be seriously endangered, so I will not say, as I came near doing, that a large one might be scooped out and used as a boat in case of an emergency, but will modestly affirm that no one 47 In the north knows what a water melon is capable of being in its congenial soil and climate. It ripens in May, and lying on the hot sand, it gathers into its rich red heart all the sweetness of the glowing tropical sunshine, and — I might grow eloquent on the subject, but people who only know the watermelon by its insipid northern variety would not appreciate its poetical possibilities, so I check myself in time. Strawberries also are a tempting subject for a northern pen. Think of having them ripe and sweet and luscious in Feb- ruary ! But out of consideration for the feelings of those who cannot come to Florida, I refrain from dwelling upon the epicurean pleasures which we who are so fortunate as to be here, enjoy, and will write only upon the practical aspect of strawberry culture, and its capabilities in the way of profits. The result of several years' trial proves that on land exactly adapt- ed to them, strawberries are enormously profitable, but there is very little such land in the best portions of Florida. On ordinary soil, by heavy fertilizing, they do well generally, but are not sure every year. Perhaps every other year, or sometimes for two years in succession, they will fail, and hence cannot be re- lied upon as a regular source of large profit. On the whole, market gardening in Florida can be made profitable, if thoroughly and intelligently studied, 48 with careful reference to the pecuHarities of the soil and climate, but will fail every time if there is any lack of those essentials to success in ajiy business, industry, perseverance and intelligent application of ways and means to the object sought. No. 7. When people ask me, as they frequently do, if orange growing is a profitable business, I usually re- ply, "Yes and no, it is, and it is not." It has its con- ditions of success which must be observed or failure is inevitable, and it is not an exception to the general rule that we never get "something for nothing." It happens now and then that a man will make a fortune by some brilliant stroke in the way of speculation, or a happy accident, but these cases are the hundred thousand dollar prize in the lottery which has ninety- nine thousand blanks. Most men attain only such success as they legitimately earn, and a fortune usual- ly represents a lifetime of industrious application and intelligent, practical judgment. There is, of course, a great difference in the results that are possible in various kinds of business, and here orange growing has a great advantage, but to succeed in it, as in any- thing else, one must fulfill certain conditions, and bring to the goddess F'ortune the liberal offerings she 49 is in the habit of demanding as the price of her fa- vors. She is as we all know, a very exacting god- dess, and will sometimes treat her votaries with the utmost contempt when they have merely omitted one little requirement, and in this business of orange growing, in which she seems to take a special interest, the man who is lacking in practical judgment, indus- try or patience, might as well relinquish all hope of her smiles being bestowed upon him. He is sure to come to grief and pose as a " melancholy example" and warning to young men. When a northern man comes down here, as ignor- ant of the special characteristics, habits and wants of the orange tree as he is of the vegetable productions of the moon, and with no more intelligent idea of the conditions of success in that particular line of busi- ness than a mule has of tlie Darwinian theory, and expects to make a fortune raising oranges, I am never very confident of his success, especially if, as in many cases, he thinks that no study or special knowledge is necessary, or that it comes by instinct. Hundreds have come here, apparently with the belief that all that is necessary is to stick a thousand or two trees into the ground, and that being done and perhaps a ^colored man employed to take care of them, they re- 'turn north with the serene expectation of a fortune making itself for them. In many instances they do so not even come here, but send money to some one else, perhaps a relative or friend, or very likely the projector of some new town, who offers in his brilliant prospectus to plant and take care of groves for pur- chasers at the lowest possible rates. Now, in what other business does a man expect to acquire a valua- ble productive interest not only without his personal supervision, but without any practical knowledge of what is essential to success in it, so as to judge whether or not the person employed to manage for him is properly fulfilling his trust? We know very well that while there are honest and trustworthy men, there are, unfortunately, also a great many who can- not be trusted to attend faithfully to the interests of any one but themselves, and in this case, not only the man's honesty must be assured, but his judgment and practical efficiency also, .as he may ruin or neglect the interest intrusted to him while honestly believing that he is doing all that is necessary. It is not always sufficient for a man to do as well for another as he would do for himself. The loose and careless man- ner in which hundreds of men are investing money in orange groves for other men to manage is far from creditable to their business sagacity, for it implies a belief that this one business is an exception to the rule whose operation they recognize in every other pur-' suit, that to succeed in anything, a man must under- 51 stand thoroughly well the nature and requirements of the business, whatever it is in which he is interested, and then look after it himself. How many men would succeed in mercantile life, for instance, if they simply employed another man to purchase a stock of dry goods or groceries and manage everything, the proprietor furnishing the money w^ithout a glimmer of an idea as to how it ought to be expended. Yet this is practically, what many are doing, when they send money to Florida to be invested in an orange grove. It is all very well, if they do it out of surplus capital and will not suffer if the venture fails, but I know of men who are making serious sacrifices for what they confidently expect will prove in a few years a perfect Bonanza of an investment. But those who trust others to care for their groves are not the only ones who are likely to be disappointed. Men who give them their personal attention may by lack of practical judgment, of energy and thoroughness, or comprehension of the nature and habits of the orange tree, make a complete or partial failure. There are so many instances of such results that many persons seem to regard orange growing as a sort of lottery with more blanks than prizes. I heard of one man saying, lately, " I came down here to see if an orange grove would be a good investment for me, and after looking into it carefully, I am convinced that there is 52 too much uncertainty in it. For instance, a grov^e may be planted on land with a hard clay subsoil and when the tap root reaches that, it can go no further and the tree amounts to nothing." Now this man at least exhibited better judgment than many who see 710 risks and no conditions to be met, but the absurdi- ty of his conclusion is in the idea that chance is an element in orange growing. As if the nature of the subsoil cannot easily be ascertained, and suitable land found, and as if, by proper study and attention all the habits and needs of the tree cannot be perfectly un- derstood. There is nothing difficult, nothing myste- rious, nothing which an ordinary mind cannot readily comprehend in the culture of the orange, yet many otherwise intelligent persons are lacking in the close observation in such matters and habit of reasoning upon what they observe which enables others, per- haps much less generally well informed to judge cor- rectly. There are many persons who do not know an orange from a persimmon tree, when they come here, yet are so observing and have such good judg- ment in that particular line, that they become intelli- gent and skillful orange growers in a year or two. As an instance, a lady from a northern city, utterly ignorant of tree culture of any kind, had a small grove planted, and employed a man to do the work in it, beginning by plowing, according to the economi- 53 cal but ruinous habit oi most orange growers. Before he had finished, she walked over the place when he was at work, and noticed a root several feet long lying on the ground. In reply to her question about it, the man said that his plough caught in the root and tore it up. The lady being a very practical per- son began to reflect that the tree probably had no more roots than it needed, and if they were con- stantly torn up and cut off, the process of repairing would naturally interfere with that of growing. From that time never a plough entered that grove which was well fertilized and cultivated with the hoe, and in a very few years the magnificent growth and heavy bearing of the trees proved the practical good sense of the conclusion which one would suppose would be an obvious one to any person of good judgment in such matters. There are some persons who seem to be in sympathy with the processes of nature, and to have a kind of subtle intuition in re- gard to them, and there are others who can more eas- ily solve a problem in Euclid than some simple ques- tion in regard to cultivating trees. Yet even for such ones, the example and advice of those who have been particularly successful is always available. There is much less uncertainty of results in orange growing than in ordinary farming, in which the state of the weather at certain times often determines the 54 success or failure of the crop. In wheat growing, for instance, a few days of intensely hot weather at one time, or of rain at another, may utterly ruin the crop, while in orange culture, a little more or less rain only implies a little more or less rapid growth, as the trees, if planted in good soil, after they are well started, do not suffer from dry weather. There is only one risk which cannot be guarded against, that of frost. In the northern part of Florida, this is a serious one, but as far south as Palatka, and east of the St. Johns River, it is very slight. One mistake into which many have been led by interested representations is that of planting groves on the west side of the St. Johns, and this is the more serious if the locality is north of Palatka. As far south as Sanford the difference is much less, but for a hundred miles south of Jackson- ville the "water protection" of the broad St. Johns is of great importance, as the cold northwest winds, the most dangerous to the trees and fruit, are soften- ed in temperature several degrees by passing over the water. I have known frosts even in Palatka, which reduced the banana plants to wilted rags, while at Cresent City, thirty miles distant, not a leaf was injured. In the last eight years, as far south as this and Indian River, the trees have never been in- jured in the least and the fruit only once. This mat- ter of location is a very important consideration and 55 enters into orange growing as one of the elements of success. Any person who thinks of engaging in it, should take great pains to ascertain the best orange grow- ing region, and avoid the unnecessary risks of the northern part of the state and the west bank of the St. Johns. The Indian River country is justly celebrated as the perfection of an orange growing region, but it is still very inconvenient to reach, and infested by insects in the summer, while other sections are equally free from frost, much more so from insect pests, and more readily accessible. Fruitland Peninsula, on which Crescent City is situ- ated, Sumpter, Orange, Marion and Volusia counties are all excellent orange growing regions, and by taking into account the matter of health, special quality of soil, &c., in the particular place selected, there would be no danger of making a serious mis- take in planting a grove in any desirable and con- venient portion of those counties. One mistake that has been made heretofore, in a large proportion of cases, in the experimental period of orange culture, is that of underestimating the cost of bringing a grove to the age of profitable produc- tion. When little was known of the best methods of cultivation, it was naturally to be expected that men would fall into this error, especially if they were ac- 56 customed to the rich soil of the north, but in the last few years, there has been no reason for want of definite knowledge regarding the expense of cul- tivating a grove, except the misrepresentations of persons interested in inducing people to buy land and settle in Florida. Orange growing is a legitimate business, subject to the ordinary laws which govern every kind of pro- ductive interest, and any one who assumes that to make a fortune by it is an easy thing, requiring lit- tle expenditure of capital or thought, makes a very serious mistake. There are few kinds of business which yield so large a return, in the end, for the capital invested, but for ten years there is no profit, only a constant outlay. This is a serious difficulty to persons of small means. Although the trees be- gin to bear in three or four years, if well cultivated, the yield is small at first and one cannot expect much profit in less than ten years from planting. During that time, the grove must be thoroughly cul- tivated, and though the orange is a tree of great vi- tality, it is subject to one or two unhealthy condi- tions and one enemy, the scale insect, which must be guarded against with ceaseless vigilance. Then the appetite of the tree is something appalling. To call it a "heavy feeder" is to u.se altogether too mild an expression to convey an adequate idea of its 57 enormous demands upon the soil, and — the purse of its owner. The quantity of muck, bone meal, salt, and other unheard of things that tree will consume is enough to make the hair of an orange grower of ordinary financial resources turn gray. " How^ much bone meal, &c., do you think can be profitably used?" I asked lately of an experienced cultivator, having in mind a grove w^hose demands seemed to increase rather than diminish, the more liberally they are sup- plied. " O," was the disheartening reply, "there is no limit ; an orange tree will use all it can get, and ask for more." And that seems to be the case. If a person has Si grove of a thousand trees, he can keep a man and team at work all the time procuring muck for them, and can buy commercial fertilizing till he has no money left to pay store bills, and the trees will grow and grow, and smile at him gratefully with their rich glossy leaves, as if to say, "That is all right, we appreciate your attentions, you seem to know how an orange tree ought to be treated, but a little more muck and leaf mould will give more body to our soil, and a little more bone meal will give us a more liberal supply of phosphates, and you know how much phosphates we are obliged to use, and while you are about it, two or three tons of salt will help us to retain moisture about our roots and fur- nish us some valuable chemical elements besides, 58 and don't forget a thousand or two loads of mulch- ing. No tree accustomed to the luxuries of life, as we are, can be comfortable in this hot sand during the summer unless it is kept cool by mulching." And if he is a wise orange grower, he will say, "Very well, you shall have all these things, and as many more as you want, if I have to go barefoot and live on hominy to get them," and his trees grow and grow, and by and by their branches bend to the earth with their weight of golden fruit. Then the soul of their owner rejoices, and his wife goes in silk attire if she chooses, only gingham is more comfortable here, and after years of hard work, sacrifice and patient waiting, they are rich people. The trees are very considerate, and do their best to lighten these sacrifices by beginning to bear as soon as possible, and long before they can afford to yield a good crop every year they do so every alternate one, thus show- ing a grateful appreciation of the efforts made in their behalf. Somehow, I cannot get rid of the fancy that the orange tree is alive. It responds so readily to every attention bestowed upon it. It struggles so bravely against neglect or poverty of conditions, and exhibits such energy and intelligence in seeking for its food, being a self-respecting tree, and anxious to earn its living as far as possible, even before it attains the dignity and independence of a grown-up, full- 59 bearing tree. In one instance, a cart-load of rich muck was thrown down a few feet from a tree, and left there for several months or a year. When it was removed, a large root was discovered in it a foot or so above the surface of the ground. The tree had observed that muck, and sent up a root into it to forage for supplies. Now a tree that has so much sense ought to be able to speak and must certainly have some sort of a soul. At least, I always feel as if it had, and looking at its glory and beauty of foli- age and fruit, I could not complain if it insisted up- on sharing my own breakfast and dinner, and ex- pressed its preference for beefsteak or quail on toast over muck and bone meal. As to the profits of orange growing, when all the necessary conditions have been complied with, they have not been exaggerated. A good bearing grove is a fortune. ' I will give one or two instances, in which I know all the facts. The Oakwood grove, three miles from Crescent City, consisting of about three hundred bearing trees, twelve years old, yielded this last year, which was a very unfavorable one, twenty- five hundred dollars. It covers little more than three acres, has been well cultivated and fertilized, but has not yet nearly reached its full bearing capacity, while the expenses hereafter will be very light, as when the tree is grown, it requires little attention. Another 6o instance will show the value of a grove as an invest- ment of capital. Two years ago David Carll, of New York, a well known ship builder, purchased a grove of twelve hundred trees, ten years old, also near Crescent City, for which he paid twenty thou- sand dollars. This last year, the second of his own- ership, he sold fifteen hundred boxes of oranges, re- ceiving for them, net, on the average, two dollars and seventy-five cents a box. It will be seen that his in- vestment already yields a high rate of interest, and it will increase steadily for several years yet, as a grove does not reach its full bearing capacity in twelve years. As the orange is a very long lived tree, it is a permanent source of income after the first ten years. These results are attainable by all who in purchasing or cultivating an orange grove make a judicious choice of locality, have capital and patience to wait till the trees are old enough to be profitable, and observe the conditions which the nature of the tree has fixed for its healthy, vigorous and product- ive growth. But orange growing is not a business for the unpractical, the impatient, or the indolent. Those who engage in it must await the slow processes of nature, and for many a long year must bring their offerings of toil and sacrifice to her shrine, before she rewards them with that object sought by most men, and often in vain, in countless avenues of labor and 6i endeavor, — a fortune. No. 8. There is no condition of life equally suited to the tastes and requirements of all persons. Human be- ings, like plants, have their appropriate soil and cli- mate, and suffer in body and mind if placed in un- congenial surroundings. It is inevitable, therefo-re, that many persons find the climate, ways of living, and occupations in Florida unsuited to their natures and needs, and the life that supplies all that another person may desire, will prove to them dull, uninterest- ing, and in every way unfavorable to health and hap- piness. It is, therefore, very important that all who contemplate making a home here, should carefully consider, not only the actual facts in regard to Flori- da, but the question of whether the conditions here are adapted to their own individual tastes, habits and requirements. One thing especially that should be taken into consideration by city people, is the quiet, monotonous character of the life here. There is not a city in Florida except Jacksonville. The other places that are called cities are really only small villages and very few of them. The country is thinly populated, in many regions only beginning to be settled and improved, the conditions of living still 62 crude and Imperfect, the life entirely rural, and with an utter absence of exciting interests or diversions of any kind. No one should come here, unless compelled on account of health, who does not enjoy out of door life and occupations, and who cannot find in sunny skies, in lakes and rivers, in shadowy forests, in new strange forms of vegetation, in trees and vines and flowers, all the interests and occupations that nature affords, substitutes for society, for theatres, concerts, lectures, for the morning papers, for all the succession of new, fresh interests that follow each other in a large city so that every day brings something to feed and stimulate the thoughts and emotions. There are many men and women who cannot thus substitute nature for human interests, whose only place is on the city pavement, in the rush and whirl of city life. They must form a part of the great cur- rent of humanity that pours through city streets, and can breathe freely only in the air surcharged with vivid, electric human life, vibrating to human pas- sions, and heavy with human woes. In that life they are their best and brightest, developing all their finest powers and strongest energies, but they stagnate in the country, droop and languish and starve for the want of their own appropriate mental food. Such persons should never come to Florida, for they will find nothing here that supplies what their natures de- 63 mand and should have. It is true that they are often told, especially if they are women, that they ought to be contented wherever it seems desirable for them to live, and if the masculine partner in the conjugal co- partnership finds it necessary to live in Florida, or any other rural region, the other member of the do- mestic firm is wickedly selfish if she objects, but all the same, if nature's intentions are not thwarted with impunity, and either a man or woman who undertakes to live in Florida, who ought to live in New York, can do so only at the cost of heavy sacrifice. This cost must often be paid, for the sake of health or means of living, and when necessary it should be done cheerfully and bravely, but there are so many discon- tented people everywhere, and they are so uncom- fortable and unsatisfactory to themselves and every one else, that I dislike to see the number increased un- necessarily. One object of these letters is to prevent people coming to Florida who ought to stay away. There is one class of persons for whom there is no doubt of the wisdom of coming here. Those whose health necessitates a residence in a warm climate, who are threatened with consumption or any form of lung or throat disease, or who from want of vitality, or some constitutional peculiarity, and unable to en- dure the cold of a northern winter, find here a cli- mate, which, while not so warm as to be enervating, 64 is yet so mild that the weak or diseased lungs grow- strong, and the feeble body finds its strength conserv- ed, instead of wasted in trying to resist the sharp, cold and wintry blasts of the north. The claims of Florida as a sanitarium for this class of invalids, have not been exaggerated. Thousands have come here, pale and weak, racked by colds and coughs, by in- cipient consumption or bronchitis, and find in this soft air the healing balm which no materia medica can furnish, and which is beyond the reach of the ut- most skill of the best physician to administer. There are many persons, not affected by any actual disease of the throat or lungs, who yet languish and sicken during the northern winter, not only from the effects of the cold, but from so much indoor life, with its artificially heated and more or less vitiated atmos- phere. To such ones, as well as those who are gen- uine invalids, the Florida winter seems a little fore- taste of Heaven, and they bask in its sunshine and breathe its balmy air with never ceasing delight. The climate, as I said in a former letter, is not ab- solutely perfect, but partakes more or less of the im- perfection that is so generally observed on this uni- verse, at least that portion of it with which we are acquainted. It is sometimes rainy and disagreeable and often when there is a howling gale at the north with the usual winter accompaniments of snow and 65 ice and sleet, we have here, so to speak, a faint echo of it, in a cold rain or a fall of temperature to forty degrees, or perhaps once during the winter to thirty. Whereupon everybody shivers and grumbles and growls, and imagines that from forty degrees above zero, to ten or twenty below would be but a trifling addition of discomfort. These "cold snaps," how- ever, are of very short duration, and are very soon followed by warm sunny weather. Many object to the Florida climate as being too changeable Such objections arise usually more from that habit of fault- finding which is constitutional with some persons, than from an intelligent judgment. While there are frequent, though of necessity, never severe changes, there are very few countries in the world in which the climate is more equable, except in the tropics where the summer heat is continuous. At Nassau, a favorite resort for invalids, the range of temperature is less than in Florida, and for persons in an advan- ced stage of consumption, the climate is better. There are even a few who thrive better in the hot climate of Cuba, but both Nassau and Cuba are extremely de- bilitating to the majority of people. There are very few who can bear such constant heat without great loss of strength and energy. Almost every one who has spent even a few months in a hot country with no changes, has had at times an intense longing for a 66 sharp north wind and a touch of frost, even though they prefer and require a mild climate. Very few northern people could live in Florida without the tonic of an occasional breath of the north wind, so that that which is charged as a defect is really a sav- ing virtue. There are many invalids who either receive no benefit, or very little, in Florida, who ought to and could recover their health entirely, if they would ex- ercise intelligent care and judgment in regard to their habits of living. One can get sick or keep sick, here as well as everywhere, by using the means to bring about that undesirable result. Attention to the ordinary rules of health, to food, clothing, ventila- tion, &c., is indispensable of course, as the healing virtues of the climate can be counteracted by a suffi- cient degree of stupidity, and the Florida climate is often held responsible for results which should be at- tributed to imprudent exposure, bad food, close, dark sleeping rooms and want of fire in rainy or chilly weather. In short, common sense and intelligent judgment can no more be dispensed with in Florida than in other places in which they are considered essential to health and happiness. For persons suffering from any form of nervous derangement, as well as from incipient consumption, Florida is a haven of refuge, and its air the balm of 6; healing. In most of those cases, the soothing qual- ity of the air, the quiet life, and the healthful out of door interests, will restore the exhausted vitality, rest the wearied brain, and give tone to the disordered nerves. But there are many persons who cannot bear heat, and require the bracing and stimulating influence of the sharp winter cold. Those should never come to Florida, and should be able to judge, by their ex- perience in summer and winter at home, of the folly of their attempting to live in a warm climate. The general healthfulness of Florida is remarkable, the death rate is very low, and there are no epidemics or prevailing diseases as in the north. There is but one drawback to its perfect healthfulness in summer, as well as in winter, and that is malaria. Solon Robin- son once wrote, "There may be malaria in Florida, but as I have never gone about in the swamps look- ing for it, I have never found it." He could have found plenty of it in his own town, Jacksonville, and must have kept his eyes shut if he did not discover its existence. I have never believed in the policy, to say nothing of the honesty, of misrepresenting the facts in regard to Florida. If it cannot bear the frank statement of the unvarnished truth, then we who believe in its great advantages for residents and health seekers have been sadly mistaken. The false and exaggerated representations of interested parties 68 have had much to do with the many disappointments which have had their natural and legitimate effect, and embittered against Florida many who might have been its friends had they not been deceived and de- luded. For my part, I do not wish to be responsi- ble for people coming here who ought to have re- mained in the north and would have done so, had they been told nothing but the truth. The fact is, that there are very few localities in Florida absolutely free from malaria, or rather the causes which induce the class of complaints always attributed to that rath- er vague poison in the air, which in many cases, probably does not exist at all, in that form, but is simply the vitiation of the air from bad drainage of houses, want of ventilation or other unsanitary con- ditions. For one thing, we must not forget that a warm climate always predisposes to what we call "bilious diseases," and when there is the least possi- ble malaria, its characteristic symptoms will be de- veloped to a greater or less degree, and in many cases there will be derangement of the liver or slight fever, simply from the effect of the warm climate, even if there was no more malaria than on an ice- burg in the polar sea. However, it does exist here in most places, but varies very much in different lo- calities. The greatest blessing which Florida enjoys is its poor sandy soil, for all those sections where the 69 ^ land is rich and heavy are very sickly, while on thel^ high, rolling pine lands, there is practically no sick- ness at all, except what people bring about by im- proper habits of living. St. Agustine is entirely free from malaria and many cases of fever recover there, coming from less healthy portions of the state. On "low hammock" and swamp land, there is, of course, considerable fever, while on "high hammock," although there is more than in the pine woods, it sel- dom assumes a serious or obstinate form, even in the neighborhood of lakes and rivers. In good locations it is much less difficult to control than was formerly the case in Indiana and other western states, where in many places, the new settlers shook with fever and ague during most of the year. Although I have known of a few cases of severe malarial fever, they are exceptional, the disease being usually of a mild type, and capable of being controlled by the usual remedies and careful habits of living. Natives of the country are usually healthy, in spite of very unhygienic conditions, and children who have "half a chance" thrive like the weeds, which is saying a great deal. Northern people living here have had such a variety of experiences that it is difficult to give an accurate report of them. There are some who cannot live in Florida. They require a colder and more bracing climate, and are out of their nat- 70 ural element here. Others suffer more or less from fever for a year or two till they are thoroughly accli- mated, having occasional attacks which grow lighter and more easily controlled as they become accustomed to the climate, and after that enjoying excellent health. There are still others who come from the north and remain here summer and winter, with never a trace of J fever or illness of any kind. One lady from Connec- ticut, who has lived at Crescent City since its first set- tlement, seven years, has never had so much as a headache. Her daughter, a rather delicate girl, re- turned north once to spend the summer, but came back to Florida in August, saying that she not only was not as well as here, but suffered more from the heat ! Another lady, from New York, living for sev- eral years in the pine woods of Fruitland Peninsula, the region between Lake Crescent and the St. Johns, not only enjoyed excellent health there, but often says she would come to Florida to spend the summer, in preference to spending it in the north. These are not exceptional instances. There are many similar ones, and a very large proportion of the northern men who settle here, work in their orange groves and gardens during the whole summer without suffering in health. Very many, however, suffer more or less severely dur- ing the first year or two, and arc much better for spending the summer in the north. It is at least, a 71 safer course for people coming to Florida to live, to anticipate such a necessity, and arrange their plans, if possible, with reference to spending three months of the year in the north. There are many who find the summer heat less trying than the "heated terms" of the north. They suffer little from the steady warm weather, with al- most daily showers, and the cool trade wind of the afternoon. Certainly the summer is much more en- durable than that of the southwest, as far north as Kentucky and Missouri, and to many persons it is ex- ceedingly pleasant. To many others, however, it is very trying from its long duration, from the hot sand under their feet, and the sun blazing down from direct- ly over their heads, and still more from the wearisome monotony and utter absence of exciting interests or social diversions. This is a question to be determin- ed in each case only by experience, no one can judge for another in regard to it, and the only persons to whom the Florida summer is almost sure to be adapt- ed are those in consumption. They should, in near- ly every case, remain during the whole year. Then if the winter proves too cool or too changeable, they will find a blessed healing in the long, warm, sunny days, the evanescent showers that bring scarcely a cloud into the deep blue sky, and the soft breezes that come laden with refreshment from countless 72 leagues of ocean. No. 9. There are many men who from some form of pul- monary trouble, or perhaps merely lack of vitality, cannot live in the north with comfort or fair degree of health, and are compelled to seek a mild climate, yet are obliged to earn their living, and cannot over- look practical considerations in deciding upon a per- manent residence in Florida. It is not enough that their health can be restored here, they must also se- cure the means of living. Although the poet con- soles the impecunious by singing for their encourage- ment, *'Man wants but little here below nor wants that little long," somehow most people seem to want enough to render the wherewithal to pay for it, a matter of some importance, and as for the duration of those wants, life insurance people are the only ones who have any definite idea of a man's "expectancy of life," so for all practical purposes of planning how to get a living one might as well expect to live to be a hundred and fifty. As to living in Florida the ordi- nary wants of civilized humanity must be met here as elsewhere, though many demands, such as clothing, fuel and shelter are much less imperious than in the north. Still, Florida is not, as is often asserted, a 73 "poor man's paradise" for though the absolutely necessary expenses of living are less than in the norths it is not as easy for a man without any money to "get a start" as in the west, unless he can "turn his hand to anything." A good mechanic can find plenty of work, but white farm labor is rather out of its element, as the demand for ordinary farm service is fairly well supplied by the negroes, though wages are high for the quality of the work, it being done usually in the loose, careless, free and easy manner characteristic of the southern negro. A young or unmarried man can, of course, do very well, but for one with a family to support and no re- sources but his own labor, the progress tovv^ards as- sured comfort and independence is very tedious and slow. Even if he has a little money to start with, a few hundred or a thousand or two dollars, if he at- tempts orange growing or market gardening, his small capital is very soon exhausted, and that which would be a liberal amount to start with in the west, seems only a drop in the bucket here. An orange grove is too expensive for a man of small capital, although, if his health absolutely necessitates a residence here, if he has no alternative, but must take the chances of utter failure of health in the north, or of some hard- ships here, there is no question as to the wisdom of his choosing this horn of the dilemma, and "pulling 74 through" the hardships here, as many have done suc- cessfully, with much satisfaction and credit to them- selves, in the end. It is not everyone, however, who has the energy, perseverance, and cheerful strength of will, to endure a long period of trial and discour- agement. There may be conditions of health or age which render one unable to bear pioneer hardships, or it may be merely the lack of that iron in the blood, that force and vigor and stamina in the character which give the power to master circumstances, in stead of being mastered by them. A man who is in- dustrious and energetic can make his way in Florida, even if he has but little money, or none at all, though the results will be much slower in coming than in the West. On a new western farm, the next year after the land is broken, it will yield as valuable a crop, as in twenty years, and without a dollar's expenditure for clearing and fertilizing, which are such enormous items of expense in Florida. The immediate results are vastly in favor of the western settler, but the advantage of the orange grove over the wheat farm is in the fact that while for ten years it yields nothing but demands everything, after that it is a for- tune. Still, people must live during that ten years, and unless they have a little assured income, and a little will do, they are reasonably sure to have a suffi- 75 ciently hard experience to test the metal of which they are made in a tolerably thorough manner. A man who is not compelled to live in Florida for reasons of health should consider very carefully be- fore he sacrifices a good position or profitable busi- ness, in the north, to invest a small capital in orange growing or any other Florida interest. There are al- ways risks and chances in changing one's conditions and surroundings. Setting aside considerations of health, it is not everyone who can bear transplanting. They strike root so deeply in their native soil that they can thrive in no other. The conditions in which they have grrown up, social and material, their early habits and associations, are a part of their very life, and they cannot safely be torn from them. They may be removed to better conditions but they are not bet- ter for them, they cannot adapt themselves to the new surroundings, cannot strike root in the new soil, and remain aliens and strangers, pining for the old life, the old ways, the old associations. Perhaps after many years the place of exile becomes home, and a return to the early life would be a renewed pain, but all such natures, and there are many of them, should be spared if possible the wearing pain of the slow process through which only they can make a new home. They have none of the pliant adaptability of others who can readil}' adopt new ways, conform to new 76 conditions, fit into new places, and turn the current of their lives into entirely new channels, with a happy facility which is often extremely fortunate in this world of change and vicissitude. If persons who are lack- ing in this adaptability are compelled to make a new home by reasons of health or circumstances, it should be done bravely and cheerfully, but if not under such necessity, they should consider well before incurring so serious a risk as that of long continued discontent and homesickness. A safe rule to follow in this as well as in every important matter, is "let well enough alone." If people are doing fairly well in the north they had better stay there, rather than take the risks and chances that attend any serious change, and if possible, every one who thinks of making a perma- nent home in Florida should spend a few weeks or months here, before sacrificing other interests. Orange growing in addition to its opportunities as an exclusive occupation, for those who must make a living by it, if they engage in it at all, offers an inval- uable resource to men who are compelled to spend the winter in Florida on account of ill health, and who, though having money enough to be relieved from pecuniary necessities, have the habit of work so firmly established that a life void of active occupation is simply intolerable. One whose life has been spent in the strain and stress of business in the north, 77 whose every waking hour has been filled with absorb- ing, exciting interests, and whose brain and nerves have been under a heavy pressure of responsibility for years out of mind, can no more adapt himself to a quiet, purposeless life than a rushing river can sud- denly transform itself into a stagnant pool. The in- tense absorption of business men in their affairs does not always indicate a mere love of money, as many people think. It is either a long established habit, growing first out of necessity and the sharp competi- tion of modern business and becoming finally a sec- ond nature, or it is the necessity of a strong, active, practical mind for the exercise of its powers in its own congenial field. There are thousands of men who belong as naturally in the rush and whirl of business, as a fish does in its own watery element, and one is about as unhappy as the other, when taken into some other state of being. A more forlorn creature can hardly be imagined than an active business man suddenly compelled to rest. He makes harder work of it than other men do of toiling for their daily bread. He has lost the habit of reading, or soon tires of it, considers fishing an unmitigated bore, and social diversions still more so. He lounges about the hotel office, listless and forlorn, and only brightens up when a business friend arrives and tells him the latest news concerning the 78 rise and fall of stocks, or movements in real estate, shipping, or some other line of business. His wife finds the task of entertaining and amusing him beyond any ordinary feminine resources, and it is quite pa- thetic to see her relief when for an hour or two, her husband has found something to do. Now, for such men, (and their wives) an orange grove is an unal- loyed blessing. It furnishes an outlet for the rush- ing activity that cannot, with safety, be too suddenly checked, a fascinating out of door interest which has its commercial aspect, and permits the overtaxed brain to rest without wearing itself out in the effort. One man compelled to spend the winters here on account of ill health, said to me lately, "I would die in two weeks without that grove." He expended a small fortune in the purchase of a bearing grove, simply to have something to do during his winter's exile, but finds a keen business interest in making his investment "pay," studies the question of fertiliz- ing as if his daily bread depended upon it and ships his oranges with as careful calculations as to profits as if they constituted his entire source of income. If he lost the whole grove, he would not suffer, finan- cially, from it, yet it is worth to him more than any amount of money could measure, for he finds in it an interest which is in harmony with his mental hab- its, yet affords relief from the too intense strain of 79 his northern business. There are many women who can find in Florida the conditions which they need, especially, if they have or can cultivate a taste for out of door occupations. The climate is especially adapted to the nervous, over sensitive, hysterical women who abound in every circle of our overwrought American life. This class of invalids constitutes the Waterloo of medical science, for their ailments yield to no remedies, and their cure lies in conditions rath- er than treatment. In many cases rest is more im- portant to them than medicine, and in many others a healthful, unexciting interest is more necessary than either. Florida affords both of these essential con- ditions, a climate that soothes instead of stimulating the weak irritable nerves, affords a variety of fascinat- ing out of door interests, and avoids entirely the de- bilitating effect of furnace heat and confinement to the house during the winter which are as unfavorable to cases of nervous derangement as to consumption. A delicate woman, however, receives little benefit from her life here, unless she adds to the beneficial effect of the climate a healthful, active interest, thus enlisting all the mental and nervous forces in aid of the air and sunshine. There are many women who have pursued this sensible course with the greatest possible advantage and have found under these sun- ny skies, health, happiness and new zest and interest 8o in life. Others fail to reap this benefit, from various causes. In some cases a colder climate would suit them better, and in others they have undertaken to do too much or have suffered from lack of means to provide necessary comforts. A woman needs to come here under favorable circumstances to be reas- onably sure of success in her pursuit of health, or of profit, though I know of more than one delicate woman who has made up in *' pluck" what she lacked in strength, and by force of will and the inspiration of hope and courage has overcome all obstacles. During the past year a young lady, not over twenty, pretty and refined, the daughter of a northern cler- gyman, has settled on a new place, with three youn- ger brothers, and started out to make an orange grove and a home. When the place begins to be profitable, her parents are to give up their northern interests to join their enterprising children. Whether this young girl has a remote idea of all the difficul- ties, obstacles and discouragements that lie in wait to test her untried strength, is extremely doubtful, but at any rate she is a brave girl and deserves all possi- ble success. I will not mention her name, nor even the county in which she is living, for fear of causing such an exodus of young men from the north, that this letter will be suppressed as an incendiary docu- ment. 8i No. 10, Speaking of young men, when I see so many of them in cities wearing out their youthful hope and courage and strength, "looking for a situation," glad to take anything they can get to do, at any salary employers choose to give, college graduates working for six or eight dollars a week, big six foot fellows standing behind a counter selling ribbons, when I see every avenue of employment overcrowded and a hun- dred applicants for one position, and see the oppor- tunities here for active energetic young men, I think if I was one of that struggling class, unless I had some special means of propitiating the financial dei- ties of the city, I would shake its dust forever from my feet, bid farewell to counter or desk, groceries or dry goods, and "take up the shovel and the hoe" in Florida. To be sure, for those who do this, there is a sacrifice of many agreeable things, silk hats and "nobby" canes, occasional theatre or german, and other privileges which somehow or other young men seem to extract from eight dollars a week, but with what immeasurable gain in manliness and indepen- dence. I almost look to sec them grow two or three inches in height during the process of losing the city pallor of complexion and delicate whiteness of hands, which begins as soon as the Florida sun and air have a chance at their faces and they take hold of a plow 82 handle for the first time. Many of the disadvantages in the way of famihes do not apply to them. A young strong man, with no wife or children to provide for, need not fear that he cannot in some way earn his living;. There are but few who cannot bear the cli- mate, with reasonable care, and though if they have no money to start with they must encounter many hardships, what is a young man good for if he is afraid of roughing it a little for the sake of future in- dependence? In contrasting the nature of the interests here, their possibilities for the future, and their effect upon the character of those engaged in them, with the or- dinary positions occupied by young men in the cities, the comparison is in every way in favor of the former. In all large cities, there is such a supply of young men to fill clerkships and all subordinate positions of every kind, that not only are the salaries very low compared to the expense of living, but the oppor- tunities for advancement extremely limited. The boy of sixteen or eighteen who enters a mercantile house on a salary of a hundred dollars a year and the expectation of ending his career in it as senior partner of the firm, must be remarkably well suited to the business and also extremely fortunate, if his expectations are ever realized. The chances are all against him, and if he is a head salesman at fifty, 83 with a salary of two thousand dollars, he is doing as well as he really has a right to expect, unless he possesses unusual abilities. In banking, insurance and railway offices, the odds are still heavier against one who has no powerful friend among the stock- holders. "Once a bank clerk always a bank clerk," may be accepted as an axiom. And what is the life for which all other possibilities are sacrificed ? To sit on a high stool in a great office with more rich carving than pure air, working all day by gas light, perhaps counting piles of money, writing letters after a stated form, or adding up columns of figures till the man becomes a calculating machine. The work is all routine of a most limited kind, ex- ercising only certain mental faculties of lesser impor- tance, and affording no scope whatever for that growth of character and development of mental capacity that comes of action, of independent judgment, of re- sponsibility, and contact with men in different rela- tions. It is like binding a growing tree with tight ligatures and allowing only the smaller branches to grow, to cramp the growing powers of the mind by work that affords no stimulus to any but one or two limited faculties, leaving the others, the judgment, the will, the comprehension of principles, and com- binations, to languish and grow weak for want of healthy stimulus. Many a bright young fellow of 84 twenty, with eager, active mind, who enters upon mere routine work is no more of a man at thirty, only less vigorous in physique, paler and duller of countenance and mentally narrower and less vigor- ous. That there are those \yhose minds are so strong and active that they will grow in an exhausted receiver does not alter the general fact that routine work cramps and narrows the mental growth instead of stimulates it. In such an occupation as orange growing or any of the kindred interests of Florida, one of the advantages to the character of a young man is the independence and freedom of action, ab- sence of all artificial rules and regulations and com- plete self responsibility. He is his own master, there is no one to dictate at what hour he shall begin his day's w^ork, or how long time he shall spend in eat- ing his luncheon. If he makes mistakes, if he is careless and inattentive or indolent, he and he only suffers the consequences. If he is active and ener- getic, he knows that every stroke of good work will count for its full value in its results to himself, which is^very far from being the case always, in mercantile life as many a faithful, efficient clerk knows, whose services arc appreciated only to the extent of the smallest possible salary that will enable him to keep the breath in his body and a decent coat on his back. 85 At every stage of the Florida orange grower's or gardener's work, he must observe correctly, and form intelligent opinions as to methods and future developments, and in order to succeed, must exer- cise all the most valuable practical faculties of the mind, intelligence, forecast, prudence, attention to details, thoroughness and energy. He comes into relations with other men without artificial conditions and without grades of positions or authority, so that he counts simply for what he is worth, and if he is worthy of respect and consideration, seldom fails to receive it. I do not wish to depreciate a taste for, or ambition in, mercantile or other city interests. For those who are fitted for them and enter them under such conditions as permit of advancement, there are unlimited possibilities, and there are also many who have not the strength and grasp of mind to achieve great success, yet are adapted to smaller business in some of the myriad forms of trade, and would be entirely out of place in the conditions of Florida life. Then there are those whose tastes and talents are in the line of one of the professions, or of art, literature or music, and for such, of course, Florida offers little opportunity. But there are thousands of young men who are not specially fitted for any one pursuit, and have no decided taste or talent of any kind, but a general practical adaptability, which en- 86 ables them to make good salesmen or book keepers, yet equally good cattle drovers in Texas or orange growers in Florida. As teachers and parents very well know, the boys who have a decided talent or fitness for one thing, are in a very small minority, and the difficult ques- tion that confronts the parents of the majority of boys, and the youngsters themselves when they'come to manhood, is, what shall they do, whose abilities are of the ordinary, practical order, rather than the marked and exceptional. The obviously wise and sensible course is to give them such an occupation as does not require special talent, but the ordinary practical faculties in which young America is not likely to be seriously deficient, and which will devel- op harmoniously and fully all the possibilities of the mind, instead of cramping and crippling them. This is afforded in Florida, and in addition, results which can seldom be atUiiiicd anywhere else by the same abilities or effort. Of course all do not succeed here. A young man must not be afraid of work, for one thing. Florida has no use for dainty fingered Apollos, nor "super aesthetical, ultra poetical, out of the way young men," but a practical, intelligent, energetic young man can hardly fail to succeed in a financial sense, and to occupy a position of honorable independence 87 in a very few years. As an instance of what can be accomplished by phick and determination, I will give one illustration. A young man came to P^lorida in very ill health and without money or friends. By the kindness of, I think, General Sanford, he obtained a clerkship by which he could support himself, and by the advice of his employer, spent his leisure time in cultivating an orange grove. In six years he sold his place for six thousand dollars, which he immedi- ately reinvested in more land and more trees. As he had recovered his health during this time, he natur- ally considered the six years rather profitably spent. This is not a remarkable instance, but shows what can be done by energy and industry. If a young man has a little money to start with he has an immense advantage, and is enabled to avoid the worst hardships and discouragements of pioneer- ing, and if he can bring his grove to the profitable age without having at the same time to earn his liv- ing, he may consider himself favored of the gods. If, however, he has good health, and a plentiful supply of aggressive energy, there are no difficulties which he cannot overcome, with very little or no money at all. This class, young men, can come to Florida with less risk of disappointment as to practical results and general satisfaction than any other, but even they should not expect to find an easy or always pleasant 88 life, but be prepared to meet and overcome many ob- stacles in the road to fortune. Ease and pleasure, however, are not essential conditions for a young man with "the right stuff in him," and here he can be sure of a healthful, honorable occupation, which if pur- sued in the right manner, will yield him a competence in the future, and which from the very first, has many advantages. One young man I know, who tried the wholesale grocery business, and broke down in health before the first year was finished, now strong and vig- orous as he never hoped to be, said to me lately, with a sparkle in his eyes, and a flush on his sun-browned cheek, "Why, I wouldn't take the best position in any Boston store," and he expressed the genuine spirit of young America when he said, "I am up at five o'clock every morning, but I would rather get up at five voluntarily than to be obliged to do it at six in order to get down to the store at seven." In recapitulation, I would say, let all who think of making a home in Florida consider the matter well, with regard to theij own individual peculiarities of circumstances, health, family affairs, tastes and re- quirements, and not be guided in their decision by the experience of others, without taking into account all differences in circumstances, characteristics, and pre- vious manner of living. As it is difficult to judge by another person's experience, so it is difficult to give 89 advice based upon ones own, and one needs to be \ery cautious in advising any one to a certain course, when for him it might lead to very different results than those upon which the advice was based. Thou- sands of people have happy and prosperous homes in Florida who would have died from the cold of the north, or struggled along in poverty and disappoint- ment. Thousands of others have left the state dis- heartened and disgusted. The causes of this unfor- tunate result vary in different cases. In some, the persons were only suited to a colder climate and could not thrive in that of Florida. In others, their failure was from the want of those qualities which are es- sential to success anywhere, — energy, thrift, perse- verance and intelligence. They could not do success- fully anything more difficult than cutting coupons off U. S. bonds! Others were not adapted to the life here, and failed not from their own fault, or anything wTong in anything, but simply because they were in the wrong place, "square men in round holes," and could not fit into them. No one should come here who does not thrive in a warm climate, who depends much upon society or excitement, who lacks practi- cal judgment and efficiency, who is afraid of work, and cannot adapt himself to new and crude condi- tions, or who expects to find F^lorida a terrestrial par- adise. All others can come with a fair prospect of 90 being at least as happy as they could be anywhere on this planet, which at the best is decidedly lacking in several requisites for perfect felicity. No. II. Socially and politically, Florida is in a state of tran- sition, and it is difficult to predict what will be the result of the fusion of so many elements when time has converted them into a homogeneous population. One class, of course, the negroes, will be always dis- tinct in race, and separated socially from the whites, but their political equality and educational opportun- ities will have their natural effect in a generation or two and render the line of division less sharp, and, if the race develops as some believe it is capa- ble of doing, the difference in intelligence and habits less great than at present. The Florida negroes, like those of all the extreme southern states, are probably less intelligent and ambitious than those of the more northern states of Virginia, and that latitude. They have the usual faults of their race, indolence, improv- idence, absence of any binding sense of obligation in any agreement, or to the tie of. marriage, and the habit of subservience to authority inherited from gen- erations of slaves, renders them often like children in the absence of parental control, and the task of get- 91 ting them to do efficient, faithful work by no means an easy one. VVe cannot, however, judge them by any standard of our own, but must consider the short period that has elapsed since they became self re- sponsible beings, the generations passed in slavery, and still more, the night of barbarism out of which they came into the twilight of servitude. It is only in this generation that the race has stood in this country in the full light of freedom and self reliance, and to expect it to exhibit anything like comparative equality with even the lower orders of whites, would imply a greater confidence in its inher- ent capabilities than could be justified by any intelli- gent estimate of the causes that have made the ne- groes what they are. Taking into account their past condition, both in slavery and in their native country, and considering how little progress ajiy class of peo- ple can make in one generation, the prospects of the negroes, for the future, may be regarded as very hope- ful. As much has been accomplished as could pos- sibly be expected in so short a time, when we con- sider in what condition they were invested with the privileges and responsibilities of freemen. Helpless as children as far as independent action was concern- ed, utterly ignorant, the cause and occasion of a ter- rible, fratricidal war, and of bitter contention long after its close, the only wonder is that they were not 92 crushed out of existence "between the upper and the nether millstone," and the most that could rea- sonably be expected for the first decade, at least, was that they should keep alive. The actual result has been that they have continued to do their usual work in their usual fashion, with the disadvantage, to them- selves and their employers, of the loss of needed au- thority but the advantage that without it they have been slowly developing the ability to stand alone with- out guidance, at least they have made a beginning in that direction, and that is the most that could be ex- pected. The generation that has grown up since the war shows a decided advance in intelligence and energy, and the necessity of caring for themselves, and the knowledge that no one else will provide for them, is having its usual stimulating effect. Two most en- coura^iing indications are, their desire to own land, and their almost universal anxiety that their children should be educated. There is something pathetic in the eagerness of men and women who do not know one letter from another, to give their children the ac- quirements, which seem to them as attributes of the higher civilization to which they have been sub- ject, and are still inferior. Those of the young ne- gro men who have acquired some school education, are apt to take upon themselves many airs of superi- 93 ority over their less fortun:itc ciders, who sometimes resent and sometimes meekly submit to their arro- gance. But their hunger for school knowledge is the most hopeful indication possible of the future of the race in this country, and even if its leading mo- tive is the desire to lessen the distance between them- selves and the whites, it does not matter, 'as long as it stimulates them to exertion. Politically, they are usually, though not always, republicans, and as far as I know have been allowed to vote as they pleased without intimidation or violence, though, of course, sometimes under pressure of strong motives of per- sonal interests and inducements of one kind and an- other, as is sure to be the case with any class of very ignorant voters. They are treated reasonably well, as a general thing, by northern and southern people. The former, of course, are more willing to grant them legal and polical rights, but the latter have the habit of early association, which tends to more kindly relations, so that the difference is less than might be expected. The reluctance of the southern people to seeing their former slaves enjoying equal rights with them- selves, is not unnatural, and i- shared by almost all northern people who have. lived long in the south. Time and custom alone will overcome it. Their un- willingness to see them educated, however, and their 94 prejudice against those who undertake the trying and difficult task of instructing them is utterly senseless and unreasonable. The negroes are here, they are a fact in the social and political system of the country, and they are politicall}^ and legally on an equality with the whites. It remains with the dominant race to decide whether they shall be converted, as fast as possible, into a class of intelligent citizens whose votes and whose actions shall promote the well being of the whole community, or whether they shall re- main that always dangerous element, an ignorant class, powerful through their right of suffrage, but by their ignorance liable to be made the tools of dema- gogues to the danger, and possibly under some cir- cumstances the ruin of the state. I believe the southern people are gradually coming to realize the necessity of educating the colored people, and if not actively encouraging it, are at least, no longer ren- dering it difficult or impossible by their opposition. The white residents of Florida consist of three classes, the original "cracker" population, the north- ern people who have settled in the state since the close of the war, and the better class of southern people. The first are the "poor white" class of the south, more distinct from the better class than is the case in the north, as there the different grades of so- ciety "shade" into each other by more gradual grada- 95 tions. The "crackers" as they are called, are a thrift- less, unenterprising people, with some very creditable exceptions of course, but are quiet, and now at least, law-abiding, making no trouble, and likely to be ab- sorbed into the new population of the state without acting as a hostile element. In the old days, when law in Florida was little more than a very shadowy name, and the "Regula- tors" held full sway, there were men of natural force and vigor of character who by virtue of their supe- rior strength and courage, ruled as kings and chiefs over their associates. Their authority was recog- nized, and they dispensed a sort of rough justice on occasions which caused them to be regarded with a wholesome awe and respect. Even these lawless leaders, however, when northern people intruded up- on their cattle ranges, though they gave them at first anything but a cordial welcome, made them no real trouble, and soon acquiesced more or less cheerfully, in the new order of things. The northern people in Florida, are of a high average of character, intelli- gence and financial resources, respectable mechanics, substantial farmers, and a great many people of means and leisure from the north, form a very valua- ble contribution towards the future population of Florida. Their relations with the corresponding class of southern peoplp, arc for the most part reas- 96 onably harmonious and pleasant. It is absurd that they should be otherwise, or that people should as- sume as they do sometimes, that there is any inher- ent difference between northern and southern people of the same social grade. They are the same peo- ple, in every sense, and in all general characteristics, except such superficial variations as result from dif- ferent conditions of living, and former ownership of the laboring class. Northern people soon become southern in ways and habits, after becoming residents of the south, and southern people after a few years' residence in the north are veritable "yankees" in all essential things. Still, the bitter feeling engendered by the war, as well as the slavery agitation previous to it, has built up an artificial wall of distinction be- tween northern and southern people, so that they are constantly spoken of as two separate and distinct classes. Although this distinction is rapidly dying away, and in ano'.li':r generation will be only as a phantom of the pa.,t, we have not yet arrived at the point of not longer recognizing it at all. The north- ern people coming here had almost invariably, none but kindly feelings towards their future neighbors, who in some cases reciprocated them, and in some others did not. One "unreconstructed" man has been in the habit of saying that he "had at least one legacy to leave his children, .undying hatred to the 97 north," and some others have manifested their dislike for "the yanks" by cheating and over-reaching tliem in every possible way, in some cases returning the utmost liberality and generous dealing, by conduct, to sa}- the least of it, quite the reverse, claiming always to be the very soul of honor, only justified in taking advantage of "a yankee." Still, it is to be taken into account, always, that there are men who need only a flimsy excuse of any kind, for their meanness, and except during the excitement of a po- litical campaign, I have found that a southerner who will act in a dishonorable or ungentlemanly manner towards a northern man, needs only an excuse of some sort, to exhibit the same disposition with a na- tive Ploridian or Alabamian. It is always pleasanter to regard the better aspects of human nature, and in these relations of northern and southern people, there is much that reflects great credit upon the latter as well as the former. In one instance, I gi\'e it as a contrast to those mentioned above, a southern lawyer had a yankee client, a man upon whom unfortunate circumstances had cast a cloud of distrust as to his financial integrity and honorable intentions. Kvery thing looked unfavorable, not only as regards his character, but the. possibility of Iiis clearing himself from the net-work of difficult) in which he was in- \ olved. Those opposed to hiin were mostl)' southern men, who sneered at his lawyer for representing "that yankee." He did so, however, faithfully, zealously and persistently, going often beyond his professional duty, for he believed in the honest intentions, and sympathized with the struggles of his client. After a while, the difficulties were overcome, the obligations met, and the client. cleared of the cloud upon his name, and none rejoiced with him more heartily than his faithful friend and legal adviser, the southern law- yer, who at the same time was a man of extreme "southern" sentiments and bitterly opposed to the new order of things, while his client was a republi- can, though not a politician. Such instances show that "blood is thicker than water," and that north and south are really brothers. All who care for the well being of either must hope that all remaining traces of bitterness and re- sentment will soon entirely pass away, leaving only the true fraternal sentiment of good will. There are very few southern men, however opposed they may be to equal political rights for the negroes, who would have them again as slaves, not only because they find the new system, on the whole, works better, or will do so, when the new machinery runs smoothly, but from conscientious reasons. I have been sur- prised, in some cases, by the cheerful acquiescence in the new order, where the destruction of the old 99 had involved fortune, ease, luxury, and all the privi- leges of wealth and leisure. One man, a South Caro- linian, who had lost everything by the war and had been reduced to poverty and the necessity of begin- ning life again under circumstances of great difficul- ty, who had seen his delicately reared daughter sub- jected to all the toil and hardships of pioneer life, said to me, after recounting all his cruel losses, "And yet I do not complain of even this terrible price to be rid of slavery, and if I could have back all that I lost, I would not take it, if with it I must have on my conscience the ownership of human beings as I re- gard it now." I felt that I could bow my head in reverence before a man who could accept such losses as he had suffered, in such a spirit as that. And I cannot close this letter without a tribute to the southern women I have known, who have ac- cepted without a murmur the changed conditions of their lives, and taken up bravely and cheerfully the heaviest burdens of poverty and drudgery, ladies whose hands had never touched any kind of heavy labor, learning the coarsest household tasks and per- forming them without complaint, adapting themselves to their new lives so successfully that while still the refined and cultivated ladies they were reared to be, they dignified and elevated their new tasks and new surroundings by the spirit in which they accepted lOO them. It has often been said that the southern women would never be "reconstructed." By this is meant that they still resent bitterly the "subjugation" as some call it, of the south, and that they encourage their husbands and teach their sons to keep alive the old bitter hatred of the north. I believe Jefferson Davis boasted of this unconquerable spirit in his country women. While no doubt there is founda- tion for this in a great many cases, I have not found it so general as to justify its being regarded as a universal fact. On the contrary I have found in many southern women a clear sighted appreciation of the real questions involved in the present relations of the north and south, and such superiority to per- sonal considerations, losses and changes, that I have felt that the southern women have been slandered by their own friends. One instance will always remain in my memory as an illustration, not only of the most cruel conse- quences of the civil war, but of the most beautiful and noble womanly character. At the time of the war there lived in Alabama a very young widow lady, with two little boys. She was very beautiful in per- son, refined and fastidious in habits, and very delicate in health. She had been reared in luxury, had never even waited upon herself, and had been cared for as tenderly as an exotic plant. The close of the war 101 left her utterly destitute as her fortune consisted en- tirely of negroes. One more helpless to make her way and provide for herself and her children could not be imagined, and in her utter helplessness she ac- cepted an invitation from an uncle who had settled in Florida to make her home with him. She did so, and with her little boys, went into the wilderness to live. Her uncle, with a younger man, a distant rela- tive, had also been impoverished by the war, and were trying to make a home and an orange grove in Florida without money or the early habits of hard work, which would have made the task much easier to some men. So the home which was the only refuge for the poor little delicate lady, was of the rudest, roughest kind, absolutely without the present possibility of comfortable living, and without assist- ance in even the roughest work. She went to work bravely, however. After a time she became the wife of the younger man, who did all in his power, but alas ! that was very little, to soften the privations and labor, so cruelly hard to one as delicate in every way as she was. One year after another passed. Two children were born and died. There was no society, no medi- cal attendance or nursing when ill, no servants to do the work, even when the poor mistress of the house was in her bed, utterly prostrate. No proper food, no comforts, nothing but hard work when she could I02 Stand on her feet, and such help as her husband and children could give her. Her delicate beauty faded in the hard, rough life, and the limited strength so fearfully overtaxed gave way, but not the brave spirit or the steadfast hope. A better life would come, the wilderness would be peopled, there would be society and schools for the boys, and old comforts, possibly a little of the old luxuries, necessities to her, would come, when the orange grove began to be profitable, and the land became valuable -as it surely would. She saw it all in her visions of the future, visions that were realized, for it all came. The wilderness is peo- pled now, there are society and churches and schools and all the comforts of civilized life. It all came — but it came too late ! It came when she was fading away, and after waiting in the wilderness so long, the realization of the hope that had sustained her during all those weary yeais came to her as she was dying. It was in the last two years of her beautiful, sad life, that I knew her, and while I grieved over the wreck of so much that was so beautiful and lovely, she said to me more than once, "But I would bear it all over again rather than be the owner of slaves again." Her memory is like a saintly presence still in one lovely spot in Florida, and though she passed away before the realization of any of her hopes, it surely cannot be in vain that such a woman lived and died. The 103 world is better because for a few years it was her home, and the influence of such a woman does not soon pass away, even when her bodily presence is for- ever lost. In the clouds of bitterness and hate that have obscured the light of brotherhood in the south, such a spirit is a star of hope, and the class of women that can produce one such perfect flower of loveliness and nobility, even if there is not another among ten thousand, cannot be dominated by the narrow preju- dices and stubborn hate that have been attributed to the southern women. No. 12. The Alligator is the typical Floridian, and general- ly regarded as the representative of the aristocracy of the state. In fact, if either he or the human native fails to receive a proper degree of respect, it is not the Alligator, the king of the lakes and rivers and patriarch of the swamps. In personal appear- ance he is not strictly beautiful, his features being somewhat irregular, and his complexion not as deli- cate as it might be, but he has a fine open counte- nance and a "sincere" expression. You know what he means when he opens his mouth. He belongs to a very old and aristocratic family, and is nearest of kin to the sacred crocodile of Egypt, so he naturally I04 keeps himself somewhat aloof from the democratic society of the woods, evidently not considering 'pos- sums, 'coons and wild cats suitable associates for him. But in spite of his family dignity, he is sufficiently in harmony with the spirit of modern America, to act as a sort of silent partner in several branches of trade and manufacture. He is largely interested in the jewelry business, and manufactures a style of brooches, ear drops, &c., which has not been success- fully imitated and on which he has a patent. Then his stamped leather for traveling bags and pocket books is so original in design and so superior in qual- ity that nothing approaches it in marketable value. For a native Floridian, as he is, to engage in com- mercial pursuits, so successfully as to distance all competitors in his line of business, indicates such comprehensive practical intelligence as to at once disprove the conceited theory of the yankees that they embody the highest order of commercial spirit. Then the habits of the Alligator show his super- iority over all northern beasts, and in some respects over man himself. With a wise judgment never to be sufficiently admired, he lives in the water for cool- ness and comfort during the hot Florida summers, but avails himself, also, of all the resources of the land. When he requires a change of air for his health, all he has to do is to crawl out upon a log 105 and take a sun-bath. He has another motive for ly- \ng on a log, which shows that when it comes to get- ting a hving, the smartest yankee that ever manufac- tured wooden nutmegs is an aboriginal savage in stu- pidity, compared to the Alligator. At a little distance he is likely to be mistaken for the log itself, and there is always a chance of his dinner coming to him, with- out his exerting himself to go to market for it. A hog or a small negro child may stray conveniently near, and all he has to do is to throw his tail around bringing the desired object within range of his capa- cious jaws which, open to their widest extent, will be sure to catch it, even if the aim is not very straight. This without a movement of his bo.dy, and the wis- dom of this proceeding will be appreciated by all who have experienced the disinclination for exertion which is the prevailing state of mind and body dur- ing the Florida summer. Now, where is the man who can accomplish sq much with so little expenditure of strength? His dinner provided, the Alligator merely closes his eyes and finishes his interrupted nap. It was probably after a satisfactory meal of this kind that one was lying on the bank of the lake, when two young men came ashore from a row boat at that particular spot. One of them, looking for a good place to land without wetting his feet, saw as he supposed, a convenient io6 log lying upon the bank close by the water, and sprang out upon it. When the 'gator found himself thus used as a substitute for a dead log, and felt a hun- dred and eighty pound young man suddenly come down upon his back, he was naturally indignant at the liberty taken with him. He limbered up his tail and opened his jaws to receive a fresh consignment of supplies, but the young man, with a celerity of movement probably never equalled, before or since, in his experience, had by that time reached another spot at least twenty feet away from his improvised land- ing place, and after that, whenever he had occasion to make use of a log on the bank, for convenience in landing, he was always careful to ascertain if it was "hollow" in a sense that threatened uncomfortable consequences to any one who ventured too near. I was one time in a boat going to make a visit down the lake, rowing placidly along, at least another per- son was rowing for me. I always find that to use a different set of muscles from my own promotes that calm and cool condition so des'.rable to maintain in this climate, and sitting in the stern of the boat, saw a log floating on the surface of the water, motionless, the waves rippling against it, and moving languidly with the slow current, **Row nearer that log," I said to my companion, with no particular reason. It is often less trouble to do things without a reason, in a warm climate, than to exert oneself for a motive. So the boat was headed for the log, and we were soon almost near enough to touch it with an oar, when looking around, my companion exclaimed, suddenly, "Why ! that's a 'gator." And sure enough, the log, I could have taken oath it was a log, was changed in the twinkling of an eye into an enormous Alligator. The creature raised his head a little, winked know- ingly, smiled his characteristic genial smile and sank out of sight, evidently shaking with amphibious laughter at the joke he had perpetrated. As there was no opportunity to shake hands with him, I could not assure him of my hearty appreciation of his humor, but my companion was disgusted to think that he had lost, by having no rifle with him, a fine opportunity to secure the samples of jewelry and stamped leather which with a 'gator of his size were sure to be valuable. At the time of my early residence on the banks of Lake Crescent, there was a patriarchal Alligator who exercised supreme sway over his native waters, and was regarded with profound respects in his watery realm. He was of an unknown age, probably was gray headed when the Spaniards first came to Florida, at least was the oldest inhabitant of the region here- about, an authority on the weather, and doubtless also on the subject of orange grove fertilizing and the io8 scale insect, only I don't think any one ever inter- viewed him on those important matters. He was at least twenty feet long, his leather hide had become corrugated iron, and was indented here and there by bullet marks, evidences of the futile attempts made to capture his extensive stock of jewelry and stamped leather, and his jaws when fully open, would have admitted a cart, mule and negro, especially the mule and negro, with perfect ease. Since the earliest settle- ment of the region about the lake, it had been the ambition of every man and boy to exhibit his teeth as trophies of valor, but the saurian monarch had not lived and ruled so many years in that lake with- out "cutting his eye teeth," and being of a humorous turn of mind, was in the habit of allowing his enemies to waste their ammunition on him to their hearts con- tent, showing his great body on a log, or on the sur- face of the water, at frequent intervals, merely to tantalize his persecutors. It was probably he that I saw, pretending to be a log. His mud palace was not far up the lake, and I was often entertained early in the morning by the music with which he beguiled his solitary state. Possibly it might have been a cradle song to sooth the slumbers of his numerous offspring. Not understanding Alligator music scien- tifically, I was not able to judge very accurately, but, whatever sentiment it was intended to express, war I09 or love, parental affection or blighted hopes, it did it in a manner that left nothing to be desired, and was beyond criticism. The depth and volume of tone was sufficient to make the most "thunderous" bass of an opera company die of envy. It used to come rolling over the lake in the hot flower scented still- ness of the summer mornings, a sound that was some- what like the bellow of a very bad tempered bull, and a little like the roar of a lion when stirred up with a long pole in a menagerie, and altogether was so sug- gestive of the size of the throat from which it pro- ceeded, that always after hearing it I was particular- ly emphatic in warning my six year old boy to keep away from the lake bank, he being of a size which I judged would be regarded by an Alligator king as especially suited to his requirements for dinner. We had a two years old 'gator, not as a pet exactly, but to watch the creature's habits. They grow so slowly that at two years, they are only about two feet long, but the strength of that infant was something decidedly suggestive of melancholy reflections, when we multiplied it by ten, the proportion to a full grown 'gator's size. He would bite a small stick in two as if his teeth had been knives, and made a peculiar hiss- ing noise, when teased, which we interpreted as a promise in vigorous Alligator language, of what we might expect when he grew up. However, they are I lO not at all dangerous if let alone, and any self respect- ing creature will resent infringements of its personal rights. There are not as many snakes in Florida as one might imagine, and very few venomous ones, not more than in many places in New England. The moccasin and rattlesnake are found occasionally, and two or three varieties of large and formidable looking but really harmless snakes. Even these are disappear- ins" as the river and lake banks are cleared, where they have their nests. While living here, I thought it would promote the health of the place to clear away the dense thicket on the bank, so close and tangled that a dog could not penetrate it. It was cut away and burned over, and the excitement in the snake population thus disturbed in their heretofore undisputed domicile, was something decidedly in- teresting to those on the ground. I need hardly say that I remained secluded in the house, but the num- ber of snakes cremated on that occasion perceptibly reduced the reptile population of Florida. When the land is well cleared, even along the water, and on high ground, one very seldom sees a snake of any kind. There is a great variety of game in the swamps and forests that still cover a large porton of the state, and from deer to 'possums, the sportsman has great 1 1 1 attractions to select from. Deer hunting, is of course, considered the royal sport. 'Coons and 'possums are interesting creatures to hunt, wild turkeys are not to be despised, and the wildcat, though not tempting to epicures, seems to afford great satisfac- tion to any young Nimrod who secures one of the viciosu, uncivilized felines. Now and then, from the thick forest near our house, we used to hear in the night, a strange wild cry, as of a human being in some terrible stress of danger. It had a piercing, de- spairing tone, as if inspired by mortal agony of terror, and more than once I sprang from my bed and went out on the v^eranda and listened, in terrified suspense, trying to locate it by the sound, that search might be made for the lost wanderer. It came perhaps, again and again, and as we listened, the human tone was lost, and we knew that it was some beast prowling in the thick shadows of the midnight forest. I was told that it was the cry of the panther, and as one was killed a few miles from Palatka, a formidable looking beast, that one would run up the tallest and slimmest pine tree to get away from, that wild mourn- ful cry may very likely have been the voice of the savage creature. As our country has been so generally cleared of all wild animals, the woods of Florida, teeming with savage life, and strange, beautiful birds, have a I 12 fascination not found in the wildest mountain forests in New Hampshire. Here is still the "forest prim- eval" wild and lonely, and scarcely yet disturbed by the foot of man. Soon the solitude will be destroy- ed, and the reign of nature and her wild animal life broken forever, for even now the deer and the panther have deserted the woods of which I write, and in the remoter depths where they still roam undisturbed, the crack of the rifle will soon break the solemn stillness, and the smoke of the hunter's camp fire will dim the blue of the sky. But still for a little time will be streams on which no boat has yet sailed, and woods in which man has as yet made no paths Still for a little while the deer will have a home in the deep forest glades and the brilliant plumage of won- derful birds will burn like a flame in the shadows. Still for a little longer the remoter forests of Florida will link the wild forces of nature, in their primitive freedom, to the cultivated ease and safety of our modern life, but not very long, for they stand in the way of the current of civilization that sets so strongly now towards even the everglades, and the forests of Florida, as those of older New England are doomed. 113 No. 13. It is the first of March. I am sitting on the veranda, for who, unless compelled to do it, would waste these golden hours in the house. The sweet perfume of the yellow jessamine is in the air, the brilliant blos- soms of the begonia vine hang in gay profusion from the lattice work at my side, and the crimson buds are just bursting into bloom on a great oleander that stands by the gate. There are roses whose glowing hearts have absorbed the sunshine of this cloudless sky, there are stiff Spanish bayonets with sharp spikes guarding closely the secret of their wonderful white flowers for the later summer, and the aloe, for whose one perfect blossom a hundred winters and a hundred summers must contribute their rain and sun- shine. My eyes wander from the garden to the trees beyond, with their foliage of every tint of green, from the delicate fresh shade fit for the robe of a young princess, to the dark and sombre color that seems to cast a black shadow on the ground. There is the orange tree with its dark, rich, shining leaves, the stately and beautiful magnolia and cy- press, and the king of all the forest trees, the live oak, with its magnificent height, symmetrical form, and glistening foliage, each in its way incomparabl}' beautiful, and with their vivid tints softened b>' the weird grey moss hanging in wreaths and festoons 114 from their branches. Beyond the orange grove, and the hne of stately trees that grow upon its bank, hes the broad shining lake, and over it comes steal- ing a gental breeze, softly, as if it feared to break the spell of this heavenly calm. I have a book in my hand but I cannot read. My eyes wander from its pages to the flowers and the trees and the water that glistens in the sunlight like a floor trodden only by the light feet of fairies. There is a mellow golden haze in the atmosphere, a dreamy softness, that stills the throbbing pulses and and calms the unrest that comes of the fierce activities of our northern life. It weaves about the senses its spell of peace, it hushes the tumults of hopes and fears, and griefs and anxieties in the heart, it softens to a faint echo the cr}' of the hounds that follow upon our track, and in their Protean forms of neces- sity, and duty, and ambition, drive us from one en- deavor to another. It seems to brood over us with a heavenly pity, as if nature longed to draw to her lov- ing bosom her tired children and sooth their weai- ness and pain by her gentle ministrations. Not in Florida the stern discipline of ice and snow and cut- ting winds, under which in other lands, men grow strong and resolute to dare and to endure. Only here the loving brooding tenderness, as if the heart of nature yearned over the ills and sorrows of human- 115 ity and would fain breathe over them the magic of her peace. It is a land of rest and calm, a land not for the young and restless spirits who long for the conflicts of the world and its whirlpools of dizzy life, but for those who are weary and w^orn with the ceaseless struggle, or whose strength has failed them in the race, for those who shrink before the blasts of the northern winter, or who lie awake through all the weary hours of the night, thinking and planning with exhausted, unresting brain. For these, Florida is a blessed haven of peace and rest. In its dreamy atmosphere the sleep of long for- gotten childhood comes back, as if summoned by the tender care of loving Mother Nature, grief and pain and disapointment grow less acute, and one can sit for hours in the calm stillness and heavenly sun- shine, and forget there is anything in the world less lovely than flowers and waving moss wreaths, golden sunlight and shining water. We know, alas ! that there is, that the trail of the serpent is in every para- dise, that wherever man exists, there dwells also every passion and every vice of poor imperfect hu- manity, that on all earth is no garden so fair that its sunshine cannot be darkened for those who dwell therein, by the wrongs of others or their own want of harmony with the spirit of their surroundings. ii6 We know all this, and we know that here, as else- where, hfe is full of discordant notes, but the sweet peace of nature is over all, and the spell of her heav- enly calm can soothe us to forgetfulness of pain and strife This is the fascination of Florida to the worn, overwrought workers of our modern life. They find here a place of rest, not of effort, an oriental calm in the midst of our rushing life. It is a land of dreams, not of intense intellectual activity. It will never give to the world new thoughts or discoveries, nor inaugurate new movements of reform. The phil- osophical mind that ponders upon the mighty prob- lems of life, that peers into the dusky shadows of the past in its search for the origin of man, and seeks to pierce the veil that hides the future that it may learn of his ultimate destiny, that stands before the sphinx of human life and demands of it the solution of the eternal mysteries, forgets its searching and its questions in this lotus land. The scientist to whose inquisitive mind every wonderful form of matter, the rocks and the rivers, the land and the sea, light and heat and motion, even the sensations of his own body, and the thoughts of his own busy brain, are prob- lems for whose solution he will wake while others sleep, will forget his experiments and his studies and the problems that have baffled him, and rest content, with the joy of living and the loveliness of nature. Here 117 rs not the sharp electrical air of New England that stimulates even dull and heavy minds, and develops and quickens every germ of thought. Philosophy and science, study, progress, reform have there their native home, but in this dreamy atmosphere their profound research, their tireless questioning, their ag- gressive force, are softened to a contented calm. Florida will never stand in the front rank of any department of intellectual activity. It will only for all time, welcome to its glowing sunshine, its shining waters, its cool deep forest shades, the wearied toilers who have found the problems of life beyond their so- lution, its evils beyond their power to relieve, its bur- dens beyond their strength to bear. Here they can rest for another day of conflict, for renewed toil and research, and blessed forever be this haven of peace in our land and generation of fierce activities. If Flor- ida ever develops a distinctive intellectual type, it will be that of dreamy, poetic imagination, and if ever one of its children embodies the spirit of its characteristics, it will be a poet, whose song will be of nature, her beauty and her peace, her wonder and her mystery, for nowhere else in this country is there so much to appeal to the fancy and stimulate the im- agination. The St. Johns river, with its unknown source, is only a part of a mysterious water system. There are subterranean rivers, deep and rapid, that y ii8 flow, no one knows whence or whither. One leans over the edge of a deep pit, far below he sees the rushing water and perhaps drops some object into it, which is instantly carried out of sight. A feeling of awe and wonder comes over one, and perhaps a fancy that possibly on those mysterious waters, beings strange and unknown to us might float in fairy boats, or that on the unseen banks might be a city of the under world, inhabited by people who never see the light of our sun and stars. The silver spring of the Ocklawaha is one of the wonderful gems of beauty," set in the emerald green of the Florida forest, but the wonder of wonders is the Wakulla Spring. It is an hundred feet deep, and at the bottom is a rough bed of rocks in the centre of which is a dark, fathomless aperture out of which the wonderful water pours. Floating upon the surface in a boat, one seems sus- pended in the air, so marvelously clear and transpar- ent is the water. One cannot believe it is water but some element scarcely less ethereal than the atmos- phere, formed out of some mysterious combination of light and air. A hundred feet below, everything is plainly visible, every outline of the rocks, every pebble, the innumerable fishes that dart about in the transparent element, and most wonderful of all the rocks and the fishes and every object held in that marvelous water are glorified by brilliant prismatic colors. There is nothing else in all the world so won- derful and so beautiful. One cannot believe it to be a spring of ordinary water. It is a fairy fountain, something more than earthly, and if, as it is said, this is the spring believed by Ponce de Leon to be the fountain of eternal youth, one can scarcely at- tribute to the old Spaniard the fantastic imagination which such a fancy would ordinarily supply. The most prosaic mind might become fanciful and poeti- cal in the presence of such a marvel. To add to the wonders of this fairy lake, the skele-t ton of a mastodon was discovered in the bottom, ly- ing on the rocks as if it had lain down to die there. It was removed a few years ago to some museum, but it seems almost a desecration of nature's sacred mysteries, to remove the remains of this creature of the ancient world from its wonderful sepulchre. I intended these letters to be exclusively and ex- ceedingly practical, and I advised my readers to "dis- count all poetical descriptions" but I find myself wandering off into those aspects of Florida life, in which the price of land, the profits of orange grow- ing,, the relative value of muck and bone meal, or the depredations of 'possums or swine have nothing to do, into the dream land of Florida, its beauty and its peace, its marvel and mystery, and I forget the practical questions my northern readers will ask, and 120 the every day problems they will have to solve if they should any of them come here to live. Behind me in the far north, is the stress and strain of our overwrought life, around me here, still the endless questions of human relations and needs, business and social affairs, but for the moment I forget them all, and dwell with nature in her inner courts. I stand in awe and wonder before her mysterious processes, y and attune my spirit to her heavenly harmonies. And yet, I repeat my former advice, to ignore all this kind of description, for though facts and figures, if accurately reported, will convey to the mind of the reader, direct and clear, the idea of the wTiter, and the actual things and conditions that exist, there is nothing so vague and elusive and impossible to transmit, from one mind to another as impressions received through the sense of beauty and the imagin- ation. A world of loveliness and mystery and food for thought will exist for one person w^here another will perceive nothing but commonplace objects. / There are thousands of persons who see nothing in Florida but water and sand, and for them the fasci- nation that is like a spell over the minds of others does not exist at all. Their minds are of a different order, less imaginative, less susceptible to the influ- ences of nature, and only influenced by practical considerations. 121 Again, there are persons who are not deficient in imagination and sense of beauty, yet are not, so to speak, en rapport with the spirit of nature here. It 1/ does not speak to them, does not awaken an eclio in their souls, as perhaps some different order of natural beauty might do. Regarding everything, as we must, through the medium of our own ideas and tastes, the impressions we receive are necessarily so colored by them that no one can safely assume that another person will be influenced by the same cause, in the same manner or in the same degree as himself. So I advise no one to read this letter with an}' cer- tainty of being impressed, as I have been, by these phases of Florida life, for, more than any other con- dition of life which I have known, they depend upon the nature of the medium through which they are re- garded. So strangely diverse are the impressions received by different persons, that it almost seems as if Morida is a capricious fairy, who beams with a face of loveliness and light upon those who love her, and whom she loves, but scowls upon those who have failed to win her good will. Her adopted children 1/ she leads into paths of beauty and enchantment, glowing with flowers and shining with dew-drops, but the others she leaves to the sand and lizards. C) fairy mother! beautiful and beneficent! happ)- are they who have found their way to tin' loxing heart, 122 for however far they may wander, into whatever stony paths their feet may lead them, whatever ills may befall them, they can come back to thee, and if weary and footsore, sick and sad, they will find on thy warm bosom rest and peace and in thy breath the balm of healing. 1^ 5^ ^ >>> - > 3> 5:x» J* "^^t^ ~y~^ .u-^. >» ^Z> ' ^^ y :x» ~SZI^ ^5», > >:3? ~;)~3> :33?> -i^^ -~»~> > > ,.>a> '>^ ^» ) ^^ >:> ^2> > t>»> >3> 3» ^g>^^"> ^^ -^ -jn ► :> >1^ .i> IS ► > ^:s> > de ► > >:^ > ^ >3i> 2> ^^^ > >:§> ■J2>> 3^^~ . : 0§> ■:» I3B> ^ >:~j«> .^ ^ > >:s> -^ ^Sj> J.> 3I> :> ' ■JSS> > > ^> . > *> > » y3> > o ^ » :>^ :j> ■^■_^3B^? > > ^ ^ ^_^aJB^^ j:?.:? ^; _.■> '• ""^3W^ "> ^ ^^5 > J2> • mHkt^ , > ^z^ • :i2^ ', ^5r > • Jl*^ > i^^ >* ' > "^2> • ^ ^ ^ > > > > '^" ■^ J J- ^* ^.^ ^^^ g^:^> _^^' ?^^W -::fe>^: ^ ^ 5.?. — ^L ^^■K^n IB^^^^HBa ~>~>'- IIS> o.iJ^ "~^' V .i>:» ^ y^ :!^^ .JK> ^» ^>>-» > O l» ^ ^^^ > •!& .- ^-» ■:::b> ^ r^ "S r>^ ""^^T ;> ,» :s ^5-^ ^*g> > ^ -? 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