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THE SOUTHERN WOULD, SEPTEMBER 3,1882.
Tallahassee, the quaint old capital of the
State is in this county, and the country
thereabouts and around Pensacola, was one
of the earliest settled.
Only a few years ago cotton was the one
staple production; a great deal of sugar-cane
was raised, a little tobacco, some upland
rice, corn, and here and there a planter—
we mean the good old fashioned, wealthy
“Southern planter,"—could boast of raising
his own meat, but right here the production
halted.
King cotton reigned supreme, and accord
ing as the coming crop was full or short, so
the merchants laid in a large or full stock of
goods, for his pay must come from the royal
hands of the reigning sovereign, the king
aforesaid, so there followed the inevitable
high prices, consequent on long credits.
But now some of the stirring Northern
element has crept in and things are changed
in these as well as in the other portions of
Florida. Truck farming is the great winter
business of three-fourths of the people, and
right royal is the attendant revenue, unless,
as does some times happen, some unexpect
ed mishap befalls the crops.
Of this particular business we shall have
more to say by and by.
The planting, cultivating, gathering and
shipping of garden vegetables, keeps the
truck farmer busy from November to May
or even June.
. We have elsewhere referred to the live
stock of this portion of Florida, and to the
majority of our Northern brethren, who
have been reared on the idea that “ there is
neither beef or butter, nor grass in Florida,"
to leairn that dairy farming is hereabouts
rapidly assuming noticeable proportions.
Improved stock has been imported, several
genuine dairy farms, with pastures of Ber
muda, Para, Guinea and other grasses have
been established, and now, in the first in
fancy of this enterprise, three or four farms
in Leon county alone, arc sending from 700
to 1,000 pounds of firstclass butter each week,
to the Jacksonville market, and the demand
is far beyond the supply; this butter brings
the owner thirty cents a pound.
Those who inaugurated this new field of
industry for Florida are reaping large profits
and each year sees their herds increased
and their pastures enlarged.
One-half blood or even three-quarter blood
Alderney or Jersey cow, they tell us, gives
more and richer milk than four of the com
mon breed, and eats only one-fourth as
much. Success to the pioneer dairymen of
Florida!
Another new enterprise is the drying
and shipping of blackberries. This fruit is
indigenous to the South, and in Florida we
find it everywhere by the roadside, in old
and new fields, in the hammocks, in the
piney woods—fine large, plump berries,
tempting and delicious.
Years ago North Carolina awoke to the
wealth scattered broadcast over her wild
lands, and now she sends out from her bord
ers, each year, dried blackberries to the
value of $100,0001 Florida can do the same,
“only more so." With a small, inexpensive
fruit dryer, and berries bought, as they can
be and are, at two cents a quart, (and at this
rate the pickers make from seventy-five
cents to one dollars day,) the profit attained
by the shipper is very handsome.
Then there is another business looming up
for the upper divisions of Florida, one that
has already, in its infancy, assumed immense
proportions in California, and is quite as
well, if not better adapted to -Florida. We
allude to the raising and drying of figs. The
fig is a paying fruit wherever grown, and no
where can it be brought to greater perfec
tion than in our State, wherever a clay or
marl subsoil lies within three or four feet of
the surface.
The tree is easily raised from cuttings, is
a rapid grower, once started, it requires no
pruning, fruits at an early age, and is a pro
lific bearer; it is not subject to blight or
disease, and the process of drying the fruit
for market is not a difficult one. The same
-trait dryer that is used for blackberries,
peaches, huckleberries, will answer the same
purpose for figs also.
We have no fears of proving a false pro
phet in predicting that the time is not far
distant, when “Florida figs" will be quoted
in the New York markets and will bring the
highest prices.
Peach-growing is another important in
dustry. Here this fruit flourishes as it rarely
does in South Florida, and marvelous prices
are obtained for the early sorts, all the way
from $10 to $40 per half-bushel crate. It
seems incredible like a fairy story, but it has
been done more than once—single peaches
sometimes selling in the large Northern
cities at from $1 to $2 each. The later kinds
too late for the Northern markets, find a
ready home sale at $2 per bushel, and any
surplus can be dried and a handsome proAt
reaped therefrom.
Then the northern portion of Florida, (in
common with South Florida,) has just been
reached by a “boom” that is destined to
echo and re-echo over the land as loudly as
the “orange boom,” of the latter.
Everybody knows what a stir the LeConte
pear has been making these last few years in
Georgia, where thousands of acres are being
set out in this tree. Well, this same noble
fruit has proven itself admirably adapted to
Florida; os a rule, pears sought to be raised
here do not behave well, their conduct is out
of all reason and propriety; they put oht
their blossoms at uncanny times, when they
should have known enough to stay at home,
and then they are nipped in the bud by the
chill weather, or drop their fruit before ma
turity. But this is not the case with the
Le Conte pear, it roots from cuttings and
bears three years thereafter; it is a vigorous
grower, never sbeds its fruit, but ripens it
two to three months earlier than the earliest
of other varieties; it ships well and brings
splendid prices in the Northern markets; it
is no unusual thing either for a tree to ma
ture a second crop and half mature a third
during the year, add to this, that it is free
from blight and disease, and is a very hand
some tree, and what more can we ask of a
fruit tree?
Vineyards too, are profitable, and last, not
least, there is no country in the world better
adapted to the culture of the mulberry tree,
and consequently the production of silk.
The people are awaking to this fact and
many an acre is already set out in the great
silk-worm food.
In fact, after long years of dormant ener
gies, paralyzed by the rule of the “ ancient
regime," which has opposed all innovations
and clung to old grooves, the northern and
older settled portions of Florida are rousing
up to new life and energy and a prosperous
future looms up ahead.
In concluding our review of this section
we need only to add its health is all one
could ask, and the face of the country such
as to offer, not only comfortable, but pictur
esque homes, while the fine roads make
driving a pleasure, and contribute notalittle
to sociability among its people. Game is
abundant, and fish are plentiful.
We have, we trust, presented the northern
divisions of the State in a fair and honest
light, and as you see, that light is not alto
gether dimmed by the more brilliant gleam
of the southern sections.
Next in order, In our examination of
types, comes the southern portion of East
Florida, or the “Central Lake Region,"
which is receiving a goodly share of immi
gration; it is a picturesque country, with
high, rolling hills, good roads, clear water
lakes, deep to the very shores, and clean
sandy beaches, beautiful mirrors enframed by
green-mantled bluffs, with cosy homes nest
ling on their summits.
The key of this locality and port of entry,
as It were, is Waldo, a thriving little towir
on the line of the Atlantic and Gulf Transit
Railroad, about midway between Cedar Keys
and Femandina, the termini of the road.
The country hereabouts owes its prosper
ity, present and future, in a great measure to
the Santa Fe Canal, which projected and
pushed to completion only two or three years
ago, by a few energetic capitalists, now con
nects, by means of a little steamer, lake Ge
neva with Lake Santa Fe, the latter with
Lake Alto, and this again, with the Transit
Railroad, at Waldo, only sixty miles from
Jacksonville. This little town, by the way,
is also the point of junction of the Peninsula
railroad now in course of construction.
The Santa Fe Canal thus affords an easy
outlet for market to thirty miles of shore
line, and one hundred thousand acres of
good, rich land, both hammock and pine.
This neighborhood is particularly adapted
to raising early vegetables and the transpor
tation facilities afforded by the lakes and
canal and railroad make it an especially de
sirable locality for the truck-farmer.
It is a very rare thing that orange or lemon
trees are injured near these great lakes;
many a severe frost has passed them by un
harmed, while injuring and even killing to
the ground these fruits a hundred miles
further south I
And this remakable exemption is due to
the high lands, dry atmosphere, and the
close vicinity of the lakes, whose gentle
pleading soften and temper the asperities of
the rude north wind, as he rushes over their
placid bosoms.
The pine lands produce about fifteen
bushels of corn to the acre, but with a lit
tle manure and good cultivation, will easily
yield double this amount; from one to two
bales of cotton to the acre; oats and rye are
also fair crops, and upland rice yields from
forty to sixty bushels per acre; sugar cane
is also largely cultivated.
Peaches, pears, grapes, figs, and strawber
ries, ail these are destined to become staple
crops.
This is true not only of the Santa Fe or
Central Lake Region, but also of a large
portion of East Florida, while here and
there some small orange groves are found,
where a sheltered position can be obtained.
In Suwannee county and thereabouts, tur
pentine farms are in vogue and are very profi
table.
Here we find no lakes or running streams
of water, but many of these strange sinks
to which we have alluded elsewhere, natu-
ural wells, we might call them, with perpen
dicular sides, and tunneled through the
solid limestone rock, that crops up to the
surface, or very near it.
And now we come to the great Lake Re
gion of 8outh Florida, of which the rapidly
growing town—we beg its pardon, we should
have said city, for it is regularly incorpo
rated, has a mayor, aldermen and council—
of Leesburg, is the commercial centre.
This place, though by no means among
the earliest settled in this section of the
country, has, both owing to its location and
the character of the land round about it,
rapidly forged ahead of all the other por
tions of Sumter county.
Lakes Griffin and Harris, the one twelve
miles long the other eighteen, are only sep
arated from each other by a narrow strip of
land, and on this neck, at a point where it
is only half a mile wide, Leesburg is situ
ated, thus securing a landing on both of
these beautiful lakes, and the traffic of the
hundreds of families who are scattered all
along their shores, and for miles inland.
And now let us look at the country lying
around these lakes, Griffin, Harris and Eus-
tis, as a type of the rest of this “piney
woods" section, which includes no little
hammock land as well; a section which,
more than any other one portion of Florida,
is attracting the incoming tide of immigra
tion.
The peninsula on which Leesburg stands,
extends northeast from the city for eight
miles, and is at one point, several miles
wide. Lakes Harris, Griffin, Eustis and the
Ocklawaha river, are its boundaries, and a re
markable tract it is, skirted along the water
brink by rich hammock land, often a mile
or a mile and a half wide, the centre or
backbone of the strip being pine ridges,
overlooking beautiful little lakes.
On this weird peninsula were a few years
ago, the largest wild orange grove in the
state, with the exception of one at Orange
Lake, (one of the Central lakes you will re
member), these have all been budded with
the delicious fruit with which we are all
so familiar.
And now starting from a point two miles
from Leesburg, on the shores of Lake Har
ris, one may now see groves occupying one
hundred and twenty acres, of trees in full
bearing, and another hundred acres of
younger trees, the whole extending in one
unbroken line for over three miles.
It is an impressive sight, especially when
one remembers that only twelve years ago,
this whole region was one great tangled wil
derness.
Then crossing this strip of land to Lake
Griffin, what do we see there?
Another vast wild grove, reclaimed and
civilized—nothing left as It was, except that
the budded trees mostly stand where they
grew, and the giant live oaks stretch out
their moss-draped arms, with protecting
care over their lowlier brethren. .
Justly may this section, the upper por
tion of South Florida, claim to be the favors
ite home of the orange, and in fact, of the
whole citrus family.
In those localities where clay or marl
crojw up near the surface, within two or
three feet, peaches grow thriftily, and nearly
everywhere, figs, pomgranates, guavas, ba
nanas, grapes and pineapples flourish ex
ceedingly, the latter needing occasionally a
light winter protection.
Persimmons, plums, grapes, blackberries,
huckleberries, grow wild, and in great
abundance. Cattle and hogs are kept in
large numbers, and are very profitable to
their owners, though the hogs as we shall
see in future papers, are a terrible “thorn in
the flesh” to the neighborhood in which
they range. The cattle, as elsewhere in
Florida, are valued less on account of the
milk they yield, than for the fertilization of
the ground, in the pens where they are con.
fined during the night, their calves being
retained as hostages by their own,era, toen.
sure their coming home towards “sun
down.” On this subject more hereafter.
There are only a few flocks of sheep as
yet and they are experimental, but the en
terprise bids fair to prove successful and
profitable, therefore it will quickly assume
large proportions.
Of course, cotton and sugar cane are
staple crops; no where can they be grown
in greater perfection, but still they are not
supreme, the citrus is the Royal family,
hereabouts.
The health of the people is excellent,
whenever they have the good sense to avoid
marshy localities,—where as everybody
knows malaria is manufactured from the de
caying vegetation-, not only of Florida, but
every where over the world.
As a general thing, the malaria of Florida
marshes is not of a malignant type; the
fever it gives in the regular old fashioned
chill and fever, or else a mild intermittent;
it causes its victim to feel wretched and apa
thetic, but does not often kill, unless, as
sometimes happens, it finds a sister-disease
ready to join forces with it.
But there is no necessity for any one to
breathe this malarial poison in this state
any more than in every other of the United
States; marshes - and swamps are found
everywhere, but do we hear people railing
against the climate of other states for this
reason ? That would be rather absurd; all
one has to do is to avoid such localities, and
build his house far from their influence; in
Florida this is very easily done.
Turning to the westward from Leesburg,
we pass at once to the gentle, rolling country
that is the characteristic type of the upper
portions of South Florida. It is a piney
woods country, with a top soil of sand and
a subsoil of red or white clay, marl, or shell-
lime, sometimes cropping to the surface, at
others for two to ten feet below it.
N umerous small lakes break the monot
ony of the tall trees and green wire grass
that stretch for mites upon miles in all di
rections, these vary in size from a half acre
to several hundred acres, nor is the extent
of each lakelet always the same, but vari
able, according as the wet or dry season is
paramount; their base is clear, pure sand,
no marsh, no miasma here, no stagnant
water, like our ponds of the north, with
their muddy, slimy shores, and well is it
that this is so, for scarcely can a piece of
land containing twenty acres, be found in
many localities, and most healthy ones too
without one or more of these little lakelets
nestling in its midst, shimmering in the sun
shine like a mirror set in agreen frame.
Besides the various members of the citrus
family, guavas, bananas and pineapples grow
here In great luxuriance, although they are
occasionally “chilled in their ardour" by
a winter frost, but a wrapping of moss will
protect the banana, if need be; the guava,
even if it drops its leaves, soon starts out
again, and a handful of moss dropped over
the pineapple will ensure its safety; this
fruit is an extremely profitable one, a yield
of four or five hundred dollars per acre be
ing nothing uncommon, when the soil is
rich, and cultivation good.
Guavas are also very profitable, and will
become a staple, all over Florida, now that
two species of this valuable fruit have been
introduced, that are frost proof, os well as
superior for jelly, to the common sorts;
thes are the Cattley and Strawberry guavas;
they are very scarce as yet, however.
Allot this family are very prolific, and
bear in eighteen months from the seed, and
the jelly made from them is superior to the
far-famed “Guava jelly” of Havana, which
is really marmalade. Florida guava jelly
Is jelly in reality, and is clear as crystal,
having the appearance of crab apple jelly.
And now we come to the Indian River Re
gion, in describing which we virtually de
scribe also, the Tampa, Manatee, and other
coastwise portions of South Florida. Let us
take the country immediately around the
Indian and Halifax rivers.
Oranges, lemons and limes head the list of
fruits, and pineapples come next, then fol
low bananas, guava, and other tropical and
semi-tropical fruits; cotton and sugar cane
are also largely grown.
This is preeminently a fruit raising sec
tion; garden vegetables and several field
crops are successfully raised, but they are
only auxiliaries, there is more profit in
fruit culture.
The climate is delightful; breezes from the
neighboring ocean temper the summer heat
and drive away the frosts of winter; the
water fronts are, as a rule, high banks, with
clear shady beaches. Fish, oysters, turtle,
waterfowl, deer and other game, are to be
had In profusion, mosquitoes are less trouble
some than in many places in the north, in
some localities they are almost unknown.