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2 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.