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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, DECEMBER 1, 1882. 86 HOHE LIVE IN FLORIDA. BY HELEN HABCOURT. Seventh roper. Jinking n Home. Really, this subject seems inexhaustible, and in fact it is so, for there is none more important, nor more susceptible of new ideas than this, of making a home that will satisfy heart, mind and body, and conduce to con tent and cheerfulness and health. We have already wandered around consid erably out of doors, that is a way we have of doing in Florida three-fourths of our time, at least, and, consequently, we are not quite prepared to go in yet. We have told some what of the wealth of beautiful flowers and vines that may be gathered around the house, and trained over the porches, but we have not yet mentioned one of the most im portant, and by far the most fragrant. The evening jassamine I it is impossible for the Northern mind to conceive from its own ex- peiience, the strong, thrifty growth of this much-prized plant in this genial clime. The plant, as it is known there, is a frail, deli cate thing, of slow and precarious growth, almost impossible to rear outside of conser vatories, “a pampered, aristocraticdarling,” over whose wayward blossoming there is much rejoicing and much boasting. We remember a few years back, that our whole family was summoned one evening, in great baste, to the house of a neighbor to view the bloom of the cherished|evening jassamine, growing in a small flower-pot, and to enjoy the delicous perfume it exhaled, we were made happy by the presentation of a slip for rooting that we might “go and do likewise.” But now, to see this same fragrant, delicate night-bird among flowers os we see it in Florida! Three years ago a tiny slip, not six inches tall, rooted in a box, was set at the end of our ten feet wide piazza, fortunately, as the result proved, it was placed near the middle. At the present time, although in the winter of 1879-80 it was killed back almost to the ground, that wonderful jassamine forms a dense, fan-shaped shade all over the end of the piazza, a foot or more in thickness and reaching several feet above the piazza roof, almost all the year it is in bloom, and as darkness settles down upon the earth, its lit tle star-like flowers, gathered in clusters, peep out to see what the stars look like, and toss their fragrant greeting abroad in the air. Then, if never before, we understand wbat is meant by the “ air being heavy with perfume.” Sometimes it is almost too powerful and then we indulge a wish that our much-valued jassamine was a little fur ther away, but usually we are not disposed to quarrel with it. Of course the various plants and vines are the better for suitable food; we don't expect people or horses to work on, day after day without nutriment, yet some people do ex pect their vegetable servants, which are liv ing things as well, to exist and grow with out food. Their requirements are modest; on hammock land they will require no help for a few years, but on pine land they will need more at first than later on ; there you see, is the difference between hammock and pine land, as those who are ahead of their times, are beginning to discover; one, better at the start, deteriorates; the other, poor at the start, constantly improves. If some muck, rotten leaves, cow-chips or stable manure, can be spaded into the flower-beds before setting out the plants, so much the better, but if the plants are ready first, this can be done later on, although, of course, more care must then be exercised, not to dis turb the newly anchored roots. A wonderful tonic and invigorator of the growth of plants, not only in Florida but everywhere, is a weekly or semi-weekly dose of liquid manure,made thus: two buckets or twenty pounds of stable manure to one bar rel of water, let it stand for twenty-four hours before using. It should be of the color of weak coffee when applied, and sometimes it is necessary to dilute it to attain this color. An ounce or two of carbolic acid is a great improvement as it serves to discour age the " Meddlesome Matties ” so numer ous among the insect families. A heavy mulch of leaves, grass or pine needles, will be of double advantage, not only retaining moisture, and an even tem perature for the roots of treesand plants, but also preventing the continuous and excessive growth of weeds, which, proverbially ram pant all over the world, are not backward in asserting themselves in Florida. Weeds, we say, yet after all what are weeds T The fact is it all depends on where one stands. How we cherish and cq|x gera niums to grow, buying plants and seeds from the nurseryman, yet in Australia, their na tive land, they are weeds, and regarded as nuisances. Our Northern florists advertise, among others, the rose geranium, and their customers think highly of them; here in Florida they run rampant. Put a tiny slip from a boquet into a Florida bed, and in a few months it will be trespassing on its neighbors’ domains ; it will travel right and left, and actually become a runner. It keeps one busy lopping off great arm-loads or straggling branches; but we don't quarrel with it after all. The leaves are fragrant, and form a pretty addition to boquets, the mass of green is always acceptable to the eyes, and when a geranium is planted here and there, about the grounds and trained into a mound-shape, the effect is very pleas ing, but still, these geraniums are in a meas ure *• weeds ” in Florida; and Ijow the North ern gardner sows seeds year after year of the phlox and petunia; in Florida all that Is necessary is to once sow a small paper of these seeds, and henceforth, year after year, phlox and petunias, greet you everywhere, nodding their gay little heads in the grass plats, the flower-beds, the corn-field, then you see, they become “ weeds,” it is the same with the cypress vine, the bona nox, and in fact with almost every plant that has seeds. It is wonderful how persistently they sow themselves broadcast. There is a miniature portulacca, with pink flowers about a quarter of an inch in diameter, a na tive of the soil, that is rather pretty, but be comes a nuisance because it degenerates into a weed, and keeps one constantly on the war path. The ease with which delicate plants, guarded and cherished at the North, perpet uate themselves in Florida, and imitate the example of the famous Topsey, who was not brought upbut “just growed," is a source of surprise to natives of the more chilly States, but it is readily traced to itscause—no freez ing to kill the germs of the tender seeds. One of the most striking and distinctively tropical plants that one can find to set out in the Florida flower garden, is the native “ yucca,” or as it is generally called the “ Spanish bayonet” This is a curious plant found in the hammocks, and bears trans planting to pine land very well. It is formed by a straight spine, as it were, on which are thickly set, long, narrow, stiff-edged leaves, which droop downward and are armed at the point with a sharpe spine, whence its name, “Spanish bayonet." It often attains a height of ten or twelve feet, and here and there, especially near the top, short stubs project, which, being detached and planted, will soon root and start out in life on their own account. This plant is an ornament of itself, but when, in June usually, it sends upward one or more tall stalks, three or four of them sometimes, thickly draped with large, bell-like flowers, what shall we say 7 It is then a beautiful object that one never tires of looking at, and its showy plumes at tract the eye from a long distance. But we have dealt with the (esthetic part of our sub ject long enough; (esthetic yet nto in this case useless, for one’s home cannot be made too attractive. But it must have its creature comforts too,for we are of the earth “ earthy." Not one of the least of these is the water supply. There are a few houses in Florida, whose owners are wealthy enough to spend money ad libitum, where there are large tanks on the roof, into which water is pumped from a lake or well by means of a windmill, pipes leading from the tank conducting water throughout the dwelling. But these conve nient contrivances are not for people of ordi- dinary means, for whose benefit these papers are intended. They must look to other ways of getting water. In a few localities only, well water is not good, being hard from the underlying limestone rock; but all through the rolling pine lands, the water ob tained from the wells is aa pure as crystal and soft, none better could be desired. During the summer months it is not as cool as the Northern taste could wish, bred up as it is, with the idea that ice in the summer, is a necessity. In fact, this lack of ice is at first one of the settler's greatest deprivations, but with this, as with all things, time effects a cure, and by and by the water seems to grow cooler, and rarely fails to quench the sum mer thirst. One could almost declare, after the first summer, that it actually has become cooler, so powerful is custom. It is possible too, to make a decided change in the tem perature of the water by keeping that in tended for drinking’in those large earthen ware jars that are manufactured for the pur pose ; water jars they call them. The writer has seen them in use in South America, and they are equally useful in Florida, drawing the waterovernightand allowing it to stand out where the night air will blow over it, is a good way to secure a cool morning drink. In the fall, winter, and spring months, the water is quite cool enough tor any one, and often “ makes one’s teeth ache.” As to the depth at which water is met with it afl depends on location. If dug on a de cided knoll, thirty or forty feet are not un common before the water level is reached. On lesser knolls (it is very unusual to see a Florida home that la not built on a “ rise,") water is often found at from eight to twelve feet. Of course the water level varies with the wet or dry season, and so it isalways best to dig, if possible, when the lakelets around about have reached their minnimum; if you cannot do this, the well will have to be deepened as the surrounding lakes lower their waters. It costs from fifty to seventy- five cents per foot to have the well dug, and until clay is reached, the sides must he curbed and the cost of planking must be added to the sum total. Usually the well for family use will not altogether cost more than eight to ten dollars. As a rule, the bucket, rope and pulley are the means employed to obtain the-water. Pumps are, as yet, a rarity, not quite so much as they were a few years ago, but still far more so than they should be, with a due regard for the patient workers, on whom the burden of hauling up the heavy buckets from the depths of the well, usually falls. There is quite work enough for the women of a family to do, without this needless and heavy task being added. So rare were pumps when we came to Sumter county, four years ago, that ours wns the first one for a circuit of some miles. So great a curiosity was our modest “Cucum ber” that our humbler neighbors made many a pilgrimage to its shrine, and opened their eyes in wonder at the ease with which the “ waters drawed up.” They had never seen, nor heard, nor dreamt of such a won. derful thing. Our colored washerwoman had to be taught how to pump water, and her shy and awkward attempts to work the handle, were ludicrous in the extreme. It was the same with the plowman coming in from the field hot and thirsty. They would look helplessly at “that 'ere queer post” guarding the well, and cautiously touch the handle and start back amazed at the ease with which it moved. Told to raise and tower it, they would lift it slowly a few inches, and then as carefully drop it, look ing bewildered at the spout, where they were told the water would appear, failed to deliver up its treasure. Then we would sally forth to the rescue, and a delighted grin would dawn upon their dusky faces, as the .clear, steady stream poured out. “Fore de Lawd, dat’s powerful smart I” “ Lawd’s sake, hit is 1” And after that we used to tremble for the life of our valves and piston as they rattled up and down to satisfy a strangely frequent thirst, so frequent that at last it compelled a remonstrance. We repeat, every well should be topped by a pump, and every pump should be handy to the kitchen, if not actually inside its walls. Every housewife’s work is hard enough without the unnecessary addition of hauling up heavy buckets of water. A sink under the spout to catch and carry away waste water, with a trough leading to a half hogshead sunk in the ground, will be found of great advantage, not only in saving the carrying away of heavy pans of dish-water, but also in preserving the latter for use as a fertilizer. Let the reservoir be emptied every afternoon toward sunset, the best time always for watering trees. Dash the soapy water around the fruit trees within reach, not too close to the tree, for the true feeding rootlets are some distance from it, and you will be surprised to see how the trees thus treated will outstrip the others. It is not a goo4.plan to set out orange or lemon trees too near the house, yet we are all apt to make this mistake. The trees look so small when set out that it is hard to real ize that In a few years time they will be tow ering towards the house-top, and their branches spreading wider and wider each year. A case in point Is that of a neighbor, who twelve years ago, in a country then unset tled, planted orange and lemon trees and built his house in the midst of them. For years past those trees have been crowding the house, so that it is entirely hidden save the roof, their branches rubbing against the walls, reaching through the open windows, and so shutting out sunshine and air, that now it has become imperative either to re move the too vigorous trees, or build a new house further out in the one only direction left unoccupied by them, and the latter has been chosen as the lesser evil. Forty feet Is quite near enough to set an orange or lemon tree to one's house ; nearer will surely be repented of sooner or later, and then the trees bearing by that time, will have to be moved,.and all profit from them lost for several years to come, and only those who have tried it can tell the immense amount of courage required to move a bear ing tree. Peach, fig and pear trees, and guavas and limes, grape vines and bananas, these are the fruits lo scatter around the house, these and flowers and shade trees and grass, surely they are quite enough without the larger growing trees, whose proper place is in the grove where they may spread and stretch their great thorny arms without knocking down tne house or breaking the windows. Qrape vines trained on canopy arbors, afford a pleasant shade and it is ornamental as well as useful to run an arbor on each side of the walk leading from the house to the chicken yard, an arbor with a top, and train grape and other vines over it. The chicken yard should not be too far from the house, and unless it opens on a woodland where the fowls can range, it should be of ample dimensions, for they will not keep healthy unless they hare plenty of room to range. The yard should be enclosed by a picket fence, high if the common Flori da chickens are to be kept in it, for they are veritable “gad-abouts” and are as quick to skim over a five foot fence as to pick up a grain of corn. Select the site for the chicken yard with a view to convert it into a veget able or fruit garden, after the chickes have fertilized it for two or three years. It will be the richest part of your land. Let the chicken house be built of slats, placed about one inch apart; this will allow necessary ventilation and yet be tight enough to pre vent the inroads of marauding skunks and 'possums, both of which are sufliciently bold and numerous enough to render precoution desirable. Balked of their prey by other means they will even condescend to “grub" for it, and if bottom boards are not sunk a few inches in the ground, will dig below the slats and effect an entrance. But with the precautions named and a tight roof, not an open one as some of the old natives will con tend for, you may snap your fingers at the four-footed enemies of your feathered prop erty, and if there be any near neighbors of the “colored persuasion” whose love for chickens is proverbial, a padlock will put an effectual stop to their nocturnal depreda tions. Fowls of all kinds, and almost all breeds, do well in Florida and there is very little sickness among them; the Houdan variety is the only one that does not seem to thrive when transferred to a new home in the semi-tropics. Hawks make sad havoc some times among young broods that are allowed to have free range, but if kept in a small yard made for that purpose and with strings running across it here and there, high enough not to interfere with any one walking there, no hawk will make way with the young chicks. It is a singular fact that a hawk will not fly down below a string. In our own experience, we lost dozens of our downy lit tle pets, until learning of this device, we adopted it, and thenceforth not a single hawk swooped down into the chicken yard. The chicks were cept there, protected by the strings, until about three months old, when they were turned out upon the world, big enough and strong enough to take care of themselves. And now for the present we are done rambling out of doors, and shall proceed to look around inside, and discuss the question so perplexing to settlers, “Of what to bring, and what not to bring ” for household and for personal use. Cheerfulness exerts an important influence upon the health as well as contributing much to the happiness of mankind. The cheerful man, woman, or child is more likely to be healthy than the gloomy one. Cheerfulness promotes digestion of the food, quickens the circulation of the blood, and facilitates the proper performance of all the healthy func tions of the body. The food eaten with pleasant companions is less likely to disa gree with the dyspeptic than that eaten in solitude. Some dyspeptic peribns have often remarked, that when dining with friends and agreeable acquaintances, whose companionship cheered them, they might eat freely, without subsequent barm, of sub stances which were sure to occasion distress when eaten alone. Not a few have noticed when feeling despondent or feeble while alone at home, the arrival of pleasant ac quaintances, or a visit to friends, would at once make them cheerful and cause them to feel like new creatures.