Samuel C. Upham

“ It is the fruit par excellence—fit food for the gods. I have, in the course of my somewhat eventful life, eaten oranges in the groves of the Mediterranean, South America, Mexico and the West Indies, but none can compare with the orange grown in this State. Our soil is peculiarly adapted to the growth and maturity of the perfect orange. No other soil can produce it. The West India and Louisiana seedling orange tree is wonderfully improved by being transplanted in Florida soil. South Florida will, ere long, be one vast orange grove, and will supply the world with her incomparable fruit. ”

“ On my arrival in Braidentown, in the fall of 1879, my land was a “howling wilderness.” At this time I have a young orange grove of six hundred trees, sixty lemon, fifteen lime, ten guava, half a dozen olive, two soft-shell almond, twenty coffee, four each Japan plum and persimmon, two pomegranate, two cocoa-nut and four Le Conte pear trees, all of which are growing luxuriantly. I also have one acre in bananas and sixty pine-apple plants, both of which will bear fruit next year. ”

“ De Soto and his followers sought our shores in quest of El Dorado. That also is in Florida. You see it in our productive soil, in our vast orange groves, in our bananas, pineapples, guavas, and pomegranates, which no other State of the Union can produce. Who then shall say that both the “Fountain of Youth” and “El Dorado” are not within the boundaries of Florida? Our climate is a perpetual summer; the husbandman tickles the soil with the plow and hoe, and it laughs with an abundant harvest ”

“ Hamilton Disston, of Philadelphia, and his coadjutors, is proof positive that a new era is beginning to dawn on the Land of Flowers, and, ere many years, the southern portion of the State will be one vast orange grove, interspersed with the guava, lemon, lime, pine-apple and banana. I hear the skeptic say: “You will overstock the market, and your fruit will not pay the cost of transportation.” The orange par excellence can be grown only in the soil of Florida, therefore competition with foreign countries need not be feared. ”

“ Fort Brooke, some thirty miles distant, offering a good market for their surplus produce, they hired a man with a boat to transport and sell their vegetables. Although bountiful crops rewarded their labor, they were not entirely happy. Madam Joe was anxious that her only sister, residing in New York, should emigrate with her family to Florida. But how was the matter to be accomplished without money? Where there is a will, there is always a way to accomplish things which at first sight seem to be impossibilities. ”

“ The religious status of the population of Florida, like the climate, is rather above the average of other sections of the Union. There is an indescribable element in the climate of Florida which is conducive of religious fervor. Several immigrants from the North and West, whose piety never cropped out until their arrival in Florida, have been suddenly seized with a call to preach. In some parts of South Florida, local preachers are nearly as numerous as laymen, and it is often highly amusing to hear them expound the Scriptures, and see them wrestle with theology. ”

“ I had at the commencement, and still have, abiding faith in the white sand of Florida with a mulatto sub-soil. No matter how white the surface, if underlaid by a mulatto or yellow sub-soil, the citrus family will thrive. The foliage of my young trees is dark green, and their vigorous growth astonishes the “crackers,” who predicted a failure. Owing to the mildness of the climate—my location being exempt from frost—my trees grew all last winter. My orange trees are set in parallel rows, thirty feet apart each way; the lemon and lime trees twenty-five feet apart ”

“ Since slavery, which rested like an incubus of original sin on the soil of Florida, has been removed, immigration has been pouring in from the North and the West, and from the isles of the ocean. Germany, Italy, France and England have each furnished their quota, and the forests along the line of the railroads, as well as those accessible by steamboats, are beginning to show the effects of an advanced civilization. ”

“ I have to-day worked six hours in my banana grove, with the thermometer at 90° in the shade, without experiencing any inconvenience from the heat. The heat is so modified by the constant sea breeze that one can work in the sun at all hours of the day and at all seasons of the year. Sunstroke and hydrophobia are unknown here. This statement can be taken without salt. In midsummer the nights are invariably cool. Blankets at night are the rule, not the exception. This much about location and climate; now, a few words about that orange grove. ”

“ Paradoxical as it may seem, our winters are warmer and our summers cooler than those of the Northern and Western States. The mercury in the thermometer rarely reaches 96° Fahrenheit in midsummer, and at Braidentown, Manatee County, only on two occasions during the past four years has it fallen as low as 38°.
The general healthfulness of Florida is proverbial. That its climate is more salubrious than that of any other State of the Union is clearly established by the medical statistics of the army, as well as by the last census returns. ”

“ I shall locate in the village—if two stores and four houses can be dignified by that name—of Braidentown, Manatee County, Florida. The place is scarcely twelve months old, but is bound to be heard from—after I locate there. The climate is delightful—sort of an earthly Paradise. The thermometer during the winter months ranges from 70° to 75°, and in summer rarely exceeds 90°, with a sea-breeze blowing constantly either from the Atlantic or the Gulf. The nights in summer are invariably cool, and one can lie comfortably under blankets during “dog days.” ”

“ Dwelling in an almost perpetual summer, one would naturally suppose that the climate would prove enervating to the human system. Such is not the fact. In midsummer the weather is of a very pleasant temperature, the nights being uniformly cool, and sultry days, so common in the North, of very rare occurrence. So agreeable are the summers, there is little choice between them and the winters, and many of the oldest settlers prefer the former. Florida, in common with other States of the Union, is sometimes afflicted with drouths, and there is sometimes a superabundance of rain ”

“ In this climate we prefer to plant in fresh, timbered land; cutting out at first only the undergrowth, and taking out a few trees every year after for two or three years, thus graduating the shade and ventilating as appears to be required. The palatine (or plantain, or banana, as you probably call it) makes a good shade, and may be cut out, or under leaves trimmed off as may seem to be necessary. Coffee requires a rich, vegetable soil, or manure. The berry is fully ripe when dark red, but the grain is matured if the berry is picked when it has become yellow or only turning red ”

“ Having, during a somewhat eventful life of sixty-two years, visited Europe, Asia, Africa, South and Central America, Mexico and California, I say, and “I say it boldly,” that in my varied travels, nowhere have I found so healthful and desirable a climate as “Sunland,” on the Manatee Bay. We are exempt from ice and the chilling blasts that sweep along the St. Johns and Halifax, and also from tornadoes and hurricanes, so destructive on the Atlantic coast.
Insects are neither numerous nor troublesome. ”

“ Recently, I received a four-page capsheet letter from a gentleman in Utah Territory, to which was appended seventeen interrogatories in relation to the Gulf Coast of South Florida. That straw broke the camel’s back, and, in reply to the following question: “I see by the last census that Manatee County has a population of over 4,000, and not a death recorded for 1880. Do people ever die there?” I wrote immediately, “Hardly ever. When we want to start a graveyard, we kill a man.” ”

“ The fact that the late freeze killed the scale insects on the orange trees in middle and north Florida, is cold comfort for those engaged in orange culture. There are fruits better adapted to the climate of Florida north of latitude 28° than the orange, lemon, lime, guava, banana and pine-apple. Why, then, persist in endeavoring to cultivate those fruits with so dim a prospect of success? It is kicking against the pricks, hoping against hope. ”

“ The peach, plum, Le Conte pear, several varieties of the apple and grape, and all the small fruits are indigenous to the soil and climate of those portions of the State. South Florida, composed of the counties of Hernando, Sumter, Orange, Volusia, Brevard, Polk, Hillsborough, Manatee, Monroe, and Dade, is the land of the orange and all semi-tropical fruits. The guava, pineapple, banana, cocoanut, date, sugar-apple, sapodilla, mango, alligator-pear, and other tropical fruits thrive admirably in the lower counties, south of the twenty-eighth degree of latitude. ”

“ Lands which in a more northern climate would be utterly worthless, will in Florida, owing to her tropical character, yield valuable productions. For example, the poorest pine lands of Florida will produce without fertilizing a luxuriant crop of Sisal hemp, which yields more profit to the acre than the richest land when cultivated in sugar, cotton, and tobacco. ”

“ The rainfall during the two days was six and one-half inches, the heaviest of the season. I have resided here during the past fourteen months, and, up to this time (January 7th, 1881) , there has been no frost, and my tropical fruits and plants have grown luxuriantly every month of the year. The year just closed, in its dying throes, kicked the mercury in the thermometer down to 38°, and a slight frost occurred on the opposite side of the Manatee River, and also in the hammock four or five miles south-east of Braidentown. ”

“ It is pleasing to know, when one is far away, that he is not entirely forgotten by his friends; but you are slightly mistaken when you say I own a large orange plantation near Jacksonville. I am located on the Manatee River, some eight miles above its entrance into Tampa Bay, on the Gulf coast of South Florida, in latitude 271⁄2°, and below “frost line.” ”

“ South Florida is also the natural home of the sugar-cane. There it ratoons from six to eight years and tassels. The cultivation of early vegetables for the northern and western markets is also a large and remunerative industry, which has been recently inaugurated on the hammocks bordering the Manatee Bay, on the Indian River, and on the numerous keys or islands along the Gulf coast, between Sarasota and Cape Sable. The cassava has also proved to be a remunerative crop in South Florida when properly cultivated. ”

“ Immediately in the rear of Palmetto is a prairie of several miles in extent. North-east of the town, about one mile distant in the hammock, Mr. Hendricks, of Palmetto, has a promising six-years-old orange grove, grown from seeds planted with his own hands. Mr. Hendricks cultivates vegetables between the rows of his orange trees, and last year he realized several hundred dollars by shipping his early tomatoes, cucumbers and snap-beans to New York and other Northern markets. To Mr. Hendricks belongs the credit of starting the early vegetable boom in the Manatee region. ”

“ If any of your numerous friends think it would be a good thing to have an orange grove, advise them to visit the Gulf coast of South Florida before locating elsewhere. Also tell them to drop in at Braidentown. They may go further and fare worse. The most direct route to this place is by rail to Cedar Key, the present terminus of railroad communication, thence by steamer down the coast. The mail steamers leave Cedar Key twice a week for this place and Tampa. ”

“ Here, in the settlement of Braidentown, land is selling at from $25 to $100 per acre. A short distance back of the town, pine land can be purchased at from $1.50 to $5 per acre; and hammock land at $10 per acre. Across the bay, nearly opposite Manatee, on the Patten plantation, good hammock land, once under cultivation, can be purchased at from $15 to $25 per acre, according to location. This land is being rapidly metamorphosed into vegetable gardens, whose products—tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas, etc.—reach the Northern markets during the month of March. ”

“ The “glorious climate of California,” and the sunny clime and golden skies of Italy bear no comparison with it. It is indescribable, and must be seen and felt in order to be fully appreciated. A Baptist clergyman—Hard-shell—who visited Braidentown last winter, was so fascinated and infatuated with the climate and surroundings that he said he verily believed that he was then nearer Paradise than he ever expected to be again while in the flesh.
A timid person occasionally asks, “Are there Indians still in Florida?” ”

“ The county in which I reside—Manatee—is nearly as large as the combined States of Connecticut and Rhode Island. It is truly a county of “magnificent distances,” the county seat, Pine Level, being forty miles south of the villages of Braidentown and Manatee, on its northern border. “No pent-up Utica contracts our powers.” We do things on a large scale. We raise the most luscious oranges, the largest watermelons, and the most appetizing pineapples and bananas on the face of the earth ”

“ There are, however, rattlesnakes and moccasins in Florida. The former I have never seen, and the latter but seldom. Those that came under my observation, appeared to be worse frightened than I was, and made a hasty exit. Alligators are not numerous in this section, and are comparatively harmless. Like a once noted statesman, they desire to be let alone. If closely cornered, they will fight; but they prefer to run, if a chance is offered for escape.
Braidentown, the embryo town of the Manatee, is situated on the south side of the bay, about eight miles above its entrance into Tampa Bay. ”