South Florida

“ Although the natural advantages of Florida are unequalled, its development has been very gradual, and its population, scanty and scattered, is much smaller in proportion than that of any other state in the Union. We may, perhaps, except Nevada and Colorado, both of which are mountainous, rocky regions, whereas Florida is a level land, its highest elevation being about 500 feet above the sea, and very rarely attaining to that. There is, however, a constant tide of immigration flowing into the state, and the increase of the population during the last dozen years is surprising. ”

“ We are on the rough, ragged edge of Florida; it is flat and sandy with a scanty growth of straggling yellow pines and stunted palmettoes, which seem cowering down trying to hide themselves from the sight of the sun. ”

“ These calculations show the great value of the pine lands and other fruit soil of Tropical Florida. These facts have but to be known, to be understood and appreciated. They indicate the great resources of South Florida, in the soil of its tropical fruit lands, which is a region of country lying some forty miles south of Cape Carnavaral.{49}
CHAPTER III.
ST. AUGUSTINE AS A PLACE OF RESORT FOR INVALIDS. ADVANTAGES OF CLIMATE.
This city enjoys many advantages in respect to climate, which are peculiar. The same may be true of the climate of the Florida peninsula in general. ”

“ On the east coast of South Florida the lands are productive, and healthy in location. On the St. Lucie River and Sound, the banks are high shell bluff, and exceedingly fertile for high lands. Though north of the tropical latitude, yet the climate is so genial, that it nourishes with luxuriance, in the open air, most of the fruits of tropical climes. ”

“ After 1882 the reclamation of swamp lands in the south of the peninsula was carried on on a large scale, and led to the development of the sugar industry. The discovery of rich phosphate deposits in 1889 improved economic conditions greatly, and the growing popularity of eastern Florida as a winter resort has further enhanced its prosperity. The present Constitution was adopted in 1886. In politics, both State and National, Florida since 1876 has been invariably Democratic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Its rapid growth during the past seven years, from eight hundred inhabitants to as many thousands, has been brought about by the Plant System having completed the South Florida Railroad to Tampa for the purpose of developing it commercially. The climate is perfect, and it is the only city in Florida with all the advantages of both inland and coast without the inconvenience of either; the only city that affords all the delights of a sportsman’s life to hunter and fisher, yachtsmen and horsemen, along with first-class business facilities in all directions. ”

“ In South Florida, bounded on the north by Lake Ogeechubee—the largest body of water in the State, it being fifty miles in length, and twenty in width—is a tract of country known as the Everglades, comprising an area of six hundred miles. Here dwells the remnant of a race of men which required more time to subdue, and cost the Government more money, than the Colonial war with Great Britain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Stonington has purchased an orange grove in Florida," Betty went on, "and Amy has asked us all down there. Do, please, say that Grace can go!" and she blew him a kiss, for the four chums shared their parents and friends as they did their—well, let us say—chocolates.
"Florida," spoke Mr. Ford, musingly. "I wonder if, by any chance, Will could have gone there? Many young men go down South in the winter to work as waiters in the big hotels. ”

“ It is nearly 400 miles in length, and has an average width of 130 miles. Its formation is peculiar. Every other large peninsula in the world owes its existence to a central mountain chain, which affords a stubborn resistance to the waves. Florida has no such elevation, and mainly a loose, low, sandy soil. Let us study this puzzle.
The Apalachian (usually and incorrectly spelled Appalachian) plain, sloping from the mountains to the Gulf of Mexico, lies on a vast bed of tertiary, limestone and sand rock. ”

“ The northern part of the State is hilly and rolling. Midway of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, an elevated ridge extends through Middle and South Florida to Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, gradually sloping to the Atlantic Ocean on the east and to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on the west. The elevated lands are mostly pine, interspersed with black-jack, post, and water-oak. At the base and along the water courses, are rich hammock lands bordered with flat and rolling prairie, with the everlasting scrub palmetto everywhere. ”

“ As we sat in front of the pilot-house, Cornwood pointed out all the objects of interest, and named the towns we passed. But nature was more to our taste than any village, after we had obtained an idea of the average town in Florida. We did not stop all day long, except to run into the stream that flows from Blue Spring, to note the marvellous clearness of the water. At four in the afternoon we passed into Lake Monroe, which is the head of navigation. On it are located the three towns of Sanford, Mellonville, and Enterprise, at the last of which we made a landing. ”

“ Persons who visit Florida with a view to farming or gardening, should not expect to find it a land of exhuberant fertility, that will yield immense crops with little labor. East Florida is as a whole not a fertile country in comparison with South Carolina or Illinois, and probably never will be highly cultivated. On the other hand, they must not be discouraged by the first impressions they form on seeing its soil. Labor can do wonders there. The climate favors the growth of vegetables and some staples, but labor, hard work, is just as necessary as in Massachusetts. ”

“ By and by we passed extensive hillside plantations, on which little groups of negroes, men and women, were at work. I seemed to see the old South of which I had read and dreamed, a South not in the least like anything to be found in the wilds of southern and eastern Florida; a land of cotton, and, better still, a land of Southern people, instead of Northern tourists and settlers. And when we stopped at a thrifty-looking village, with neat, homelike houses, open grounds, and lordly shade-trees, I found myself saying under my breath, "Now, then, we are getting back into God's country." ”

“ Southern Florida is really the tropical region, the Egypt of the United States, where frosts are{116} unknown, and every fruit or flower, or forest product, which grows in the most tropical quarters of the world, is or may be cultivated with complete success. Pine-apples, bananas, cocoanut, guava, almonds, olives and figs, with a long list of other tropical fruits, are produced in luxuriant abundance, but we no longer wander through groves of orange or lemon trees. Of scenery in these parts there is nothing to speak of; in the interior it is made up of sunshine, fruits and flowers. ”

“ The sea coast of south-east Florida, therefore, fulfils the four conditions which make up the best climate for a consumptive. I have other testimony about it well worth presenting. It, too, comes from the same unimpeachable source,—the medical statistics of the United States Army. I preface it by a fact of general interest about the whole of Florida. All know how terribly arduous must be campaigning through the swamps and everglades of that State. Yet the yearly mortality from disease of the regular army there, was only twenty-six per thousand men. ”

“ A writer who has himself done more to rescue from oblivion the historical romance of the South than any other, [8] has well said, "It will be an employment of curious interest, whenever the people of Florida shall happen upon the true site of the settlement and structure of Laudonnière, to trace out in detail these several localities, and fix them for the benefit of posterity. ”

“ The Florida Everglades Land Company who are carrying on the work of drainage on scientific rules, in the employment of government experts and following natural laws, show in their practicable demonstrations, the great benefit the redemption of submerged Florida will be, not only to the South, but to the whole country. ”

“ Of the salubrity of East Florida I must speak less positively, although it is certain that in St. Augustine emigrants from the north enjoy good health. The owners of the plantations in the neighborhood, prefer to pass the hot season in this city, not caring to trust their constitutions to the experiment of a summer residence in the country. Of course they are settled on the richest soils, and these are the least healthy. The pine barrens are safer; when not interspersed with marshes, the sandy lands that bear the pine are esteemed healthy all over the south. ”

“ Much of the soil of Florida is not promising in appearance. The Everglades and Cypress Swamps may be considered at present agriculturally worthless. The ridge of sand and decomposed limestone along the southern shore, from Cape Sable to Indian river, is capable, however, of profitable cultivation, and offers the best field in the United States for the introduction of tropical plants, especially coffee. Its area is estimated at about 7,000,000 acres. ”

“ The traveler who, for the first time, visits a southern latitude, has his attention most strongly arrested by the new and strange forms of vegetable life. I shall mention some of those which give the scenery of Florida its most peculiar features.
The most abundant is the saw palmetto, chamærops Adansonii. This vigorous plant is found in all parts of the peninsula, flourishing equally well in the pine barren and the hammock. It throws up its sharp-edged leaves some four or five feet in length, from a large, round root, which is, in fact, a trunk, extending along the surface of the ground. ”

“ I am almost pleased, for the invalid’s sake, to say that as for treasures of art, Florida has none. There are no interminable picture galleries, or cold, damp churches, or belvideres, or other such æsthetic afflictions to visit, the frequency of which in Italy is a serious drawback to the seeker after health. On the other hand, Nature has spread out boundless attractions in the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral worlds, the study of which has ever something soothing and rejuvenating.{132}
Exercise in the open air every day should be taken religiously and regularly. ”

“ Retrospective.—A critical conductor.—Montgomery.—Train wreckers at work.—Weird scenes in the moonlight.—Silent watchers.—“Wild Cat” train to New Orleans.
In the light of the early morning we bid adieu to Florida, its fruits, its flowers, its sunshine and its people. We have found our own country-people largely represented in all parts of the state, and everywhere they are doing well, and look healthy, happy, bright and contented; and on all sides we see evidence of their thrift, industry, and general prosperity. ”

“ The latter, northern Florida, is a land of wheat, corn, cotton, rice, apples, grapes, etc.—indeed, all cereals, fruits, or vegetables that are cultivated in the northern provinces may be grown here, as well as some few of the hardier Southern products. Slight frosts and cold snaps are not of infrequent occurrence, and the scenery is the most picturesque of all the state, being varied by grand rolling forests, grey, rugged rocks, and beautiful winding streams, where fish and wild fowl of all kinds are most abundant. ”

“ On the southeastern coast of Florida they are both warmed by the Gulf, and lessened in violence by the woods of the peninsula. The winds there are in winter usually north, northeast, and northwest. In summer a breeze from the sea sets in about ten A. M., which often reduces the temperature about six degrees in ten minutes, without causing other than a pleasant sensation. At night a land breeze blows off the land. ”

“ The strong argument against Florida not having been the first location of the inhabitants who built these earth-works, is their tendency toward the West, not being found on the Atlantic coast, showing the course of emigration to have been from the West to the South. These structures also indicate strength, and not the hasty work of a nomadic tribe, having once been the site of a vast population. ”

“ Little is now seen from the river but a few{74} ruinous houses and the marks of a once extended cultivation in overgrown “old fields,” but the place has a history worth recording.
Soon after the cession of the county to the English crown in 1763, Mr. Denison Rolles, a gentleman of wealth, actuated, it would appear, by a spirit of philanthropy, proposed to transport large numbers of the unfortunate women of the London street to this new country, and there give them a chance to lead a better life. With this object he obtained a grant of 40,000 acres, and located it in this portion of Florida. ”