FLORIDA.
FLORIDA is unlike any other State or country. It is peculiar in its climate, soil, products, situation and surroundings. The principal portion of it is a peninsula--a strip of land one hundred miles wide and three hundred miles, running out into the ocean. It is washed by the Atlantic the east and the Gulf of Mexico on the south and west, affording twelve hundred miles of coast, studded with islands or keys, and indented with numerous bays, some of which are quite extensive and romantic.
The State of Florida lies nearer the equator than any other in the Union, and she possesses a sub-tropical climate, the most equable in the United States. The range of the thermometer rarely goes over 95 degrees or under 80 degrees.
Florida has nineteen large rivers, some of them navigable for two hundred and three hundred miles, rendering transportation possible to a large extent of country.
The State contains thirty-five million acres of land. The land is of a sandy nature, and along the coast and many of the rivers quite low, but in many places it rises into hills and knolls even on the banks of the rivers. In the interior it goes from 200 to 800 feet above tide water. Much of the interior is rolling and hilly, interspersed with clear water lakes, which add charm and romance to the scenery.
The lands are classed as hammock and pine. These two classes are divided into many varieties, such as rolling, high and low ham- mock, rolling pine and fiat woods, etc. The soil in the hammock lands is a dark, rich vegetable mold and will make crops for years without much fertilizing, but it is not considered as healthy as the pine lands, especially for the first few years after being cleared. They are timbered with hickory, live and white oaks, magnolias, buckeye, gums, etc., with considerable underbrush. Pine lands are timbered with yellow pine--or the long needle pine--jack and willow oaks and an occasional hickory. They have been heretofore considered poor for farming purposes, but of late, by judicious fertilizing, they have been made to yield good returns. They are easily cleared and readily brought into cultivation, and are now preferred for orange culture and, indeed, all fruits.
The productions of this State are of the most profitable character, and at the same time the catalogue is more extensive than found in any other State. Oranges and lemons this year will approach two million boxes. The writer has not at hand data for furnishing figures in regard to the amount of peaches, pineapples, cocoanuts, bananas, grapes, etc., but they furnish a very large revenue.
The Putnam House.
One-half of the entire crop of Sea Island cotton raised in the United States Is the product of Florida. The yield for the past few years of corn, oats, rye, millet, sugar, syrup, sweet potatoes, cassava and arrow-root is very encouraging, and large quantities of these staples will be shipped from the State in the future. Besides the productions of the field and grove the truck farm must not be lost sight of. Early vegetables will always be among the leading products of this State. Then the natural products of the country are wonderful. The leading articles among them are lumber, sponge, moss, natural fertilizers, fish, oysters, etc., which annually bring to the State millions of dollars.
The population of Florida is small, and when we compare it to the wealth of luxuries she contains it appears insignificant, and there is an inquiry constantly Coming up for the cause. Her past history, or so much as runs up to the civil war, shows that she was always in an unsettled condition. She was from her earliest days the theatre of strifes, massacres and wars. Unable to spare space to present the leading features of her severe trials, we can only mention that much of the present century the inhabitants were harrassed by Indian wars, some of which are characterized as the most cruel and atrocious in American history. When these wars were over and the State was about to enter upon an era of prosperity, the late civil war unsettled the affairs of the State and country and decimated and impoverished her people, and again stayed for a period her prosperity. But all these hinderances and annoyances are gone, and it is to be hoped that war never more will be known save in the history of the past.
The population of Florida is quite cosmopolitan--from the world at large--yet the per cent of foreigners is small. The census of 1830 gave only 34,730. In 1860 it amounted to 140,424. In 1870 the census gave 187,748. In 1880 it had reached 269,493, and the State census of 1885 reached 340,000, the increase in ten years, 1870-80, was over 80,000, and in the next five years it reached 70,000. According to the census of 1880, the number of inhabitants born in the State was 173,481, number born in other states of the Union, 86,103--and only 9,909 natives of foreign countries. About 40 per cent of the inhabitants are colored. At the last election for president, 1884, there were 59,961 votes cast.
The climate of Florida has always been considered its chief charm. It is unlike any other land, the equable temperature is its leading virtue. The range of the thermometer shows it never gets as hot or as cold as in New York, Dakota or Colorado. Taking 95° for the maximum and 25° for the minimum in Florida, makes the range 70°, while in New York it has touched 112° above and 35° below, making a range of 147°. Colorado shows about the same, 145, and Dakota 155. "It is a fact," says Col. G. W. Pratt, editor of the Palatka Herald, "that a Floridian can stand 96 degrees in Florida with less discomfort than 86 degrees in the North." The health of Florida is treated elsewhere.
The State is practically out of debt. It has only a half a million of bonds afloat and they command a large premium, so safe is considered the investment. The laws are judiciously and economically administered; the taxes are extremely low, State tax is only 3 to 4 mills and the county tax very similar. "The prosperity of a country can be found in the tax books," said Horace Greely. In no state can a greater per cent of increase be found than in tills State from 1880 to 1885. In the former the assessed values amounted to $31,000,000, in the latter $70,000,000. The homestead and exemption laws are very liberal. A homestead to the extent of one hundred and sixty acres of land, or the half of one acre in any incorporate town, together with the improvements thereon and one thousand dollars worth of property, shall be exempt from forced sale under process of court."
A system of free schools is encouraged in the State. The fund derived from the sale of school lands has already reached $500,000, and yields an income of $30,000 per annum. Under the new constitution 25 per cent of the proceeds of all lands sold by the State goes to the school fund. The interest from such fund is apportioned to the various counties by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Religion is very much. favored by the laws of the State, which encourage the general observance of the Sabbath. The State is not a prohibition one, but may be classed as a temperance State. There are no saloons outside of the large Cities. A local option law is a part of the constitution.
There has been in the past two classes of writers on Florida. One saw nothing but sandy banks and marshy ponds. The other saw beauty everywhere and wrote of the majestic oak, the broad river, the calm lake, the waving moss, the creeping myrtle, the blooming magnolia and the golden orange. Like all casual observers, they looked not for the practical. It may be proper to state that in the winter months, when most people visit Florida, it is as much winter to our vegetation as the winter months are to Dakota, and many fields that are green from February to November are gathered and bare the balance of the year, but enough can be seen by those seeking for knowledge to know that this is the land of clear skies and genial atmosphere.
It is the intention of the editor to let nothing appear in these pages that practical experience will not justify, and the romantic word-painting will be left for others.