It is not to be denied that full half of the tourists and travellers
that come to Florida return intensely disappointed, and even disgusted.
Why? Evidently because Florida, like a piece of embroidery, has two
sides to it,--one side all tag-rag and thrums, without order or
position; and the other side showing flowers and arabesques and
brilliant coloring. Both these sides exist. Both are undeniable,
undisputed facts, not only in the case of Florida, but of every place
and thing under the sun. There is a right side and a wrong side to
every thing.
Now, tourists and travellers generally come with their heads full of
certain romantic ideas of waving palms, orange-groves, flowers, and
fruit, all bursting forth in tropical abundance; and, in consequence,
they go through Florida with disappointment at every step. If the banks
of the St. John's were covered with orange-groves, if they blossomed
every month in the year, if they were always loaded with fruit, if
pine-apples and bananas grew wild, if the flowers hung in festoons from
tree to tree, if the ground were enamelled with them all winter long, so
that you saw nothing else, then they would begin to be satisfied.
But, in point of fact, they find, in approaching Florida, a dead sandy
level, with patches behind them of rough coarse grass, and tall
pine-trees, whose tops are so far in the air that they seem to cast no
shade, and a little scrubby underbrush. The few houses to be seen along
the railroad are the forlornest of huts. The cattle that stray about are
thin and poverty-stricken, and look as if they were in the last
tottering stages of starvation.
Then, again, winter, in a semi-tropical region, has a peculiar desolate
untidiness, from the fact that there is none of that clearing of the
trees and shrubs which the sharp frosts of the northern regions
occasion. Here the leaves, many of them, though they have lost their
beauty, spent their strength, and run their course, do not fall
thoroughly and cleanly, but hang on in ragged patches, waiting to be
pushed off by the swelling buds of next year. In New England, Nature is
an up-and-down, smart, decisive house-mother, that has her times and
seasons, and brings up her ends of life with a positive jerk. She will
have no shilly-shally. When her time comes, she clears off the gardens
and forests thoroughly and once for all, and they are clean. Then she
freezes the ground solid as iron; and then she covers all up with a nice
pure winding-sheet of snow, and seals matters up as a good housewife
does her jelly tumblers under white-paper covers. There you are fast and
cleanly. If you have not got ready for it, so much the worse for you! If
your tender roots are not taken up, your cellar banked, your doors
listed, she can't help it: it's your own lookout, not hers.
But Nature down here is an easy, demoralized, indulgent old grandmother,
who has no particular time for any thing, and does every thing when she
happens to feel like it. "Is it winter, or isn't it?" is the question
that is likely often to occur in the settling month of December, when
everybody up North has put away summer clothes, and put all their
establishments under winter-orders.
Consequently, on arriving in mid-winter time, the first thing that
strikes the eye is the ragged, untidy look of the foliage and shrubbery.
About one-third of the trees are deciduous, and stand entirely bare of
leaves. The rest are evergreen, which by this time, having come through
the fierce heats of summer, have acquired a seared and dusky hue,
different from the vivid brightness of early spring. In the garden you
see all the half-and-half proceedings which mark the indefinite
boundaries of the season. The rose-bushes have lost about half their
green leaves. Some varieties, however, in this climate, seem to be
partly evergreen. The La Marque and the crimson rose, sometimes called
Louis Philippe, seem to keep their last year's foliage till spring
pushes it off with new leaves.
Once in a while, however, Nature, like a grandmother in a fret, comes
down on you with a most unexpected snub. You have a cold spell,--an
actual frost. During the five years in which we have made this our
winter residence, there have twice been frosts severe enough to spoil
the orange-crop, though not materially injuring the trees.
This present winter has been generally a colder one than usual; but
there have been no hurtful frosts. But one great cause of disgust and
provocation of tourists in Florida is the occurrence of these "cold
snaps." It is really amusing to see how people accustomed to the tight
freezes, the drifting snow wreaths, the stinging rain, hail, and snow,
of the Northern winter, will _take on_ when the thermometer goes down to
30 deg. or 32 deg., and a white frost is seen out of doors. They are perfectly
outraged. "_Such_ weather! If this is your Florida winter, deliver me!"
All the while they could walk out any day into the woods, as we have
done, and gather eight or ten varieties of flowers blooming in the open
air, and eat radishes and lettuce and peas grown in the garden.
Well, it is to be confessed that the cold of warm climates always has a
peculiarly aggravating effect on the mind. A warm region is just like
some people who get such a character for good temper, that they never
can indulge themselves even in an earnest disclaimer without everybody
crying out upon them, "What puts you in such a passion?" &c. So Nature,
if she generally sets up for amiability during the winter months, cannot
be allowed a little tiff now and then, a white frost, a cold rain-storm,
without being considered a monster.
It is to be confessed that the chill of warm climates, when they are
chilly, is peculiar; and travellers should prepare for it, not only in
mind, but in wardrobe, by carrying a plenty of warm clothing, and, above
all, an inestimable India-rubber bottle, which they can fill with hot
water to dissipate the chill at night. An experience of four winters
leads us to keep on about the usual winter clothing until March or
April. The first day after our arrival, to be sure, we put away all our
furs as things of the past; but we keep abundance of warm shawls, and,
above all, wear the usual flannels till late in the spring.
Invalids seeking a home here should be particularly careful to secure
rooms in which there can be a fire. It is quite as necessary as at the
North; and, with this comfort, the cold spells, few in number as they
are, can be easily passed by.
Our great feature in the Northern landscape, which one never fails to
miss and regret here, is the grass. The _nakedness_ of the land is an
expression that often comes over one. The peculiar sandy soil is very
difficult to arrange in any tidy fashion. You cannot make beds or alleys
of it: it all runs together like a place where hens have been
scratching; and consequently it is the most difficult thing in the world
to have ornamental grounds.
At the North, the process of making a new place appear neat and inviting
is very rapid. One season of grass-seed, and the thing is done. Here,
however, it is the most difficult thing in the world to get turf of any
sort to growing. The Bermuda grass, and a certain coarse, broad-leafed
turf, are the only kind that can stand the summer heat; and these never
have the beauty of well-ordered Northern grass.
Now, we have spent anxious hours and much labor over a little plot in
our back-yard, which we seeded with white clover, and which, for a time,
was green and lovely to behold; but, alas! the Scripture was too
strikingly verified: "When the sun shineth on it with a burning heat, it
withereth the grass, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth."
The fact is, that people cannot come to heartily like Florida till they
_accept_ certain deficiencies as the necessary shadow to certain
excellences. If you want to live in an orange-orchard, you must give up
wanting to live surrounded by green grass. When we get to the new heaven
and the new earth, then we shall have it all right. There we shall have
a climate at once cool and bracing, yet hot enough to mature oranges and
pine-apples. Our trees of life shall bear twelve manner of fruit, and
yield a new one every month. Out of juicy meadows green as emerald,
enamelled with every kind of flower, shall grow our golden orange-trees,
blossoming and fruiting together as now they do. There shall be no
mosquitoes, or gnats, or black-flies, or snakes; and, best of all, there
shall be no fretful people. Everybody shall be like a well-tuned
instrument, all sounding in accord, and never a semitone out of the
way.
Meanwhile, we caution everybody coming to Florida, Don't hope for too
much. Because you hear that roses and callas blossom in the open air all
winter, and flowers abound in the woods, don't expect to find an eternal
summer. Prepare yourself to see a great deal that looks rough and
desolate and coarse; prepare yourself for some chilly days and nights;
and, whatever else you neglect to bring with you, bring the resolution,
strong and solid, always to make the best of things.
For ourselves, we are getting reconciled to a sort of tumble-down, wild,
picnicky kind of life,--this general happy-go-luckiness which Florida
inculcates. If we painted her, we should not represent her as a neat,
trim damsel, with starched linen cuffs and collar: she would be a
brunette, dark but comely, with gorgeous tissues, a general disarray and
dazzle, and with a sort of jolly untidiness, free, easy, and joyous.
The great charm, after all, of this life, is its outdoorness. To be able
to spend your winter out of doors, even though some days be cold; to be
able to sit with windows open; to hear birds daily; to eat fruit from
trees, and pick flowers from hedges, all winter long,--is about the
whole of the story. This you can do; and this is why Florida is life and
health to the invalid.
We get every year quantities of letters from persons of small fortunes,
asking our advice whether they had better move to Florida. For our part,
we never advise people to _move_ anywhere. As a general rule, it is the
person who feels the inconveniences of a present position, so as to want
to move, who will feel the inconvenience of a future one. Florida has a
lovely winter; but it has also three formidable summer months, July,
August, and September, when the heat is excessive, and the liabilities
of new settlers to sickness so great, that we should never wish to take
the responsibility of bringing anybody here. It is true that a very
comfortable number of people do live through them; but still it is not a
joke, by any means, to move to a new country. The first colony in New
England lost just half its members in the first six months. The rich
bottom-lands around Cincinnati proved graves to many a family before
they were brought under cultivation.
But Florida is peculiarly adapted to the needs of people who can afford
two houses, and want a refuge from the drain that winter makes on the
health. As people now have summer-houses at Nahant or Rye, so they
might, at a small expense, have winter-houses in Florida, and come here
and be at home. That is the great charm,--to be at home. A house here
can be simple and inexpensive, and yet very charming. Already, around us
a pretty group of winter-houses is rising: and we look forward to the
time when there shall be many more; when, all along the shore of the St.
John's, cottages and villas shall look out from the green trees.
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