May 2.
We have before us a neat little pile of what we call "Palmetto
letters,"--responses to our papers from all States in the Union. Our
knowledge of geography has really been quite brightened by the effort to
find out where all our correspondents are living. Nothing could more
mark the exceptional severity of the recent winter than the bursts of
enthusiasm with which the tidings of flowers and open-air freedom in
Florida have come to those struggling through snow-drifts and
hail-storms in the more ungenial parts of our Union. Florida seems to
have risen before their vision as the hymn sings of better shores:--
"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wistful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land."
Consequently, the letters of inquiry have come in showers. What is the
price of land? Where shall we go? How shall we get there? &c.
We have before advertised you, O beloved unknown! who write, that your
letters are welcome, ofttimes cheering, amusing, and undeniably nice
letters; yet we cannot pledge ourselves to answer, except in the gross,
and through "The Christian Union." The last inquiry is from three
brothers, who want to settle and have homes together at the South. They
ask, "Is there government land that can be had in Florida?" Yes, there
is a plenty of it; yet, as Florida is the oldest settled State in the
Union, and has always been a sort of bone for which adventurers have
wrangled, the best land in it has been probably taken up. We do not
profess to be land-agents; and we speak only for the tract of land lying
on the St. John's River, between Mandarin and Jacksonville, when we say
that there are thousands of acres of good land, near to a market, near
to a great river on which three or four steamboats are daily plying,
that can be had for five dollars per acre, and for even less than that.
Fine, handsome building-lots in the neighborhood of Jacksonville are
rising in value, commanding much higher prices than the mere productive
value of the land. In other words, men pay for advantages, for society,
for facilities afforded by settlements.
Now, for the benefit of those who are seriously thinking of coming to
Florida, we have taken some pains to get the practical experience of men
who are now working the land, as to what it will do. On the 2d of May,
we accepted the invitation of Col. Hardee to visit his pioneer nursery,
now in the fourth year of its existence. Mr. Hardee is an enthusiast in
his business; and it is a department where we are delighted to see
enthusiasm. The close of the war found him, as he said, miserably poor.
But, brave and undiscouraged, he retained his former slaves as free
laborers; took a tract of land about a mile and a half from
Jacksonville; put up a house; cleared, planted, ploughed, and digged:
and, in the course of four years, results are beginning to tell
handsomely, as they always do for energy and industry. He showed us
through his grounds, where every thing was growing at the rate things do
grow here in the month of May. Two things Mr. Hardee seems to have
demonstrated: first, that strawberry-culture may be a success in
Florida; and, second, that certain varieties of Northern apples and
pears may be raised here. We arrived in Florida in the middle of
January; and one of the party who spent a night at the St. James was
surprised by seeing a peck of fresh, ripe strawberries brought in. They
were from Mr. Hardee's nursery, and grown in the open air; and he
informed us that they had, during all the winter, a daily supply of the
fruit, sufficient for a large family, and a considerable overplus for
the market. The month of May, however, is the height of the season; and
they were picking, they informed us, at the rate of eighty quarts per
day.
In regard to apples and pears, Mr. Hardee's method is to graft them upon
the native hawthorn; and the results are really quite wonderful. Mr.
Hardee was so complaisant as to cut and present to us a handsome cluster
of red Astrachan apples about the size of large hickory nuts, the result
of the second year from the graft. Several varieties of pears had made a
truly astonishing growth, and promise to fruit, in time, abundantly. A
large peach-orchard presented a show of peaches, some of the size of a
butternut, and some of a walnut. Concerning one which he called the
Japan peach, he had sanguine hope of ripe fruit in ten days. We were not
absolute in the faith as to the exact date, but believe that there will
undoubtedly be ripe peaches there before the month of May is out. Mr.
Hardee is particularly in favor of cultivating fruit in partially-shaded
ground. Most of these growths we speak of were under the shade of large
live-oaks; but when he took us into the wild forest, and showed us
peach, orange, and lemon trees set to struggle for existence on the
same footing, and with only the same advantages, as the wild denizens of
the forest, we rather demurred. Was not this pushing theory to extremes?
Time will show.
Col. Hardee has two or three native seedling peaches grown in Florida,
of which he speaks highly,--Mrs. Thompson's Golden Free, which commences
ripening in June, and continues till the first of August; the "Cracker
Cart," very large, weighing sometimes thirteen ounces; the Cling Yellow;
and the Japan, very small and sweet, ripening in May.
Besides these, Mr. Hardee has experimented largely in vines, in which he
gives preference to the Isabella, Hartford Prolific, and Concord.
He is also giving attention to roses and ornamental shrubbery. What
makes the inception of such nurseries as Mr. Hardee's a matter of
congratulation is that they furnish to purchasers things that have been
proved suited to the climate and soil of Florida. Peach-trees, roses,
and grapes, sent from the North, bring here the habit of their Northern
growth, which often makes them worthless. With a singular stubbornness,
they adhere to the times and seasons to which they have been accustomed
farther North. We set a peach-orchard of some four hundred trees which
we obtained from a nursery in Georgia. We suspect now, that, having a
press of orders, our nurseryman simply sent us a packet of trees from
some Northern nursery. The consequence is, that year after year, when
all nature about them is bursting into leaf and blossom, when peaches of
good size gem the boughs of Florida trees, our peach-orchard stands
sullen and leafless; nor will it start bud or blossom till the time for
peaches to start in New York. The same has been our trouble with some
fine varieties of roses which we took from our Northern grounds. As yet,
they are hardly worth the ground they occupy; and whether they ever
will do any thing is a matter of doubt. Meanwhile we have only to ride a
little way into the pine-woods to see around many a rustic cabin a
perfect blaze of crimson roses and cluster roses, foaming over the
fences in cascades of flowers. These are Florida roses, born and bred;
and this is the way they do with not one tithe of the work and care that
we have expended on our poor Northern exiles. Mr. Hardee, therefore, in
attempting the pioneer nursery of Florida, is doing a good thing for
every new-comer; and we wish him all success. As a parting present, we
received a fine summer squash, which, for the first of May, one must
admit is good growth. And now, for the benefit of those who may want to
take up land in Florida, we shall give the experience of some friends
and neighbors of ours who have carried through about as thorough and
well-conducted an experiment as any; and we give it from memoranda which
they have kindly furnished, in the hope of being of use to other
settlers.
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