GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AND BOUNDARIES OF FLORIDA--AREA AND
POPULATION--INDIANS IN FLORIDA--CLIMATE, SOIL, AND PRODUCTIONS--THE
RAINY SEASON--FLORIDA AS A HEALTH RESORT--CLASSIFICATION OF
LANDS--SCHOOL SYSTEM AND CHURCHES--SWAMP LANDS SOLD TO
DISSTON--RELIGION IN FLORIDA.
Florida lies between the degrees of twenty-five and thirty-one north
latitude, and eighty to eighty-eight west longitude from Greenwich. The
northern boundary being nearly three hundred and fifty miles from east
to west, and its length from north to south, nearly four hundred miles.
It is in the same latitude as Central Arabia, Northern Hindostan, the
Desert of Sahara, the northern portion of Burmah, the southern part of
China and Northern Mexico. The average width of the peninsula is about
eighty miles, and every part is fanned by either the Trade or Gulf
winds, rendering the air delightfully pleasant in midsummer. The most
marked geographical feature of the State is the enormous extent of
coastline--the Atlantic and Gulf exceeding eleven hundred miles, with
numerous large bays, offering great facilities for commercial
intercourse. 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. The southern
portion of the State is at this time a vast cattle range, embracing
thousands of acres on which a surveyor's chain has never fallen.
In 1860, the population of Florida was 140,000; in 1880, it was 267,000,
and at this time, it is probably in round numbers 300,000. When the vast
area of the State, sixty thousand square miles, comprising nearly
thirty-eight million acres of land, is taken into consideration, it will
be seen that we are not badly crowded. The sale by Governor Bloxham of
four million acres of "swamp land" to the Disston and Anglo-German
syndicates is a mere bagatelle.
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; and
I do not think I elongate the truth when I say, that in point of size
our alligators, mosquitoes, and grasshoppers will compare favorably with
those of any other country. Our frogs are also as sprightly as Mark
Twain's "jumping frog of the Calaveras." Our cucumbers, tomatoes,
snap-beans, squashes, and cabbages reach the cities of the North and
West three months in advance of any other State of the Union.
If there is one thing above all others of which we feel justly proud, it
is our superb climate. 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?"
A remnant of the once warlike Creeks and Seminoles--scarcely two hundred
souls, including males, squaws, and papooses--still have an abiding
place on the Caloosahatchee, the Kissimmee, and in the Big Cypress
Swamp, south of Lake Okeechobee. They are peaceably disposed, and only
mingle with the whites when they visit the country stores to dispose of
their peltry and game and replenish their ammunition. Chipco and the
elder Tigertail, two of their former chiefs, have been called to the
"happy hunting-grounds" during the past two years. The former was a
centenarian, having attained the green old age of one hundred and ten
years. He participated in the Dade massacre, near Brooksville, in 1835.
The latter died by the visitation of God, having been killed by
lightning while crossing the Kissimmee in his canoe. The Indians have
several negro slaves in their secluded camps, who have never been
informed that the Emancipation Proclamation of the martyred Lincoln
loosened their shackles and made them free men.
The questions are frequently asked: "What crops can you raise in
Florida? What can be grown on your soil?" The agricultural,
horticultural, and pomological products of Florida are more varied than
those of any other State of the Union. The northern, northeastern, and
northwestern parts of the State, as well as Middle Florida, are
admirably adapted to the cultivation of oats, barley, corn, Irish
potatoes, cotton, and tobacco. At the Atlanta Exposition, two years ago,
Florida was awarded the first premium for sea island cotton, rice, and
sugar. 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. 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. The
introduction of jute and Sisal hemp, in the near future, will also add
materially to the wealth of the southern counties of the State. The
flat prairie and swamp lands, now considered almost worthless for
agricultural purposes, will then blossom as the rose.
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; but, as a general rule, the seasons are regular
and well adapted to all the valuable staples of the country. Frequent
showers occur during the spring and early summer, and about the first of
July the rainy season fairly sets in and continues until the first of
October. Although rain falls on nearly every day during this season, it
seldom ever rains all day. These rains fall in heavy showers, generally
accompanied by thunder and lightning, but are seldom of more than two
hours' duration. They generally occur early in the afternoon, leaving
for the balance of the day a cloudless sky and a delightfully cool
atmosphere. 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. The report of the Surgeon General of the United
States Army, demonstrates the fact that diseases which result from
malaria are of a much milder type in Florida than in any other part of
the United States. Among the troops serving in Florida, the number of
deaths to the number of cases of remittent fever has been much less than
in any other portion of the Union. In the Middle Division of the United
States, the proportion is one death to thirty-six cases of remittent
fever; in the Northern Division, one to fifty-two; in the Southern
Division, one to fifty-four; in Texas, one in seventy-eight; in
California, one in one hundred and twenty-two; in New Mexico, one in one
hundred and forty-eight; while in Florida, it is but _one in two hundred
and eighty-seven_. As a health resort for invalids suffering from
pulmonary complaints, Florida stands pre-eminent. Her invigorating,
balsamic breezes, with healing on their wings, soon banish the hectic
flush from the cheek of the invalid, and health and strength return once
more to cheer and gladden the hearts of despairing friends.
A description of Florida lands published by Dr. Byrne in 1860 applies
with equal truthfulness at the present time. In every State and
Territory in the Union there is a large proportion of barren and poor
lands, but the ratio of these lands differ greatly in the different
States. Florida has a due proportion of poor lands, but compared with
other States, the ratio of her _barren_ and _worthless_ lands is very
small. With the exception of the Everglades and her irreclaimable swamp
lands, there is scarcely an acre in the whole State of Florida that is
entirely worthless, or which cannot be made, under her tropical climate,
tributary to some agricultural production. 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. So it is
with jute and numerous other valuable tropical products that are adapted
to the lands that in more northern climates would yield nothing to
agriculture. Besides this, there are in Florida no mountain wastes, and
most of the land not under cultivation is covered with valuable timber.
The classification of lands in common use being based on their elevation
and the character of their vegetable growth, does not indicate very
fully the character of the soil. There are the hammock, pine, and swamp
lands. Then there is the high or light hammock, and the low or heavy
hammock. Of pine lands, there are the first, second, and third rate. The
characteristic of hammock land as distinguished from pine is in the fact
of its being covered with a growth of underbrush and vines, while the
pine lands are open. Whenever, then, the land is not so low as to be
called swamp, and produces an undergrowth of shrubbery, it is called
hammock.
The school lands of Florida--five hundred and seventy thousand
acres--are subject to entry at from one dollar and twenty-five cents to
seven dollars per acre, according to quality and location. The swamp
lands--eight and a half million acres--belonging to the State on the 1st
of May, 1882, are graded in price according to the number of acres,
varying from one dollar per acre for a tract of forty acres down to
seventy-five to seventy cents per acre for tracts of six hundred and
forty acres and over. The Disston Syndicate paid twenty-five cents
per acre for four million acres of swamp land, in bodies of ten thousand
acres each. The commutation price of United States lands is one dollar
and twenty-five cents per acre. Unimproved lands in the hands of private
parties are selling at from five to fifteen dollars per acre; improved
land at from twenty to fifty dollars per acre, the value depending on
location, latitude, improvements, etc. There are also large tracts of
land in Florida known as "Spanish grants," which are chiefly owned by
non-residents, and which can be purchased at reasonable prices.
[Illustration: SCENE IN A SOUTH FLORIDA HAMMOCK--_Page 28._]
Governor Bloxham recently stated that the present financial condition of
Florida is a fit subject for congratulation. There is at all times money
in the Treasury to pay accrued liabilities, while the amount of the
bonded debt is only one and a quarter millions, and the assessed value
of the property of the State is thirty-seven millions. The condition of
our public schools is decidedly progressive. There are at this time over
twelve hundred schools in the State, and last year a fund of $139,000
was raised to support them.
Places of worship may be found in all our settlements; not gorgeous
edifices, with steeples and spires pointing heavenward, but
unpretentious and comfortable structures, in which all denominations of
Christians assemble to worship God according to the dictates of their
own consciences. The Methodists are the most numerous. Next in point of
numbers, the Baptists of different grades of shell, from hard to soft,
may be enumerated. Then come the Presbyterians, Episcopalians,
Campbellites, and Catholics, with a slight sprinkling of other
denominations by way of variety. 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.
The Fountain of Youth, sought for in vain by Ponce de Leon three hundred
and seventy years ago, is in Florida. Time has not dried up the source
of its health-giving, its life-giving, waters. They flow as of yore, and
every one who thirsteth can partake of them freely. Invalids and
pleasure-seekers find it in our glorious climate, in our invigorating
breezes, which blow as soft and balmy as those from Ceylon's isle; in
our beautiful flowers and almost perpetual verdure, and in the total
absence of the chilling winds and frosts of the North and West, which
render life almost unendurable. 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; the stately magnolias and
graceful palms lock hands in our hammocks and wave their evergreen
foliage as a token of welcome to immigrants, and wild flowers gladden
the eye and perfume the air with their fragrance.