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4 Easy Life in Florida. The third letter of the series, writ ten by W. C. to the Farmer’s Home Journal,'is as follows: - - This is Christmas morning, and it is one to match one in the “Penerile” A.-- of old Kentucky. Fine oranges ripe and golden hang on the green-leaved trees and fragrant flowers have their bright places in the garden, yet there is frost in the air and ice on the wa ter. As the enemy sowed tares in the night, so has he 1 breathed his breath of frost over this fair land of flowers and fruits. True, this flowery land appears to be born out of sea son, yet a kind Providence is dis posed to give her a summer at a winter time when flowers bloom and fruits ripen, but as brambles grow in gardens and tares in wheat, so must this floral land receive its portion of the great transgression when red sour apples were mistaken for golden, and cheat mistaken for wheat. So the world started and so it has continued to wag and wax old, if not wise. All nature has its ups and downs in sea sons and lands and persons. The rea sons are not known in finite wisdom if there is such. It is idle and sense less to ask questions about a million things of mystery that we know not of, for they are all hidden within the veil of the eternal counsel and wis dom of the unknown eternity, or, as we may say, time without limit, or an eternity without beginning or end ing. But now, let us come down to soil sand and see where and what we are at. Florida is truly a land of sun shine and flowers and fruits. If these products fail, great is the fail thereof. The golden fruit of the tropics is the fortune of Folorida, aided by the vegetables and berries of the sand lands. Florida is no poor State and will never be. The longer the State lives the richer and more fruitful she will be. She may be deficient in soil to start with, but she has a wealth of climate that is a panacea to half the ills that half of the human beings are heir to. There is no danger of any man going hungry in this State if he will only work a little, and fish and hunt the rest of the time. There is not a district in the Union where a man can live easier than in Florida; that is, if he just wants to live and do nothing else. But of course, he has to put himself on the grade of a coon or a catamount, and catch what comes. To do this he only wants a “shack” of poles and palmetto fans, and a gun and fish hook and line, re enforced by a little patch of sweet potatoes, planted once in four years, a dozen orange trees, four cows on the range, giving a quart of milk a day, and a dog. The man so fixed is in a good fix, and can raise more and better children than ’anybody else, never to become dudes or deadbeats. W. C., Late from the Penerile of Old Kentucky. Florida’s Opportunity. In- looking over the tables of farm products, the value of corn, cotton, hay, tobacco, sugar, potatoes, etc., there is a convincing argument there that the future greatness of Florida lies in the more intensive cultivation of her soil. If, added to her market gardening and her oranges there were added the per cent of agricultural crops raised jn some of the other States, she would become the wealthiest State in point of agriculture and hor-, ticulture in the Union. The field for a part in the greatest crop of the country, that of corn, is a wide one in this State as is the field for a part in the second, that of cot ton. Sugar holds out to her perhaps the most tempting proposition of all when taken hold of properly, and to bacco is not far behind. Intelligence and persistency, added industry, will one day bring it to pass.—-Reporter Star. Success of Two Floridians. The Punto Gorda Herald tells of the success that has been acheived by two fruit growers. “What man has done man can do.” But success depends not only on good location but on the man himself. Some nine years ago, Capt. Chas. G. Davis of Punta Gorda, and Maj. W. G. Welles, of Nocatee, bought a tract of forty acres of land at Owens near Nocatee, paying S9OO for the same. On the land was a two-acre seedling orange grove of eighty trees, which had been abandoned and was in dilapidated condition. The new own ers immediately began a system of judicious and vigorous cultivation, with the result that the eighty trees yielded 400 boxes of oranges the first year and afterwards paid for all the expense of cultivation. Six years ago, an adjoining tract of land was bought and thirty-five acres were set in grapefruit and fancy varieties of oranges. From this en larged grove, up to the holidays just passed, Messrs. Davis and Welles had shipped 1,000 boxes of grapefruit and 2,000 boxes of oranges, leaving at least 1,000 boxes of fancy late or anges on the trees. As an evidence of the prolific yield of the trees, it may be stated that one grapefruit tree, six years old, yielded this season fifteen boxes, while six others in the same row produced a total crop of sixty-six boxes. The crops, of course, will continue to increase in size until the owners have a princely income; in fact their present income from the grove may be fairly estimated at $5,000 a year and in five years from now it will be double that sum. Reckoning the cost of cultivation at 25 per cent., the net balance will be amply sufficient to keep the wolf from the door. This grove, it may be remarked, was not injured by the recent frosts and the fruit left on the trees was not damaged at all. Florida’s Orange Crop. The orange crop just marketed in Florida was the finest since the freeze ' of 1894, an d of exceptional quality, and was sold at good prices in the markets and brought our growers lots of money. The freeze didn’t do the damage to the remaining portion of the crop on the trees, about one fourth, as was at first thought. This fruit is going into market in fair j condition, and selling at good prices. | Of course some of the remaining; fruit was not injured at all, and this will not be shipped yet. —DeLand', Record. ‘ j | When the year’s accounts are all I in and ready to figure, don’t forget | to give credit to the good wife, sons | and daughters, for the excellent work! they have done toward helping to keep the balance on the right fide of the page.—-Farm Journal. THE FLORIDA AGRICULTURIST. Tomato Profits in Florida. * A Florida correspondent of the Ru ral new Yorker says: The Rev. E. V. Blackman, of Mi ami, states in print that he rented to Frank Cobb four acres of land. Mr. Cobb planted the ground with toma toes, and reported that he cleared $2,500. P. Hansen, of Dania, sent an itemized statement showing a net profit of $11.99 from three acres, with returns not all in, and A. C. Frost from one and One-half acres of tomatoes cleared $765. The writer is personally acquainted with Mr. Black man and saw those four acres last February and does not doubt the truth of the statement as to the net result. The R. N.-Y. will no doubt hesitate to publish accounts so apt to induce people to rush away to Florida to engage in such highly lu crative tomato farming.. To all such the writer says “go slow.” Success everywhere depends first of all upon the man. The railroad and those who have land to sell want you to succeed, and if it isn’t in you and you haven’t a little capital to start they do not want you to try. The easy jobs and the big fortunes that are thought to grow on every bush invariably attract the lazy and incompetent but if you want a mild climate and have money enough to turn yourself and are wil ling to work, then go down and look into the matter, and if you like the looks of it tackle it, roll up your sleeves and pitch in with all your might- of mind and muscle; you are likely to win. E. M. Waddell, vice-president of the First National Bank, Miami, says in the conclusion of an excellent publish ed article lauding the Miami section: “Now, while I am here to answer for any statement made, over my own signature after the glowing account I have given you of this section, I still advise any persons making a good liv ing, with a comfortable home and all his friends around him, no sickness in his family, to stay where he is, for this is always a good rule. Should you be so unfortunate as for any member of your family to require a mild, healthful, tropical climate I would advise your visiting this section before locating. Mr. Waddell is one of the first comers to Miami, and has boomed the section as perhaps no other man has done. He believes in its superior advantages, and yet the extract given plainly shows the com mendable consideration and caution of the man. Florida for the Consumptive. An editorial, from the Reporter- Star, states some indisputable facts. There is no doubt that hundreds of people have been greatly benefited by coming to Florida. We often think that the benefit is more from being out in the open air, and thus having better aid to breathe, than it is from any actual benefit caused by the cli mate. If consumptives live right they are cured. Fresh aid and proper food, properly cooked and eaten, are worth more than anything else in cur ing consumption. We think that the idea of sanitariums is a good one. Something of the kind should be pro vided, now that so many are afraid to have consumptives in the house where they board. The editor al referred to says: The climate of the State of Florida has been heralded forth all. over the country as a sure cure for consump- tion and every winter perhaps thou sands of poor suffering consumptives hurry to the State hoping for that sure cure they have been made to be lieve there is kept in stock for their benefit. In many cases disreputable physicians send their patients to Florida as “a last resort” when they want to get rid of them and have them die off their hands. And these terribly afflicted people come to Florida only to die away off from friends and often without the ordi nary comforts so necessary in their last hours. It is a pitiable thing to see these poor doomed people walk the streets or carried from the cars to some boarding house and realize that some one is responsible for the awful lie being practiced on them. Florida climate has in it curable elements for cases not too far gone. Many persons who now make their home here would have died long ago had they not escaped from the harsh er climate of the north. If those suf fering with this dread disease could make the change in time and in most cases resolved to make this their home a compartive cure could almost be guaranteed. But the time is at hand when for the good of these patients and the actual safety of the people of the State they should be isolated from the crowded towns and encouraged to live in locations suited to their condition where they would have the freedom of the open air treatment at its best. Sanitariums should be provided in the open pine woods or widely separ ated cottages where the patient would be able to receive the full benefit of the virtue there is in the climate* without the danger of spreading the disease among the people who are glad to have them come and secure the Florida cure. It is a pity to have these suffering folks come into a town and find the hotels and boarding houses refuse to accept them, as is now the case in many instances. We picture to ourselves how it might be in our case if in that condition, but this could easily be remedied by lo cating them in places best for the cure of the disease and by encourag ing those who are affected but slight ly to live a free and open air life. Prices Since the Freeze. Here are some of the prices re ceived by Volusia orange growers and shipperg this week for fruit, picked, packed and shipped to market since the freeze, which proves that the fruit was not so badly injured after all: G. A. Dreka had a car of 300 boxes which sold for $2.19 per box; Judge Stewart’s sold for $2.50 and $3.00, and Mr. Pelton, of Lake Helen, and Mr. A. B. Prevatt, of Seville, got as good returns, and most of the fruit, sent after the freeze, sold at about these figures.—DeLand Record. Good Advice. In purchasing fruit trees, patronize firms of established reputation. If you purchase a watch and it fails to keep time, you have only lost amount of the purchase price. If you buy a fruit tree and it proves to be worthless, you have lost not only the purchase price but the use of the land it encumbers and your time and labor spent in bringing the tree to the age of fruitage. Again we say, buy fruit trees of reliable nurserymen.—Farm Stock Journal.