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VOL. XXXIV No 31. Orange Culture. The editor of the Tampa Times gives expression to his views on or ange culture. It is one of the most sensible articles on the subject that we have ever seen. He does not, as so many do, limit the orange belt to South Florida. He recommends the lake region and the banks of large running streams. This agrees with our claim that on the east bank of the St. Johns river, within 22 miles of Jacksonville, may be found good orange groves bearing profitable crops. On the whole we do not find anything to criticize in the article, which is as follows: There is nothing more certain than that the cloud under which the culti vation of the orange just now lies in the public mind is undeserved. It is true there have been some cold nips, some dry spells, some groves neglect ed and some utterly abandoned. But there are many groves which have been skilfully and painstakingly at tended to and which are paying bigger profits than ever. The problem needs investigation and discussion. We ven ture as a starter that the same energy and trouble given to orange culture as to the average business in which men engage would result in an almost universal success. If a man will find a suitable loca tion, set his trees right, cultivate and fertilize them properly, attend to them at every stage of their growth, supply them with water when they need it, he is sure to succeed and make money as in any other business in the world. There are reasons for believing that the lake regions of Florida possess advantages for orange growing that ought to be taken into consideration. They furnish a larger proportion of the hammock land which gives smooth skin, brilliant color and early ripening. They afford a better protection in winter, by reason of the thicker wind breaks and the modification of the cold by the influence of the waters. These are important factors, and are sufficient to make the difference very often between profit and loss. Less danger from cold, less fertilizer nec essary, a more beautiful, salable and early ripening friut —these are the ad vantages claimed by people who grow oranges in the lake region and in the vicinity of large running streams. Of one thing we are very well as sured, and it is that careful selection of land and varieties, abundance of water in the dry season, regular and careful cultivation, the application in plenty of the right kinds of fertilizer, careful disposition of the product—in short, the same careful handling of the business a man gives to selling goods or sawing lumber —will restore orange growing to the rank, of the most pleasant and profitable industry in the state of Florida. This is a view of the subject which should be vigor ously pushed in this state. Leesburg is situated near the center of the peninsular part of Florida. Its latitude is 29 degrees north, and its longitude 5 degrees west of Washing ton. It is almost due south of Jackson ville, and distant from that city 130 miles by the Seabord Air Line Railway and 156 miles by the Atlantic Coast Line road. From Tampa it is eighty miles JHbBM I .' - ' ■ :S^P’iMMMI %' m £Hijsi&sil jlp^ MSf JsHfl£Og|J&3 mgm - flfcpaflfcl SHt ■ 4 Hto||jßl: ||Siß mmm ' • ™™ i r ' rtisV ?■ ■ > ' i^*K ' : " V - 4 ,?: . -v-.■ --"V ■.■-'■■ - ' '^te(^|P north. It is also about midway be tween the Atlantic ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.- In location it has such a combination of favorable conditions as are to be found in only a few places. Central and elevated, the waters from this vicinity flow to both the Atlantic and the Gulf. Being midway between these two great waters, it is so for- /•Jessys-;, o v - .•&;<*MsriHj(Wl| -jfjHHNHHfIMf :' . . ' •' tunate as to escape the storms of both and yet it is in touch with the refresh ing breezes of both. Though so far inland, the abundant, beautiful lakes give off and attract moisture with such uniformity as to render the vicinity immune from the intense cold of win ter and the intense heat of summer, making it a desirable climate for res idence in all seasons, It is also in Jacksonville, Fla., Wednesday, July 31, 1907. Leesburg, Lake County By Chas. B Hulett. one of the famous lake regions of Florida, have Lake Harris immediate ly on the south and Lake Griffin on the northeast, with many other beauti ful lakes not far away. Lake Harris was formerly known by the Indian name of Astatula, meaning Lake of Sunbeams. It is a magnificent sheet of water, eight miles wide and sixteen Business Corner. miles long. Its waters are deep, its banks are high and the scenery around it is enchanting. Lake Griffin is from five to twelve miles in diameter. Its water is deep and the lands around it are fertile and productive. Yachts and steamers of larger size for both pleasure and business are usually found on both Lake Harris and Griffin. Hotel in Leesburg. Population and Character of People. The population of Leesburg is about i ; 200. Its people are intelligent, pro gressive and liberal. Strangers, visit ors or settlers from any State or coun try will receive courteous attention and honest assistance in whatever they are seeking to find. (Continued on second . page.) Hunting the World Over to Find Florida. V. P. Simmons, a resident of the lake region of Polk county, con tributes the following interesting statement to the Bartow Courier-In formant: “Our Northern friends often en quire, “what are the inducements of Florida farming? I have passed the three score and ten years’ mark. Mine has been a checkered life—hav ing lived under five national flags— and in something like thirty states and territories in the United States. Mine has not been quite the experiences of Daniel De Foe, whose poem on his ups and downs of life began, “Thirteen times rich and thirteen times poor;” yet ours is our fourth start in the world, and the best of the four, and that, too, since we passed the fifty years’ land mark. “From being a mechanic, sailor, soldier and gold miner of the Rocky Mountains, in the early seventies, I married and settled down upon a Connecticut farm. For thirteen sea sons wife and myself worked early and late, often even in the longest days in the summer, lighting up at both ends of the day for labor—wife teaching school in addition to the household and dairy work, fruit picking and packing. Sometimes of a morning sorting and packing about a hundred baskets of strawberries, then riding two miles to her school, to get there a little past Ba. m. Ours was a fruit farm, we grew apples, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, nectarines, quinces, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, gooseber ries, currants and grapes, turning every year hundreds of dollars’ worth of fruit into money, besides our regu lar farm products. While on the out side I earned as much more on the road selling fruit and ornamental trees, plants, etc. “During all these years our mort gage, cost of help, improvements, etc,, was fully two dollars a day. Having reduced our mortgage a thousand dollars, set a thousand new fruit trees, improved our buildings, we lost by two freeze-outs fully two thousand dollars and broken in health, gave the place up to the mortgagee, and with an aged father, four small children, my wife and myself started for Flori da. We brought up in Polk county, March 4, 1895. With our poor health and struggles to settle a homestead, it was fully three years before we were able to own a cow. Well, here we are now comfortably situated at Frost Proof, near Lake Clinch, with a good home and nearly a thousand fruit trees. We are growing grapefruit, oranges, limes, kumquats, peaches, pears, plums, Japan persimmons, lo quats, lemons, guavas, grapes, pine apples, etc., working only half the hours a day we worked in cold, rocky New England, with no mortgage, .no doctor’s bills, no freeze-outs, enjoying Established 1874.