of Hand Art and Taste. 



243 



Fruits in Florida. 



BV OLIVER TATLOK. 



THIS morning at sun-up the thermometer 

 marked 48, and corn is in tassel ; cucum- 

 bers and squashes in use, and yesterday a hail- 

 storm occurred, with hail as large as one's 

 little finger-end ; and one night last week it 

 rained as if it were being poured out — such a 

 rain as seldom occurs North, yet before that it 

 was too diy for Irish potatoes to keep alive in 

 this land. This is the climate, too, where 

 some knowing ones, with many years' observa- 

 tion, suppose and imagine, in the face of the 

 experiments of thousands of old cultivators of 

 the soil, that figs can be successfully dried for 

 commerce, and packed fit to eat, without pre- 

 serving ; that the foreign grape can live and 

 produce a paying crop ; that peaches can be 

 raised successfully, as well as pineapples, 

 coffee and many other such things. It seems 

 to be impossible to convey to the ignorant 

 how much moisture the air of Florida con- 

 tains, and what peculiar effect it has upon 

 vegetation. The soil of Florida in many 

 places could not support the growth there is 

 on it, was it not in an atmosphere charged 

 with so much wet. This wetness completely 

 prevents the fig from maturing, so as to make 

 dried figs for commerce. Grapes are so 

 affected by it that they fail to do well, either 

 in growing wood regularly or ripening fruit. 

 Any gardener knows well the foreign grape 

 does not thrive well in an undrained soil, and 

 there are times in Florida when all the soil is : 

 loaded with water, and after such times the 

 vines that have borne two or three crops die 

 to the ground. Peaches are so uncertain 

 south of Palatka, that it does not pay to raise { 

 them ; also apricots and nectarines ; and near 

 the coast north the fruit ripens very uneyen, 

 and the trees soon die with the roots very 

 knotty. Some had them on the plain to 

 avoid that effect. 



There is one orange tree irj this tqwn, only 

 four inches high, that came frqm seed since 



Christmas, and it bloomed and sot fruit. I 

 went to see it last week, and the fruit was 

 then the size of a pea of small size. Anotlicr 

 in the lot bloomed, but did not set fruit. I 

 grew an Oleander from seed last year, that 

 bloomed before it was six months old. I tell 

 these things to show how different plants do 

 in different climes. 

 I Much moisture in the air, and a poor, wet, 

 sandy soil enable many flowers and vegetables 

 to grow flowers well, but fail to produce fruit. 

 This is manifested by the tomato, as the Tro- 

 phy, if planted from the finest specimens pos- 

 sible, will not have fruit the next year much 

 over one inch through. That vegetables can 

 be grown on the St. John's at Lake Monroe, 

 and shipped North, so as to pay expenses, no 

 one need to hope, as the first cargo or lot sent 

 by the boat is all that pays to ship, and the 

 remainder of the crop is wasted. 



I wish to inform Al Fresco that I had my 

 first summer at a spot between Entei'prise and 

 Eaton's grove ; and I would inform him that 

 the next grove below was thrown out for want 

 of a tenant, and also that some of the largest 

 trees in Eaton's grove have died since then by 

 the rise in the river. I also tried another 

 summer at the settlement of Sand Point, and 

 there tried faithfully to cultivate a large gar- 

 den on the edge of the noted TurubuU's 

 swamp. I also put in several thousand orange 

 buds in a grove ten miles south of Cape Can- 

 averal, and contemplated purchasing one of 

 Capt. Burnham's groves. I was tpld, before 

 I went to Indian River, that I would find rich 

 hammock land there, as rich as anywhere else. 

 Such statements are utterly untrue, and their 

 circulation a cruel \Yrong. One hogshead of 

 sugar per acre cannot as easily be raised in 

 the richest of these hammocks as two can in 

 Lquisiana, according to the statements of those 

 persons who have tried both, and then the 

 crop cannot be repeated on the same land in 

 Florida, 



Will Al Fresco please remember that the 

 grape he so much recommends does not ripen 

 its crop all on one day or one \Yeek, but gradu- 

 ally, and when ripe, they fall pff and leave the 

 green ones behind ; therefore his process for 



