- 
Remarks upon East Florida. 
but only partially injured the orange. There were trees st 
in 1835, more than a century old. ty 
This calamitous event, besides destroying one of | 1e prir 
sources of revenue of St. Augustine, divested the place 
chief ornament. Each lot became, as it were, denuded of 
drapery, which had been thrown over every building, high and 
low, giving them all a borrowed beauty. A person who was ab- 
sent at the time of the frost, in revisiting the place, could scarcely 
recognize the most familiar scenes, their aspect was so entirely 
changed. It takes about seven years to renew the orange tree 
toa bearing State. 
Cotton and sugar grow well in Florida, but silk will probably 
be the staple of yet country after a few years. - The mulberry 
tree, multicaulis, &c., grow there with a vigor and luxuriance 
that have no parallel in the United States. More than eight 
months in the year afford a fullness of food for the worms. 
_ The soil of Florida wears a forbidding aspect. Sandy barrens 
form the principal part of the surface. Hammock land, that 
which bears the oak, maple, and other “ hard woods,” and which 
e richer and more productive parts, constitutes but a small 
‘ion. But the sands of Florida are but in part siliceous. 
They are probably for the most part comminuted shells or lime- 
stone. Hence they have a degree of fertility which often sur- 
ises those who undertake their cultivation. The surface, 
ver, is so level, that it is liable to the extremes of drought 
a iramedeitionic In riding from the St. John’s to St. Augustine, 
a ditties of eighteen miles, the road will be found, after a mod- 
erate rain, one half or two thirds under water, which is carried 
- off more by evaporation than by subsidence 5 and this is a mangle 
of the country in. general. — i 
_ The yellow pine, Pinus palisttis, is a conspicuous tree in Flor 
ida, both on account of its lofty symmetry, and its adaptation to 
many useful purposes. It affords tar and turpentine in inexhaust- 
ible abundance, and is an equally inexhaustible material for lum- 
ber. Whether it be the only growth the soil can yield, or merely 
a pre-occupant, as in many other parts of the country, giving 
place, when removed, to a species of hard wood, is, perhaps, not , 
yet ascertained. It is probable, however, that when this tr 
shall be cut down, and fires, scorching the whole face of there 
country, shali cease, the growth of the forest lands will assume 
Vor. XXXV.—No. 1. 8 
