536 Lelter from Audvbon to the Editor. 



rens of which I have spoken, would make superb sugar planta- 

 tions, and has given a list of fruits and plants that grow in the 

 Floridas ; but he has not stated at how great a sacrifice of la- 

 bour, property, and comfort, any cultivation of this kind can be 

 carried on, except in a few well selected situations. On the 

 great scale, this kind of cultivation cannot be applied, for the 

 pine barrens are so very flat, that the only drainage to which 

 they can be submitted — at least for the twenty-five miles I ob- 

 served them, — is natural evaporation. 



Of the climate, too, it may be remarked, that, notwithstand- 

 ing its average mildness during winter, it is far from being as 

 pleasant as the winter climate of the northern States. The 

 steady, dry, bracing frosts of the north, are congenial to health 

 and good spirits, and all that is required, is to keep the body 

 warm by exercise and clothing. Here, in the winter season, we 

 have the blossoms open at mid-day, butterflies on the wing, al- 

 ligators out of their holes, birds singing and disporting, snakes 

 sliding through the woods, tortoises basking ,in the sun, the ther- 

 mometer at summer heat, and yet when night comes, frost sets in, 

 and frequently before morning almost every thing is enclosed in 

 an icy garment. During the summer, — I am told, — that in the 

 interior, from whence I am now returned, the heat is excessive, 

 and the pestilential miasma of the stagnant marshes, lakes, and 

 torpid pools with which the country abounds, renders a resi- 

 dence here dangerous to the most hardy constitutions. I am 

 afraid that those who had the good luck to sell the country to 

 our government for hard money, have made more by it, than will 

 ever be made again. I wish it were otherwise for the sake of 

 the excellent and most hospitable men I had the good fortune to 

 become acquainted with here, and the parting with whom was 

 the only cause for regret which I had on leaving East Florida. 



I was greatly surprised to hear the accounts of those gales 

 that desolate the peninsula during spring, summer and autumn. 

 I have been assured that at times the plantations have been al- 

 most destroyed, together with the greatest part of the crops. I 

 have seen on Mr. Bulow's plantation, the remains of twenty of 

 his houses thrown down last June, and his own mansion was so 

 much endangered, that he found it expedient to leave it, and re- 

 move to his kitchen, which is a low building contiguous to it. 

 During the summer, the country bordering the ocean, is refresh- 



