PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS* CLUB. 119 



and fairly freezing off those of the acacia, which were about an 

 inch long. Nothing of this kind was experienced near the eastern 

 coast. Cape Canaveral, lat. 28.30, seems to be about the southern 

 line of frosts, while Charlotte Bay, on the Gulf, nearly two degrees 

 further south, has frequent frosts. I brought home a piece of 

 sugar cane, grown near this cape, produced from a root seven 

 years old, while in the same latitude in Texas we know that frost 

 destroys the cane annually. In summer, on the contrary, the 

 beat is more intense upon the Gulf, it being land-locked and out 

 of reach of the ocean breeze. The ditference in winter is caused 

 by the near presence of the Gulf-stream, which hugs the shore as 

 far north as Cape Canaveral, on the east coast, while the Gulf is 

 kept cool by the immense volume of ice-water poured into it by 

 the Mississippi and other rivers reaching the regions of snow and 

 frost. Vegetation is always more advanced on the east coast, and 

 even the St. John's river, only 30 miles from the coast, is more 

 subject to killing frosts than the coast itself, which contirms a 

 remark made by you some time since, that early garden vegeta. 

 bles upon that river were not a sure crop. One killing frost is 

 as good as a dozen. I see that green peas from Charleston are 

 selling in New York for $25 per bbl. At Smyrna peas were ripe 

 in March, so were tomatoes. We had also ncAv potatoes, cabba- 

 ges, turnips, lettuce and onions. Smyrna is 36 miles north of 

 Cape Canaveral, and the Gulf-stream is there forty miles from the 

 coast, so there is occasionally both frost and ice at Smyrna. 

 Oranges, lemons and figs, however, succeed uniformly. The gale 

 of last Octo])er blew off a large proportion of the fruit, but the 

 crop is usually a sure one. I picked those I gave you on the 

 head of Indian river, from a grove of 1,700 trees, the only grove 

 of much account below St. Augustine. The State is not as swampy 

 as it appears by the maps. The great body of the land is sandy 

 pine land, with oak and cypress hommocks interspersed. The 

 swamps were a swindle, got up to cheat Uncle Sam and the North 

 out of the most valuable land in the State. You are acquainted 

 with the history of that operation, and will not be surprised to 

 learn that 1 have walked over many a mile of the swamj) lands 

 ceded to Florida, on a dry, sandy road, that never saw water 

 except on a rainy day. The pine timber is usually small and 

 scattering, and much injured hy the annual fires. The grass is also 

 thin and coarse, though I saw some fine Bermuda grass at St. 

 Augustine, and a kind of clover, very thick, and about a foot high, 



