294 FLORIDA FKUITS ODDS AND ENDS. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



ODDS AND ENDS. 



This present chapter may truthfully claim to be, in point 

 of time, the ' ' latest edition of Florida Fruits," being, as 

 the reader will observe, made up of the tangled odds and 

 ends of information, experience, and observation, that 

 have been gathered together from out-of-the-way corners, 

 here and there, during the few months that have elapsed 

 since the main part of the work was sent to press. 



After a battle has been fought, a great undertaking ac- 

 complished, it is an easy matter to look calmly out over 

 the field and point out how this or that might have been 

 better or more easily done. 



It is very much the same with such a work as now lies 

 before us. In gazing backward over what has been accom- 

 plished, when the stress and anxiety of the actual labor is 

 over, and the pen almost ready to lie down and rest after 

 its miles of patient travel, we can see here and there points 

 of possible improvement, not so much sins of omission as 

 the opportunity to seize, before it is too late, upon the odds 

 and ends that have come into view since the previous pages 

 were written. 



First of all, let us see what lessons have been taught 

 us by 



THE FREEZE OF JANUARY, 1886. 



The days and nights, inclusive, of the 9th to the 13th of 

 January, 1886, will never be forgotten by any dweller in 

 bonnie Florida at that disastrous time. Little did any one 

 realize what was in store for him when, on the 9th, Fri- 

 day, the United States Signal Officer at Jacksonville tel- 

 egraphed all over the State that a ' ' cold wave " was on its 



