350 



FLORIDA. 



FOSTER, WILLIAM EDWARD. 



eggs produced in 1884, 1.103,750 ; pounds of 

 rice produced in 1884, 855,529 ; bushels of corn 

 produced in 1884,2,511,835 ; of oats, same year, 

 378,606 ; bales of cotton in 1884, 45,596 ; hogs- 

 heads of sugar, same year, 2,202 ; gallons of 

 molasses in 1884, 609,047 ; bushels of Irish po- 

 tatoes, 57,404, and sweet-potatoes, 1,427,629 

 in 1884 ; pounds of tobacco, same year, 32,339 ; 

 number of bearing orange-trees in 1884, 979,- 

 911; boxes of oranges that year, 431,832; 

 bushels of peaches in 1884, 86,505 ; total value 

 of orchard products in 1884, $1,092,439 ; value 

 of market-garden produce sold in 1884, $371,- 

 439; pounds of honey produced in 1884, 353,- 

 481 ; pounds of wax the same year, 26,276. 

 These returns, however, are not considered 

 very complete. 



Cold. In January the severest cold spell since 

 1835 occurred in the State, causing great dam- 

 age to fruit and fruit-trees. On Friday, the 

 8th, a very heavy westerly gale prevailed all 

 day. At dark on the 9th the temperature be- 

 gan to fall rapidly, and on Saturday morning 

 it was 4 below freezing-point. On Sunday 

 morning it had fallen to 21 at Sanford, and 

 about the same at Orlando and Tampa; 18 

 at Fruitland and Switzerland, Jacksonville, and 

 Fernandina; on Monday, the llth, it was 24 

 at Sanford, 25 at Lakeland, about 22 at Vo- 

 lusia, and 20 at Jacksonville and Fernandina; 

 Tuesday morning, 24 at Sanford, 26 at Vo- 

 lusia. On Wednesday morning the weather 

 moderated and the sun shone part of the day, 

 thawing out the frozen fruit. On Thursday 

 the day was cool and cloudy temperature 

 about 50. The lowest degree of cold in Fer- 

 nandina was 15, and on Orange Lake 16, 

 by ordinary instruments. 



The earliest relation we have of any cold 

 weather in Florida is a statement made by 

 John Bartram, the botanist, who says that on 

 Jan. 3, 1765, on the St. John's river, south of 

 Lake George, the thermometer was at 26, 

 the wind northwest, and the ground frozen an 

 inch thick, and this was the night that de- 

 stroyed the lime, citron, and banana trees in 

 St. Augustine. In 1774 there was a snow- 

 storm, which extended over most of Florida. 

 In 1822, it is said, the cold was so intense in 

 West Florida that all the fruit-trees were 

 killed, and several persons frozen to death. 

 On April 6, 1828, a heavy and destructive frost 

 occurred in East Florida. The temperature 

 was as low as 27. About Feb. 8, 1835, the 

 severest cold ever known in Florida was ex- 

 perienced. The weather had been warm and 

 the trees were about blooming. A northwest 

 wind set in, which blew violently for about 

 three days, when the temperature went down 

 to 7 above zero. St. John's river was frozen 

 several rods from the shore, and all kinds of 

 fruit-trees were killed, the wild groves suffering 

 equally with the cultivated. Yet, notwith- 

 standing the severity of this freeze, the wild 

 groves south of Volusia were not killed down, 

 and were bearing in 1837. 



FORSTER, William Edward, an English states- 

 man, born in Bradpole, Dorsetshire, July 11, 

 1818; died in London, April 5, 1886. He was 

 the son of a Quaker preacher, and received 

 his early education at a Friends' school, after 

 which he was put into business and soon be- 

 came a manufacturer at Bradford, ultimately 

 becoming joint owner of the great worsted 

 and alpaca mill at Burley-in Wharfedale. His 

 first public act of importance was to accom- 

 pany his father into the famine-stricken dis- 

 tricts of Connemara, in the winter of 1846-'47, 

 as distributor of the relief fund collected 

 by the Friends. He published an account of 

 the misery he witnessed, concluding with the 

 opinion that " The result of our social system 

 is that vast numbers of our fellow-country- 

 men have not leave to live," adding, " No one 

 of us can have a right to enjoy either riches 

 or repose till he strive to wash his hands of 

 the guilt of such inequality." In 1849 he 

 wrote an introduction to Clarkson's " Life of 

 William Penn," in which he defended the 

 founder of Pennsylvania from the aspersions 

 cast on his memory by Macaulay. In 1850 

 he severed his connection with the Friends 

 by marrying outside the society, choosing for 

 his wife the eldest daughter of Dr. Arnold, of 

 Rugby. After his marriage he connected him- 

 self with the Church of England. In 1859 he 

 adopted the two orphan children of his wife's 

 brother. He always looked forward to a par- 

 liamentary career; but it was not until his 

 fortieth year that he began to take an active 

 part in public affairs, speaking and lecturing 

 in his own neighborhood on Indian finance 

 and other political subjects. He was defeated 

 as an Advanced Liberal candidate for Leeds, 

 but, upon the occurrence of a vacancy in the 

 representation of Bradford in 1861, he was 

 returned by that town as member of Parlia- 

 ment in the Liberal interest, and was re- 

 elected at the general election of 1865. In 

 1865 he was appointed Under - Secretary for 

 the Colonies. In 1866 he defended Mr. Glad- 

 stone's reform bill, which was ultimately lost 

 by the desertion of the Lowe faction, and 

 foreshadowed other reforms that were to fol- 

 low, such as *'to make Ireland loyal and con- 

 tented," to give the agricultural laborer "a 

 better hope than the workhouse in his old 

 age," and especially " to have Old England 

 as well taught as New England." When the 

 question of popular education was forced on 

 the attention of the country by the passage 

 of Disraeli's reform bill, Forster identified 

 himself with the party in favor of religious 

 education and clerical supervision, as opposed 

 to the secular schools that were favored by 

 the great mass of the Dissenters. He and 

 Card well, his former chief in the Colonial 

 Office, introduced education bills in 1867 and 

 1868 for the purpose of provoking discussion. 

 In 1868 the Dissenters set up an opposition 

 Liberal candidate in Bradford, but Forster 

 was returned at the head of the poll. Whtn 



