26 FLORIDA : ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, 



county, on the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Eailroad, which 

 crosses the county from east to west. One of the largest lumber manu- 

 facturing establishments in the State, employing a capita.! of over 

 $300,000, is situated in the eastern portion of the county ; $30,000 are 

 invested in grist-mills. 



NASSAU COUNTY 



Occupies the northeast corner of the State, and is bounded north and 

 west by the Saint Mary's Eiver, which separates it from Georgia, east 

 by the Atlantic Ocean and Duval County, and south by Duval. It con- 

 tains about 600 square miles, including Amelia Island, upon which the 

 city of Fernandina, the county seat, is located. The soil of Nassau 

 County varies from the light mulatto soils of the coast, through all the 

 intermediate gradations, to the stiff' clays and marls in the lowlands of 

 the rivers, and its range of productions is as varied as the soil. On 

 Amelia Island, the edge of the mainland, and scattered along her rivers, 

 are soils of calcareous sand, that are adapted for the finest qualities of 

 long staple cotton, and the culture of the peach, grape, olive, and orange, 

 while the fresh marsh and black rush lands attached to them are es- 

 pecially suitable for gardening. These lands are easily reclaimed, rich, 

 moist, and close to shipping opportunities, so that the shipping of early 

 vegetables to Northern markets forms a profitable industry. The clay 

 bluffs along the Saint Mary's Kiver, and the so-called sand hills in the 

 northwestern corner of the county, form a third distinct body of agri- 

 cultural lauds. The balance of the lands of the county are pine barrens, 

 mostly sandy, and interspersed with numerous "bay-galls," cypress 

 ponds, and savannas. The harbor of Fernandina is the northern ter- 

 minus of the Atlantic, Gulf and West India Transit Eailroad, from 

 Cedar Keys, and is one of the best harbors for sea-going vessels of deep 

 draught south of Norfolk, admitting of the safe anchorage of several 

 hundred vessels at once, and with an entrance easy of access, and giv- 

 ing from 14 to 20 feet of water. 



SAINT JOHN^S COUNTY. 



Bounded north by Duval, east by the Atlantic Ocean, south by Vo- 

 lusia, and west by Putnam and Clay Counties, from which it is sepa- 

 rated by the Saint John's Kiver. It contains 970 square miles. The 

 general surface is level, and the land is not of the first quality, being 

 mostly flat pine woods and palmetto scrub, with some hammock 5 but 

 its location, between the Saint John's Eiver and the Atlantic Ocean, 

 renders it more exempt from frost and better adapted to fruit culture 

 than more interior counties in the same latitude. Orange culture and 

 fruit and market gardening are now commanding attention, while stock- 

 growing, corn, rice, sugar cane, &c., are profitable branches of agricul- 

 tural industry. The Matanzas and North Eivers lie parallel with the 

 coast on the east, and the Saint John's Eiver and Lake Crescent on the 

 western border. 



