34 FLORIDA: ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, 



muinder, affording means unexcelled for transportation. Lake George, 

 a body of water about 10 miles wide by 20 long, is on its southern 

 boundary, and Lake Crescent, of beautiful, clear water, 12 miles long, 

 with high surroundings, occupies the southeastern corner, and connects 

 with the Saint John's through Dunn's Creek. The Ocklawaha River 

 crosses the southern portion of the county from the west, and enters 

 the Saint John's opposite Welaka. The portion of the county lying 

 east of the Saint John's, and extending to Crescent Lake, is called 

 Fruitland Peninsula, and is rich and fertile. The western portion of 

 the county is undulating, in sections slightly hilly, with a sandy surface 

 soil and a red and gray subsoil, interspersed with fresh-water lakes, 

 and for cotton and general farming is the best part of the county. The 

 pine lands will produce 10 bushels of corn or 300 pounds seed cotton, 

 and the hammock 20 bushels of corn and COO pounds cotton per acre, 

 without fertilizing. Nearer the Saint John's, generally speaking, the 

 lands are less rolling and fertile, but heavily timbered. Many portions, 

 however, of the soil are rich in humus and other products of vegetable 

 decomposition. The lauds are generally high enough for culture. Dray- 

 ton Island, embracing 2,000 acres, and a part of the county, is famous 

 for its rich soil and marl. The county contains nearly every variety 

 of Florida soil swamp lauds, high and low hammock, heavily timbered 

 with hickory, oak, and other hard woods, and the different qualities of 

 pine land, clay, sand, marl, and shell. A number of the finest and oldest 

 orange groves of the State are situated in this county. There are fully 

 5,000 acres in the county specially devoted to the cultivation of the 

 orange. The fruit culture and vegetable production for Northern and 

 Western markets form a leading and profitable business, while cotton^ 

 rice, sugar, corn, and other staples are a permanent reliance for agri- 

 cultural industry. There are forty-three schools, twenty-one post-offices, 

 and more than a dozen places in the county where considerable manu- 

 facturing and a large mercantile trade is carried on. 



Palatka is the county seat, and one ot the best business towns of the 

 State, situate at the head of navigation for deep draft steamers and 

 sailing vessels, and near the confluence of the Ocklawaha. It possesses 

 advantages which cannot fail of rendering it a fine commercial city. It 

 has beautiful churches, good schools, a nunnery, and two or three of the 

 largest hotels in the State. A narrow-gauge railroad from here to Gaines- 

 ville, and thence to Ocala, has been completed, and is being extended 

 to Tampa and Charlotte Harbor. Palatka is connected by telegraph 

 with all parts of the country. At San Mateo, 6 miles south of Palatka, 

 is an extensive orange-packing house, and the " San Meteo Institute," 

 an excellent institution of learning, free in part. 



SUMTER COUNTY. 



Bounded north by Marion County, east by Orange, south by Polk, 

 and west by Hernando, from which it is separated by the Withlacoochie 



