4'2 FLORIDA: ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, 



digo, cochineal, Sisal heinp, the guava, tamarind, sapadillo, avocada 

 pear, mamie-apple, custard-apple, i)ecan-nut, &c. 



The year following the acquisition of the territory of Florida, 1822, a 

 French gentleman, Peter Stephen Chazotte, presented to Congress a 

 memorial setting forth the advantages of the climate and soil for tropical 

 productions, and asking that the government allot one thousand acres 

 of land in the southern portion of Florida, with an appropriation of 

 $50,000, for the establishment of an experimental farm and the intro- 

 duction and propagation of coffee, cocoa, and other products of tropical 

 countries. 



At a still earlier period, a proclamation of George III, issued from the 

 Court of St. James, 7th day of October, 1763, and by the authority of a 

 treaty of peace concluded at Paris on the 10th day of February, the 

 same year, assigned to Colonel Grant 



The government of East Florida, bounded to the westward by tlie Gulf of Mexico 

 and the Apalachicola River; to the northward by a line drawn from that part of said 

 river where the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers meet, to the source of the Saint Mary's 

 River, and by the course of said river to the Atlantic Ocean ; and to the eastward and 

 southward by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Florida, including all islands within 

 six leagues from the sea-coast, with the expectation that rice, indigo, silk, wine, oil, 

 and other valuable commodities would be produced in great abundance. 



The English at that time knew little or nothing about coffee, as its 

 cultivation at that period was confined to St. Domingo, and had not 

 been introduced upon the Island of Jamaica. At a later period, an 

 English gentleman of fortune went to establish himself in East Florida, 

 and entered successfully into the culture of coffee and sugar-cane, and 

 his establishments were already considerable when the American Kevo- 

 lution, in its effects, caused Florida to pass into the hands of Spain. 

 The British Government, finding he had so far succeeded, would not 

 allow him to remain, but destroyed his plantation, and carried him off 

 with his slaves, awarding him a considerable sum for his loss and dam- 

 ages. 



Mr. Carvert says: 



So mild is the winter that the most delicate vegetables and plants of the Carribee 

 Islands experience there not the least injury from that season; the orange tree, the 

 plantains, the guava, the pineapple, &c., grow luxuriously. Fogs are unknown 

 there, and no country can, therefore, be more salubrious. 



Mr. William Stork, in his description of East Florida, gives the fol- 

 lowing account of it: 



The productions of the northern and southern latitudes grow and blossom by the 

 side of each other, and there isscarcely another climate in the world that can vie with 

 this in displaying such an agreeable and luxuriant mixture of trees, plants, shrubs, 

 and flowers. The red and white pine and the evergreen oak marry their boughs with 

 the chestnut and mahogany trees, the walnut with the cherry, the maple with the 

 campeach, and the braziletto with the sassafras tree, which together cover here a 

 variegated and rich soil. * * * The wax myrtle tree grows everywhere here. 

 * * * Oranges are large, more aromatic and succulent than in Portugal. Plums 



