FLORIDA: ITS CLIMATE, SOIL. PRODUCTIONS, AND 

 AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES. 



Florida, from its first discovery in 1512, has been in an unsettled 

 condition, conquered and reconquered, ceded and receded, harassed by 

 Indian wars, and when just entering on a period of stability and pros- 

 perity plunged into a civil contest, which decimated and impoverished 

 her people. Ceded to the United States in 1821, and admitted as a 

 State in 1845, her resources have remained latent and undeveloped, and 

 her 60,000 square miles of territory comparatively wild and uninhabited 

 until about the close of the late civil war. Since that period the intelli- 

 gence of the world has been directed to this favored land, and thousands 

 have annually sought health and pleasure and new homes within her 

 borders. Other thousands will come, when informed of the advantages 

 and attractions of this productive semi-tropical State, only awaiting 

 capital and industry to render it one of the wealthiest and most pros- 

 perous of the Federal Union. 



The peninsular portion of the State, known as East and South Florida, 

 is some 300 miles in length from north to south, and averages about 100 

 in width,' gradually narrowing towards its southern terminus. The 

 Gulf Stream on its eastern coast causes the trade winds of the Atlantic 

 to sweep over the laud from east to west by day, while the returning 

 cool breezes from the Gulf refresh the laud by night. These daily breezes 

 constantly purify and vivify the atmosphere, and prevent oppressive 

 heat or sultriness. 



Generally the lands bordering on the ocean and Gulf are level and at 

 no great elevation above tide-water ; midway there is a table-land ele- 

 vation, reaching nearly to the everglades. The extreme southern por- 

 tion is low, though, from recent surveys, it is found that it can be eftect- 

 ually drained and made available for cultivation. 



Xo State in the Union has such an extent of coast, being nearly 1,200 

 miles in length, extending from Fernandiua on the north to Pensacola 

 on the west, indented every few miles by large bays, running inland in 

 many places from ten to thirty miles, with large rivers like the Saint 

 John's, Oclawaha,Kissimmee, Indian, Halifax, Saint Mary's, Suwannee, 

 and Apalachicola, navigable from north to south, and easterly and 

 westerly between the Gulf and Atlantic Ocean. There are other con- 

 necting navigable streams in all parts of the State, and lakes, large and 

 small, scattered and grouped together, all of which furnish local trans- 

 portation facilities, and abound in excellent varieties of fish j rnanycon- 



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