WHAT FLORIDA OFFERS. 15 



new crop as fast as the old one was killed or gathered. 

 Neither he nor the ground were allowed to remain idle. 



To-day he is in possession of as pretty a home as one 

 need wish to see. His wife and children are well and 

 happy, and his life is full of contentment. " What a con- 

 trast," he exclaims, " to what it was eight years ago !" And 

 all because he had the nerve to drag himself out of the old 

 worn-out groove and the pluck to hammer out a new one. 



This is no fancy picture, but one that every energetic 

 man may make a reality for himself if he will but seize 

 and hold Florida's royal bounty. And this man, take 

 notice, Avas a gentleman, educated and trained as a book- 

 keeper — one of a vast army who struggle on from day to 

 day, overworked, underpaid, or not paid at all. 



Take up any one of the newspapers of our great cities, 

 and what do we see ? The same old story that has been 

 told over and over again for years past. ''A merchant 

 advertised for a clerk at ten dollars a week, and eight hun- 

 dred applied for the position." "There are now no less 

 than seven thousand book-keepers out of employment 

 in this one city alone!" Is not that a pitiful show- 

 ing? and in "one city alone." Think of it then all over 

 the country ! Now why is it that so many young men 

 prefer the precarious life of a salaried clerk, book-keeper, 

 or salesman, shut in-doors all day and every day, from 

 morning till night, earning barely enough to keep up 

 appearances before the world, layiug by nothing to meet 

 the rainy season, sure to come — if "out of employment," 

 " on the sick list," " too old to work"— to the free, manly 

 life of the farmer or fruit-grower, breathing God's pure 

 air, uncontaminated by the dust and smoke of cities, liv- 

 ing a life of comfort and freedom from care, even if one 

 of honest daily toil, and storing up for the future a suffi- 

 cient independence for himself and his family ? Why is 



