WHAT FLORIDA OFFERS. 17 



hands to convert her vast forests into rich fields and fruit- 

 ful groves, and to fill their own treasure chest with the 

 well-earned reward of honest toil judiciously expended. 

 She has ample room for the skilled workman, the indus- 

 trious mechanic, the day laborer, the farm hand, the truck 

 farmer, the fruit-grower, the merchant, the blacksmith, 

 and all the ' ' many men of many trades " who go to make 

 up our busy, hard-working world. It is a noble, boun- 

 teous gift that she holds out to such as these, who flee to 

 her from the crowded, icy North. It can all be summed 

 up in one word — a veritable multiim in 'parvo. 



Comfort! a glorious boon, is it not? — a comfortable cli- 

 mate, a comfortable home, a comfortable competence, a 

 comfortable life for all their days to come, and a comfort- 

 able fortune for their children after them. It is all here 

 waiting for the self-chosen ones, who elect to take advan- 

 tage of the gift so freely offered to those who have man- 

 hood enough to grasp it and make the best use of it. But 

 mark well that proviso, *' to grasp it and make the best use 

 of it." For there are some who take and hold it in a fee- 

 ble, half-hearted sort of way, and do not, by any means, 

 make as good use of it as they might, and others who are 

 so blind that they may gaze straight into bonnie Florida's 

 outstretched palm and see nothing there but the sand that 

 has got into their eyes and afiected their vision with a curi- 

 ous obliquity and color-blindness that changes all the fair 

 landscape to one deep shade of blue. 



Aye ! it is a most generous offer — comfort — a boon for 

 which weary thousands upon thousands are seeking all their 

 lives long and never find it, not for an hour or a day — a 

 most noble gift indeed, but not made to sloths nor slug- 

 gards, nor to men who expect to reap where they have not 

 sowed, to gather without planting, to thrust an orange tree 

 into the ground one day and see the golden fruit drop into 



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