WHAT FLORIDA OFFERS. 19 



compassion aud desire to point out the open road that lies 

 before them, did they but see it. And we are thankful, 

 intensely thankful to know that the number of those who 

 do see it is daily increasing — increasing, too, just as we 

 would have it, in exact proportion as the veil of mystery 

 is lifted from Florida's beautiful, genial form, and she 

 stands revealed, her true self, the refuge, the benefactor 

 of the struggling multitude. 



The weary, anxious father and mother, whose hard, un- 

 remitting toil scarce suffices for the present needs of their 

 little ones, aud who, so long as they creep on in the same 

 old groove, are able to lay by not one dollar for the future 

 or for the ''rainy day," so certain to come to all sooner or 

 later, need but to transplant their household treasures to a 

 genial Florida home to find in the present, comfort, and in 

 the future competence, if nothiug more; and this, too, 

 with less toil and hardship, less anxiety from day to day 

 than they endured in the old life behind them. And many 

 are awakening to this truth. Here, there, every where, we 

 see colonies forming, neighbors joining hands and fleeing 

 in a body from the icy winters of their old homes to seek 

 an easier, more prosperous life in sunny Florida, making 

 in themselves a community bound together by mutual asso- 

 ciations in the past, giving to each other hope, support, 

 encouragement in the present and future. 



To the honest man willing to work, with a wife or chil- 

 dren willing to lend a helping hand, there can be no such 

 word in Florida as "fail." Even the despairing widow 

 with little children dependent upon her, if she is able to 

 work and can but get together enough money to carry her 

 to one of the growing Florida towns, secure an acre or 

 half acre of land (there are some who donate several acres 

 to actual settlers), and erect a little frame house thereon, 

 will find plenty of work to do, and reduced expenses for 



