104 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



indulge iu " sectionaliziug," holding up one locality as bet- 

 ter than others. Now we would respectfully suggest that 

 this is rather an unjust accusation ; true, the State has been 

 " sectionalized," but it is the Creator who has done it, not 

 poor, finite human beings. God sectionalized Florida when 

 he laid down one portion several hundred miles nearer to 

 the equator than the other, just as He has sectionalized 

 Southern and Northern California, New York and the 

 Hudson Bay territory. 



What is it that the settler from the North and West 

 seeks in coming to Florida for a home ? Health, semi-trop- 

 ical fruits, and a warm winter climate. 



Well, the northern parts of the State can give him 

 health, no doubt, and a far milder winter than he has left 

 behind him, but very few semi-tropical fruits, and these with 

 the ever-pressing danger of being killed, ''root and branch," 

 by the frequent winter frosts and icy nights. Having said 

 this, we need not say much on the warm winter question. 



Still, to those who seek only mild, not constantly warm, 

 winters, and other occupations than semi-tropical fruit- 

 growing, the more northern portions of Florida are very 

 attractive, indeed, preferable. 



Let us take Leon County as a type of the rest, and see 

 how it is there. 



Tallahassee, the quaint old capital of the State, is in this 

 county, and the country thereabouts and around Pensacola 

 w^as one of the earliest settled. 



Only a few years ago cotton was the one staple produc- 

 tion ; a great deal of sugar-cane was raised, a little tobacco, 

 some upland rice, corn, and here and there a planter — we 

 mean the good old-fashioned, wealthy '' Southern planter" 

 — could boast of raising his own meat ; but right here the 

 production halted. 



King Cotton reigned supreme, and according as the 



