''where shall I SETTLE?" 109 



The country hereabouts owes its prosperity, present and 

 future, in a great measure to the Santa Fe Canal, which, 

 projected and pushed to completion only a few years ago 

 by a few energetic capitalists, now connects, by means of a 

 little steamer. Lake Santa Fe with Lake Alto, and this 

 again with the Transit Kailroad at Waldo, only sixty miles 

 from Jacksonville. 



The Santa Fe Canal thus affords an easy outlet for mar- 

 ket to thirty miles of shore line, and one hundred thousand 

 acres of good, rich land, both hammock and pine. This 

 neighborhood is particularly adapted to raising early vege- 

 tables, and the transportation facilities afforded by the lakes 

 and canal and railroad make it an especially desirable local- 

 ity for the truck-farmer. 



It is a very rare thing that orange or lemon trees are 

 injured near these great lakes; many a severe frost has 

 passed them by unharmed, while injuring and even killing 

 to the ground these fruits a hundred miles further south ! 



And this remarkable exemption is due to the high lands, 

 dry atmosphere, and the close vicinity of the lakes, whose 

 gentle pleading softens and tempers the asperities of the 

 rude north wind as he rushes over their placid bosoms. 



The pine lands produce about fifteen bushels of corn to 

 the acre, but, with a little manure and good cultivation, 

 will easily yield double this amount ; from one to two bales 

 of cotton to the acre ; oats and rye are also fair crops, and 

 upland rice yields from forty to sixty bushels per acre; 

 sugar-cane is also largely cultivated. 



. Peaches, pears, grapes, figs, and strawberries, all these 

 are destined to become staple croj^s. 



This is true, not only of the Santa Fe or Central Lake 

 Region, but also of a large portion of Northern Florida, 

 where here and there some small orange groves are found, 

 where a sheltered position can be obtained. 



