110 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



Lake Santa Fe is one of the most beautiful lakes in 

 Florida, about twelve miles long and three to five wide ; 

 and, nestling cosily at its far southern extremity, around a 

 little cove, lies one of the prettiest growing towns the State 

 can boast of; as healthful as it is pretty, and surrounded 

 by a beautiful hill and lake country, adapted to every va- 

 riety of production peculiar to its section, possessing some 

 of the oldest and finest orange groves in the State, Melrose 

 is speedily destined to become one of the most flourishing 

 towns in Florida ; and with the one railroad connection it 

 now has, and three others in progress, it can not fail to be- 

 come a commercial center as well as a lovely home-site. 



In Suwannee County and thereabouts, turpentine farms 

 are in vogue and are very profitable. 



Here we find no lakes or running streams of water, but 

 many of these strange sinks to which we have alluded else- 

 where, natural wells, we might call them, with perpendic- 

 ular sides, and tunneled through the solid limestone rock, 

 that crops up to the surface, or very near it. 



And now we come to the Great Lake Region of South 

 Florida, of which the rapidly-growing city of Leesburg is 

 the commercial center. 



This place, though by no means among the earliest set- 

 tled in this section of the country, has, both owing to its 

 location and the character of the land round about it, rap- 

 idly forged ahead of all the other portions of Lake County. 

 It has two banks, several churches, a college, an academy, 

 an ice factory, numerous stores, several railroads run- 

 ning north and south, and altogether has a bright future 

 before it. 



Lakes GriflJin and Harris, the one twelve miles long, the 

 other eighteen, are only separated from each other by a 

 narrow strip of land, and on this neck, at a point where it 

 is only half a mile wide, Leesburg is situated, thus securing 



