*'WHAT WILL IT COST?" 117 



to shelter their families, and then go out to work by the 

 month or the day for wealthier or more enterprising neigh- 

 bors ; and thus keep on from year to year, without energy 

 or ambition to work hard enough to improve their condition 

 or insure the future comfort of their families ; but such 

 so-called "men" as these are few, thank Heaven! And, 

 again, there are some who began their Florida lives just as 

 cheaply and roughly as these, and yet kept pushing upward, 

 until now they are among the richest and most influential 

 men in the State. The majority who are coming to Flor- 

 ida in these days, however, are men who have a few hun- 

 dred dollars in their pockets, and want to know how to 

 make the best use of them for their present and future 

 benefit. 



The question of location settled in its broader sense, next 

 comes that of the particular piece of land, both as to kind, 

 quality, and locality. To those seeking permanent homes 

 in Florida this is a subject so fraught with weal or woe, 

 health or sickness, success or failure, that it can not receive 

 too great care and study. And in this connection we can 

 not too earnestly deplore the petty jealousies that are so 

 frequently witnessed by would-be settlers, leading to the 

 pitting of one section against another, and the decrying of 

 one neighbor — especially of that neighbor's land— by an- 

 other, to the harm and degradation of all. 



The St. John's River man, meeting a stranger bound for 

 the Ocklawaha and Lake Regions, will do his best to con- 

 vince him that the only good, healthy land to be had, is 

 that in which he is personally interested ; the Indian River 

 man will tell the stranger that his locality is the only right 

 and proper one to settle in ; the Lake Region man decries 

 the St. John's River lands ; the man with pine land to sell 

 vituperates the hammocks ; the hammock owner runs down 

 the pine land, and each neighbor puts forward his own 



