122 HOME LIFE 1-^ FLOEIDA. 



ply, the owners of that article reap the inevitable results 

 of higher prices. Obviously, the supply of hammock land, 

 especially of that accessible to transportation lines, is ex- 

 tremely limited, and even if the demand were much less 

 than it actually is the supply would still run short ; there- 

 fore hammock lands are always held at rates from five to 

 ten times higher than pine lands, which exceed them in 

 area in yet larger proportions. 



The relative merits of these two classes of Florida lands 

 is a question much agitated at present, with the great pre- 

 ponderance of opinion in favor of the pine lands. 



Here and there we find tracts of high hammock on the 

 borders of our great lakes where the shores are bold and 

 sandy, and the miniature waves come rolling upon a clear 

 white beach, from which the hammock land rises high and 

 dry, with a mixture of sand in its loamy soil ; no rotting, 

 malaria -breeding vegetation here — no marsh, no low, wet 

 spots. 



Now, no one need to be afraid to reside on such a spot 

 as this, if he will just clear ten or twenty acres of the dense 

 growth around his dwelling, and give free admission to 

 those revivifying influences, sunshine and pure air. We 

 know of many such homes along the shores of Lakes Har- 

 ris, Griffin, Eustis, Apopka, Kingsley, Santa Fe, and other 

 of our large lakes, and they are healthy as our pine-land 

 homes and very beautiful, with an outlook for miles over 

 the clear sparkling waters of these lakes, with their emerald 

 green borders rising abruptly from the shores. Only re- 

 cently we stood ,on the portico of one of these favored 

 dwellings, and gazed out over Lake Santa Fe, as on a beau- 

 teous picture of peaceful fairy land. 



But not to every one, no, not to one in five hundred, is 

 such a favored location possible. The majority must be 

 and are content to dwell in the '' piney woods," with their 



