"what will it cost?" 125 



It is a fatal mistake to settle on land merely because it 

 is nominally cheap ; really desirable pine lands can not be 

 bought now-a-days, as a rule, at least from private owners, 

 for less than twenty to fifty dollars per acre. 



There are still some good tracts of land scattered about 

 to be bought from the State, or United States Government, 

 for from one dollar and a quarter to two dollars and a half 

 per acre ; but these and homestead lands — for which a five 

 years' residence entitles the settler to a warranty deed — are 

 becoming scarcer every day. 



In this matter of selecting lands upon which to make a 

 home and a grove too much care can not be given. 



The class of land which is the most available and also 

 the most desirable in all respects is that called " high pine 

 land." The growth of timber on this land is especially, as 

 its name denotes, pine, with here and there small oaks, 

 shrubs, wild persimmons, hickory, and a few other trees, 

 sometimes solitary, but more frequently in groups, and 

 when the latter occurs it is called "scrub hammock." 



The rule is that when tall, straight pine trees are found, 

 large in size, and about seventy to the acre, and no under- 

 growth but the famed wire-grass, and a little palmetto, the 

 land is first quality; where the small oak trees are scat- 

 tered thinly about, it is second rate ; and where the oaks 

 surpass the pines in number the land is less desirable, be- 

 ing third rate. 



There is something to be said, however, as we have seen, 

 even for the latter class. It is very poor at first, it is true, 

 but it responds very quickly to fertilizers, and even the 

 poorest of it can in time be brought into the highest state 

 of cultivation and improved year by year. 



One does not require as much land for a farm in Florida 

 as at the North, for several crops may be taken from the 

 same acre in one year. If a moderate sized grove, say of 



