HOSIE SURROUNDINGS. 151 



CHAPTER X. 



HOME SURROUNDINGS. 



One of the hardest things for a Northerner to bear, on 

 first coming to Florida, is the absence of the beautiful 

 green turf and lawn so familiar to his sight that no coun- 

 try home seems half a home without this grateful resting- 

 place for the eyes. We are used to seeing it all around 

 our old homes and in great fields all over the land, and be- 

 cause we do not see the same in this newly-settled country , 

 the cry has been raised, "Grass will not grow in Florida." 

 Now that is a great mistake, and a great injustice done to 

 a State that only wants a chance given her to show what 

 she can do in the way of raising grasses. 



If the fine lawn grasses, so abundant now in the old-set- 

 tled Northern States, are indigenous and grow of themselves 

 just where they are wanted, as some unreasonable people- 

 seem to expect they should do in Florida, how is it that 

 the seedsmen advertise "lawn grass" seeds for sale, and 

 the agricultural papers are so particular each year to give 

 full directions as> to the proper way of preparing the ground 

 and sowing the seed for making lawns? 



We have spent a great many months of our life in the 

 country at the North, and we never yet saw a piece of 

 woodland, that had never been cleared, plowed or planted, 

 that could be utilized as a ready-made pasture sufiScieut 

 for cattle. AVhere we see green fields and meadows, the 

 grass has been sowed there ; it has not sprung up by magic, 

 and it has required a good many years and a great deal of 

 care to make a good pasture at all. Yet much-maligued 

 Florida, even in her uncleared virgin woodlands, does raise 

 a grass that subsists hundreds of thousands of cattle all 



