154 HOME LIFE IN FLORID A. 



refreshing to the eyes and a thing of joy forever to the 

 horses or calves that may be tethered thereon. There will 

 be trees in its midst, orange, pear, peach, Japan plum, 

 Japan persimmon ; but we have no fears of their being 

 injured by the grass, rather will their roots be shaded and 

 the ground made richer by the turf that w^ill decay around 

 them, as nine years of experience has proved. 



We used to be told that a lawn of grass was impossible 

 in the piney w^oods of Florida, but we laugh at that idea 

 now. The Bermuda looks well all the year round, though 

 during the months of December and January it stands still, 

 and sometimes looks a little weary of well-doing, it never 

 dies down entirely ; on poor soil it spreads slowly, on good 

 ground, or with a top-dressing of stable-manure, ashes or 

 bone-meal, it grows rapidly and tall. It crowds out obnox- 

 ious weeds, and altogether lends so pleasant and homelike 

 an air to one's garden that we can not too strongly urge 

 the Florida settler to plant Bermuda, or, as it is really 

 named after its introducer, a sea captain, " Permudy " grass, 

 close to their houses. 



" Familiarity breeds contempt," and we are so accus- 

 tomed to see grass around our houses at the North, wher- 

 ever there is room for it, that we do not realize until we 

 see an expanse of desolate, weed-grown sand, what a great 

 factor it is in our lives. 



Looking at the great oleander trees, with their stiff, dark- 

 green leaves and bright pink flow^ers, growing so luxuriantly 

 without care all the year round "out in the open," it is 

 hard to realize that this is the same plant that is so highly 

 prized and so tenderly cared for in our Northern homes. 

 There they are reared in boxes, and at the first approach 

 of cold weather hurried off into the w^armer cellars, a 

 specimen six feet high being regarded as a great possession. 



Here we see them every where, in every yard of any 



