170 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



CHAPTER XI. 



* ' WHAT SHALL I NEED ? " 



This is a question that has doubtless perplexed every 

 householder and prospective settler, when breaking up the 

 old home and getting ready for the new : 



" What shall I need there, what shall I take, what leave 

 behind?" 



It is a very curious thing to those who know Florida as 

 it is, to learn how very wild and erroneous are the ideas 

 floatino^ about over the rest of the United States concern- 

 ing their southernmost sister. Only a few days since, for 

 instance, we read an editorial in a Northern paper, one too 

 that should have known better, in which it was stated that 

 all Florida houses outside of the cities were built on the 

 edges of swamps, that there was not enough dry land in 

 the State to permit them to be built any where else ; that 

 snakes were every where under foot, and when the doors 

 were opened in the morning the snakes would crawl into 

 the houses. ''The fools are not all dead yet ; " but, for all 

 that, we of Florida can well afford to laugh at these impo- 

 tent attempts to injure a noble State that is well able to 

 speak for herself by her works. 



The tide of immigration that set in Floridaward ten 

 years ago, and has constantly increased ever since, until 

 to-day it is flowing wide and deep from every State in the 

 Union, from England, Scotland, Sweden, is quite strong 

 enough of itself to disprove all falsehoods and jealous mis- 

 representations. 



Not less wide of the truth are some of the ideas taken 

 up by intending settlers as to Avhat articles of household 

 furniture and clothing they will find use for after reaching 



