''what shall I NEED?" 171 



their new home. The idea of perpetual summer all the 

 year round is one of these, and consequently all warm 

 clothing is left behind, "packed up," or else reluctantly 

 given away ; and more often than not, when the mistake 

 is made, the settler does not find it out until the very mo- 

 ment when the article left in the North is needed, and then 

 he and his family suffer from cold. 



' ' Suffer from cold in Florida ! " we hear some of our 

 readers exclaim. Even so; there are certain months of 

 the year, as we have already noted, when it is quite possi- 

 ble to suffer from cold, if not properly protected from it ; 

 for it is certainly there to be felt. 



It is not at all necessary that the thermometer should 

 sink to the freezing point before the human frame becomes 

 susceptible to a sense of chilliness ; if that were so, then 

 fires and warm clothing would be seldom needed in the 

 more southern portions of this State. But, as it is, a tem- 

 perature much below seventy degrees speedily chills the 

 blood if one is sitting still, and there are many days of 

 the Florida winter when the thermometer marks far below 

 this. The winter temperature of Florida is much like that 

 of the typical May and September of the Middle States — 

 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and thereabouts. 



For over twenty years, in the latitude of Jacksonville, 

 the thermometer during January, February, and March, 

 averaged sixty-two degrees. At St. Augustine it was rather 

 lower, fifty-nine degrees, the direct sea air counteracting 

 the "southing" of this quaint old town as compared with 

 Jacksonville. Further south and in the interior counties 

 the average for winter is about sixty -eight, sometimes 

 higher, less often lower ; occasionally light films of ice may 

 be seen early in the morning on water standing exposed. 

 We saw it twice in Sumter County during our first four 

 Florida winters, and once it lasted in the shade an eighth 



