SOME FLORIDA ENTERPRISES. 203 



completed, are then floated down the stream to saw- 

 mills located convenient to railways. 



A gentleman from Ocala tells me that much money 

 is made in Central Florida by raising cattle, which are 

 allowed to run wild. A three-year-old steer brings 

 $20 and costs nothing except the expense of an occa- 

 sional round-up. All cultivated land is fenced, and 

 the remainder, forming the range, is free to all. For 

 cattle or cows killed by railways the owners receive 

 $12 each. Another gentleman avers that the tur- 

 pentine business is the only paying one in Florida. 

 Good tracts of the long-leaved pine which yields the 

 turpentine can be bought for $1.50 per acre. With 

 a capital of $5,000 to invest, a man, if possessed of 

 sufficient energy, can become wealthy in a few years. 



Stops are made at Crow's Bluff and Hawkinsyille, 

 both small towns on strips of high land adjoining the 

 river. The pilot of the boat is a negro. He and his 

 assistant, a boy who is evidently learning the river, 

 have hard work rounding some of the abrupt bends, 

 especially above the inlet from Beresf ord Lake, where 

 the river contracts in places to but little more than 

 one hundred feet in width. The boat, a very large 

 one, moves slowly along these narrow stretches with 

 little shaking or appreciable motion, though the 

 engine heaves, pants and emits great volumes of 

 smoke when rounding the bends. 



Where the cabbage palmetto stands close to the 

 water the stem rises from a great conical mass of 



