240 [Assembly 



LETTER OF DR. WURDEMANN TO GEN. CLINCH. 



Clarksville, Georgia, September 19, 1846. 



Gen. D. D. Clinch, 



Dear Sir — The intention of forming the company referred to by 

 your correspondent, Dr. A. Mitchell, for establishing a botanical gar- 

 den in Florida, for the purpose of propagating tropical plants, is one 

 which should meet the support, not only of the state and general 

 government, but also of every lover of natural history in our whole 

 country. Its establishment is certainly feasible, and it could more- 

 over be rendered very profitable to those engaged in it, by making it 

 a nursery, from which the farmers of Florida could obtain a supply of 

 tropical plants and trees; and thus convert their uncultivated wilds 

 into gardens, as luxuriant and beautiful as those which now form the 

 chief charm of the West India Islands; besides the market which 

 the numerous gardens and hot-houses would present in our larger 

 cities of the north and south. 



By selecting a suitable site for a boarding-house near the estab- 

 lishment, it would offer a pleasant retreat for invalids during the 

 winter. The journey to the West Indies is too dangerous and tedious, 

 and the privations and expenses to which they are subjected, are too 

 great ever to render them places of general resort for that class of 

 travelers. There are also other objections of still greater weight — 

 the insalubrity of the climate of most of the accessable islands, and 

 too great a heat of their winter months. After a residence of six 

 consecutive winters under the tropics, I have been able to select only 

 one, and that one not entirely free from objections. The smaller 

 islands, as Santa Cruz, Curacoa, Key West, and Indian Keys, do not 

 afford shelter from the pernicious atmosphere that ever hangs along 

 the borders of the sea. Could a salubrious situation be selected in 

 Florida, far enough inland to be out of the influence of that atmo- 

 sphere, while its own climate being dry, I do not hesitate to predict, 

 that with suitable accommodations for invalids, they would flock to 

 it from all parts of our widely extended country. 



The high, sandy, pine regions of the State about, or not much be- 

 low the latitude of St. Augustine, must present many proper sites for 

 a hbtel. From my own experience and observation, 1 am inclined to 

 believe that a region occasionally visited with cold sufficient to re- 

 quire woolen clothing, is the best suited, by its bracing effects, for 

 consumption especially. The heat in one more southern is too debili- 



