Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 455 



soil, equal to any in the world, yielding crops for several years 

 without replanting, and is excellent for oranges and grapes. These 

 lands are thrown open for the benefit of those thousands of families 

 in the crowded North whose limited means have hitherto kept them 

 fi'om seeking a home in this inviting clime. 



Prof. Nash. — The climate of Florida is delightful, and adapted 

 to pleasure and ease, but the energy of the people going thither 

 will not be sustained twenty-four months. If I had as many sons 

 as Jacob, I would not advise one of them to go. I do not want 

 my own or my neighbors' posterity to degenerate. I believe that 

 God has done all things well, and that each race will be drawn to 

 its proper climate. 



Dr. Hallock. — I venture to predict that, if natural laws are per- 

 mitted to take their course, these Gulf States will be in the posses- 

 sion of a people naturally belonging to that climate, but they must 

 be let alone, while the white races naturally will remove to the 

 climate which is most fitted to their constitution. 



Mr. Richardson, late of Texas, said that a man naturally indus- 

 trious in Maine would work well in Florida, and a lazy mau going 

 from the North will be lazy still. The Germans in Texas are noted 

 for their industry and thrift, and the latitude is the same as Florida. 

 It is a man's temper, not the climate, which makes him adverse to 

 labor. 



Mr. J. B. L}Tnan. — I am unwilling that an opinion such as this, 

 having so slender a foundation in fact, should go out to the world 

 as the deliberate expression of this Club. Twelve years' residence 

 in that part of the Union has failed to convince me that Anglo- 

 Saxons are not as vigorous, as large, as brave, and as enterprising 

 in a climate that permits the fig and the orange, as they are where 

 the gi'ound is frozen two feet deep half the year. It is no more 

 of a hardship to work there in winter than it is to work here in 

 summer, and the winter is the proper time there for the heavy 

 work of agriculture. If less labor will yield a livelihood in that 

 climate than in Maine, is there not, for that reason, more time 

 allotted to social enjoyment and mental culture? Florida is not 

 much warmer than Palestine and Greece and Italy, climes from 

 which the most famous and imperishable systems of religion and 

 law and immortal labors of genius have emanated. I have found 

 habits of study and constant industry as easy there as here in New 

 York; and men in daily life seem to me to show as many signs of 

 mental vigor there as in this hyperborean region. 



