FOREST AND STREAM. 



Some of the best planters have raised as high as 4,400 

 pounds from a single acre of land. Cane requires natural 

 strong land, or well manured light land, the latter making - 

 a better quality of sugar. After the first planting there is 

 no more expense for seed cane. 



Cotton does well everywhere in Middle Florida. The 

 caterpillar is its worst foe, and some years the crop is se- 

 verely injured by it. Like cane, it requires about the same 

 cultivation as corn. A man can easily cultivate ten acres 

 in cotton and raise enough of other things besides to keep 

 himself, family, and stock on during the year. The profit 

 of ten acres of cotton is as follows :— 



Dr-^-io days' work of team to break up the land, at i 



Seed....... ........ 



Planting "....." 



Hoeing and thinning 



15 days 1 cultivating. , 



Picking and ginning 



Bagging, bailing, and strap iron 



.50 per day $15 00 



20 00 



6 00 



20 00 



i. 22 50 



75 00 



21 20 



Total $179 70 



Cr— By 5,000 pounds of lint cotton, at 12J- cents per pound — 625 00 

 Showing a net profit of $445 25 



Upland rice is a very remunerative crop, and yields from 

 forty to sixty bushels per acre. The tobacco raised in Mid- 

 dle Florida commands .the very highest price in market, 

 being considered fully equal to the Cuban article by com- 

 petent judges. The peanut grows very finely, and yields 

 one hundred bushels per acre. Castor bean grows luxu- 

 riantly. Irish potatoes grow nicely all Winter, and are 

 ready for market in March, April, and May. By care and 

 attention they can be made to grow all the year. Sweet 

 potatoes grow almost spontaneously and very large. 



Garden Vegetables.— All varieties of garden vegeta- 

 bles grow to greater perfection in Middle Florida than in 

 any other section of the Union without doubt. They grow 

 at all. seasons, and there is not a month but what a family 

 can have vegetables fresh from the garden to put on the 

 table. The raising of vegetables for Northern markets is 

 already becoming quite a business, and is very lucrative. 

 The demand is getting greater every year with our increased 

 railroad facilities. 



Fbuit.— For fruit growing Middle Florida is equal, if not 

 superior, to any other section. Almost every variety can 

 be" cultivated with success. From February to December 

 there is one succession of ripening of fruits. Bananas, 

 oranges, lemons, limes, citrons, shaddocks, and some other 

 varieties require a little protection in Winter from frosts. 

 Every variety of grape does well, and the day is not far 

 distant when this section will excel California in grapes and 

 wine. It is stated that two thousand gallons of sparkling 

 wine have been made from a single acre of grapes, worth 

 at present prices $3.50 per gallon. Strawberries grow very 

 large and fine, and ripen in February. Dewberries, whor- 

 tleberries, blackberries,. plums, crab apples, etc ., grow wild 

 in the woods in the greatest abundance . 



Grasses.— There is quite a variety of wild grasses grow- 

 ing in the woods and in the fields suitable for pasturage 

 and for hay. They contain a good deal of nutriment, and 

 stock keep in as good order as they do anywhere on the 

 wild grasses. Tame grasses have never been tried to any 

 extent, and it is not known whether clover could be raised 

 here or not. 



Stock Raisings— One great trouble with Northern peo- 

 ple who come South, is they expect to find a perfect para- 

 dise of fruits, vegetables, "cereals, and tame grasses of 

 every kind, and that man and beast will have nothing to do 

 but eat and sleep, moving only now and then for the pur- 

 pose of circulating the blood, etc. When they do not find 

 things as they were in the Garden of Eden they complain 

 bitterly of the country. Some of them wonder how cattle, 

 horses, and sheep can be raised without timothy and clover 

 hay and blue grass pastures. They should recollect that 

 stock in all new countries subsisted on the native grasses 

 and on coarse wild hay in Winter. It is the same in Mid- 

 dle Florida, only here the stock live the year round in the 

 woods on the wild grass without any other food or shelter. 

 The mildness of the Winters, together with the abundance 

 of pasturage afforded by the forests and numerous reed 

 ■branches (wild canes) make the raising and keeping stock 

 a matter of little expense and trouble. It is stated on the 

 best of authority, and it is a well ascertained fact, "that 

 live stock of every kind— horses, cattle, sheep, and swine 

 —are less subject to epidemic diseases in Middle Florida 

 than in the more northern latitudes." 



Poultry Raising. — Fowls of every kind do well, and 

 the raising of them for Northern markets could be made a 

 very lucrative business. . # 



Bees.— This is the country for the apiarist. The great 

 abundance and variety of flowers that are always in bloom 

 afford fine pasturage for bees, and the raising of honey for 

 Northern markets could be made very profitable. 



Timber.— Timber is abundant everywhere. In the for- 

 ests "are the walnut, red bay or Florida mahogany, ash, 

 beech, every variety of oak, cherry, olive, kickory, mag- 

 nolia, gum, yellow and pitch pine, cypress, etc. The man- 

 ufacturing of all kinds of wooden ware, agricultural im- 

 plements, furniture, and lumber could be carried on exten- 

 sively anywhere in Middle Florida. 



Railroad Facilities .—The Jacksonville, Pensacola and 

 Mobile Railroad passes through the centre of the northern 

 tier of counties of Middle Florida. It is completed from 

 Jacksonville to Chattahoochee, on the Apalachicola River. 

 There is also a road from Tallahassee to St. Mark's, on the 

 Gulf of Mexico, a distance of twenty-one miles. The great 

 need of the country is a road from St. Mark's and Talla- 

 hassee due north to Louisville, Ky., so the planters could 

 ship early fruits and vegetables direct to the Louisville, 

 Cincinnati, Indianapalis, and Chicago markets; also fish 

 and oysters. 



Water Communication.— A steamboat runs up the Su- 

 wannee River from Cedar Keys to Troy in Lafayette county 

 once a week. It could run up to Ellaville, Madison county, 

 if business demanded. The Apalachicola River is one of 

 the finest navigable rivers in the world, and boats run from 

 its mouth up to Columbus, on the Chattahoochie River, 

 and Bainbridge, on the Flint River, in Georgia. There are 

 a number of other rivers that are navigable a short distance 

 up from the Gulf of Mexico. Along the coast of the Gulf 

 of Mexico are several bavs and inlets where sloops and 

 schooners could lie at anchor in safety and deliver and re- 

 ceive freight. St. Mark's is at present the principal seaport. 

 It has not recovered from the effects of the war, conse- 

 quently but little business is done there. Men of energy 

 and capital could make it a fine shipping point, and the lo- 

 cation in a good one for a commercial city. Near the west 

 end of James Island is a fine harbor for the largest vessels; 

 some say it is the best on the Gulf of Mexico. The Brit- 



ish fleet daring the war of 1812 hovered in there. The 

 largest seagoing vessels can enter in safety. 



Principal Towns. — Tallahassee (the capital of the State 

 and county seat of Leon county,) is the largest city in Mid- 

 dle Florida. It is nearly 800 feet above the level of the 

 Gulf of Mexico, and twenty-one miles from it. The streets 

 are wide and adorned with the most beautiful live and 

 water oak shade trees, which add much to the picturesque- 

 ness and beauty of the city. A person as he wanders 

 along the wide streets or loiters under some grand old oak, 

 with the long Spanish moss hanging from its branches, 

 feels almost like he was in the fabled land of the gods. 

 There is a beauty about these grand trees that is indescrib- 

 able, and one loves to lounge under their wide-spreading 

 branches. Scattered all over the city are beautiful squares 

 full of these splendid trees. The State House stands on a 

 large square near the centre of the city, and is surrounded 

 by a beautiful grove of the native trees of the forest. It is 

 a plain three-story brick building. Three squares to the 

 north is the Leon county Court House, a three-story brick 

 building. The business houses are located principally on 

 one street, and are all built of brick. The dwellings are 

 principally frame, painted white, with green shutters, and 

 have nice yards in front, adorned with the most beautiful 

 flowers, that are always in bloom, and back are splendid 

 gardens. The city contains about 3,000 inhabitants, a great 

 number of stores, two newspapers. The Floridian, pub- 

 lished by C. E. Dyke, Sr., & Son, is the oldest and ablest 

 newspaper in the State, and is doing more for immigration 

 than any other. The Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, and 

 Presbyterian denominations each have nice church edifices 

 and able and talented ministers. Tnere are good schools 

 for both white and colored children. The City Hotel is a 

 large and commodious building, capable of accommodat- 

 ing 200 guests. There are a number of excellent boarding 

 houses in the city. Society is as intelligent and refined as 

 can be found anywhere. There is a, cotton factory near 

 the city. The Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad 

 passes through the city. There is a railroad to St. Mark's, 

 a seaport on the Gulf of Mexico, twenty- one miles distant. 

 The city ia surrounded by a high, rolling, beautiful, and 

 fertile country. 



Quiacy, twenty-four miles west of Tallahassee, on the 

 Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad, is the county 

 seat of Gadsden county. It is surrounded by a beautiful 

 country, and has been a beautiful place, containing elegant 

 public buildings and nice residences "before the war." "The 

 buildings now look old and dilapidated, but they show that 

 refined taste was exercised in their construction. On en- 

 tering many of them a person will see elegant libraries of 

 old and standard authors, fine paintings, etc., showing that 

 their occupants were persons of culture and refinement. 

 The population is about 900. The village contains a num- 

 ber of stores, a hotel, and a boarding house, eight lawyers, 

 a newspaper, (the Quincy Journal, whose editor has enter- 

 prise enough to print all his paper at home,) three nice 

 church buildings — Methodist, Episcopal and Presbyterian 

 — good public schools. Prior to the war there was an ex- 

 cellent ana flourishing seminary there, but it is now closed. 



Chattahoochee, forty-four miles west of Tallahassee, is 

 on the Apalachicola River. It is the present terminus of 

 the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad, and has 

 regular steamboat communication with Bainbridge, Ga., 

 Eufaula, Columbus, and Apalachicola. The penitentiary 

 is located there. There is a fine farming country around it. 



Monticello, thirty-one miles east on a branch of the Jack- 

 sonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad, is the county 

 seat of Jefferson county. There is a splendid country 

 around it. It contains about 1,100 inhabitants. The Epis- 

 copalians, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians have nice 

 churches. There is a fine brick Court House and several 

 fine business houses and residences. It has an able and 

 well conducted weekly newspaper, the Constitution, re- 

 fined and intelligent society and good schools. 



Madison, fifty-five miles east of Tallahassee, is the county 

 seat of Madison county. It has once been a beautiful and 

 flourishing town, and the abode of wealth and refined so- 

 ciety. The location is really beautiful, and surrounded by 

 an excellent farming country. The population of the town 

 is about 600. It contains Methodist, Baptist and Presby- 

 terian churches and good schools. The town some years 

 ago was nearly destroyed by fire, which has never been re- 

 built. Many of the buildings have been neglected. The 

 society is excellent. Labor and money could make Madi- 

 son one of the most lovely places in Florida. 



Ellaville, seventy miles east of Tallahassee, is the great- 

 est lumber manufacturing town in Middle Florida It is 

 situated on the Suwannee River, and at the head of navi- 

 gation, where the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Rail- 

 road crosses the river. Immense amounts of lumber are 

 manufactured and shipped daily to Northern and foreign 

 markets. The population is about 500. 



Jasper is the county seat of Hamilton, the northeast 

 county in Middle Florida. ' It is located on the Florida 

 branch of the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad, and contains 

 about 150 inhabitants. It is surrounded by a healthy and 

 pleasant country. 



Troy is the county seat of Lafayette county, is on the 

 Suwannee River, and is at present the head of steamboat 

 navigation. It contains about fifty inhabitants. It is near 

 one of the finest regions for hunting in all Florida. 



Crawfordsville, the county seat of Wakulla county, is 

 twenty miles south of Tallahassee and twelve miles from 

 St. Mark's, and situated in an oak grove and surrounded 

 by a pleasant, productive, and healthy country. It con- 

 tains three stores, a Methodist church, schools, etc. It is a 

 small place. 



Bristol is the county seat of Liberty county, and is lo- 

 cated on the Apalachicola River. Near it are some splen- 

 did orange groves, which produce the finest oranges raised 

 in the State. 



New Port, on the St. Mark's River, six miles from the 

 Gulf of Mexico, was once an important commercial place. 

 Ships drawing twelve feet of water could come up there 

 from the gulf, but it is now deserted, only a few houses 

 remaining. Rev. Charles Beecher (brother of Mrs. H. B. 

 Stowe,) resides there, and has a nice little orange orchard. 

 Above the town is one of the finest sulphur springs in the 

 State, whose waters contain great curative powers, and 

 have performed almost miraculous cures. Before the war 

 invalids from nearly all parts of the Union resorted there 

 to drink of and bathe in the health-giving waters of the 

 springs. Across the St. Mark's River, opposite, are the 

 finest hunting grounds in the South in all probability. Bear, 

 deer, turkeys, etc., are in the greatest abundance. It ia the 

 paradise for sportsmen. 



Three miles below New Port is St. ( Mark's, once a flour- 

 ishing commercial place. It has dwindled down to almost 

 nothing. Vessels once in a while come in. It is at the 

 junction of the St. Mark's and Wakulla Rivers, and is really 

 a fine site for a city. W T e don't see anything to hinder it 

 from being one of the best commercial cities in Florida. 

 What it needs is capital and labor used judiciously to bring 

 it out. 



Orange Culture.— -The orange, lemon, lime, citron, 

 and shaddock can be successfully cultivated in Middle 

 Florida, and as fine varieties are raised as in any section of 

 the State. In Leon county there are 752 bearing orange 

 trees. In Liberty county there are some very fine groves 

 ot the very best of oranges that bear bountifully every 

 year. On what is known as the "Belmont Place," in Jef- 

 ferson county, there was for near a quarter of a century 

 previous to the late civil war a large orchard of the finest 

 sweet oranges that bore bountifully every year, and many 

 were shipped from it to Northern markets. When Gen. 

 Taylor was in Florida during the Indian war his army was 

 supplied with oranges from the Belmont orchard. 



One advantage that Middle Florida possesses over the 

 eastern portion of the State is that it has a rich and pro- 

 ductive soil and a splendid subsoil (both of which are es- 

 sential to make an orange orchard grow and bear bounti- 

 fully,) consequently no muck or manure are required to be 

 put around the trees annually to make them grow or keep 

 them alive. Trees sometimes require protection from frosts 

 in Winter, just as a peach tree does in the more Northern 

 States. A urove of trees or a forest on the north side of an 

 orchard to protect it from the north winds makes it bear 

 much better. It is much easier to protect a tree from frost 

 than to be constantly manuring it to keep it from dying. 

 A person by bestowing the same care and attention to the 

 culture of orange trees that the fruit growers of Ohio and 

 Michigan do to their trees, could always have oranges 

 in Middle Florida. Oranges require strong, rich land, and 

 for that reason they can be more successfully cultivated in 

 the rich lands of" Middle Florida than in the sandy pine 

 lands in East and South Florida. There is another con- 

 sideration to be thought of. The lands of East Florida are 

 not good for agricultural purposes, while those of the mid- 

 dle section are, and of the best quality, and the farmer can 

 always have something growing ready for market besides 

 his orange crop. Oranges are successfully raised in Portu- 

 gal, Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, where it is colder 

 than in any part of Middle Florida. Oranges and lemons 

 have been cultivated in the open air in England. It is 

 stated, "At Hampton Court there are many orange trees, 

 some of which are said to be over 300 years old." 



The banana grows very finely everywhere, and could he 

 made a source of great profit if the people would pay more 

 attention to its culture. One gentleman in Tallahassee has 

 in his garden a few trees or shrubs, on which can now 

 (Sept. 6,) be counted over 200 bushes. H. C. Rippey, 



REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



FISHERIES OF THE STATE OF 



CALIFORNIA FOR THE YEARS 



1874 AND 1875. 



THE first effort of the California Commissioners to- 

 wards introducing the fish of the Eastern coast in 

 1874 was a repetition of the attempt of the year before, 

 when, by the breaking of a railroad bridge their aquarium 

 car and contents were entirely destroyed. The present at- 

 tempt was made also under the supervision of Mr. Living- 

 ston Stone, who arrived in June w 7 ith an assortment of 

 black bass, glasseyed perch, catfish, hornpouts, silver eels, 

 salmon, (salmo salar), and rock bass, of fresh water varie- 

 ties, and a number of tautog or black fish, salt water eels, 

 and lobsters, of which latter but three arrived alive. These 

 fish were all placed in suitable waters and the commissioners 

 are satisfied that the greater number have found congenial 

 homes,' and have ' spawned. Black bass have, during the 

 present season, been caught in Napa Creek, and large num- 

 bers of the young have been seen. The black bass placed 

 in Alameda Creek have been seen, but none have been 

 caught. One of the glasseyed perch placed in the Sacra- 

 mento River has been caught in a slough, to which it was 

 probably repairing for the purpose of spawning. 



The Schuylkill catfish and the Mississippi catfish, 

 placed in the San Joaquin River, have grown rapidly and 

 spawned, but several of the large fish, and many of the 

 young ones, have been caught by the fishermen near the 

 San Joaquin bridge, and have been returned to the river. 

 By another year they will be so numerous that they may- 

 be caught with safety and shipped to market, as it would 

 be impossible to exhaust the river by ordinary fishing. 

 The hornpouts, a species of small catfish from Lake Cham- 

 plain, which were placed in the lakes near Sacramento, in- 

 creased so abundantly that nearly one thousand have been 

 caught and transported to the various lakes and sloughs m 

 the Sacramento Valley. Several hundred of them were 

 placed in lakes containing brush and dead trees, in which 

 it would be impossible to seine them. The acclimatiza- 

 tion and perpetuation of these fish in the Sacramento Val- 

 ley is assured, as they are now so situated that no amoun 

 of fishing will exhaust them. 



Of the fresh water eels placed in a tributary of the bac- 

 ramento River, one was caught in Willow Slough, ?h° 

 county, which had grown to be more than a foot in leng^ . 



None of the Eastern salmon have been seen since M 

 were placed in the Sacramento River. It is hardly to 

 expected that they should be, as yet, as without douo 

 they have gone to the ocean, not to return until the bpn f, 

 of 1876. It will be interesting to learn, in after years, 

 they will cross with the Sacramento salmon and produce < 

 n ew variety. . n 



The rock bass, placed in Napa Creek, have not »e« 

 heard from. The tautogs, salt water eels, and spawni „ 

 lobsters, placed in San Francisco Bay, have never De 



