WHAT HAS BEEN AND MAY BE. 



17 



tween the work of John Eaton, and his cousin in Canada. 



And now let us come down to later times, and to men who 

 were not pioneer hermits, but pioneer settlers. 



We know of an island in Lake Griffin, containing three hun- 

 dred acres of rich land, studded over with orange trees, once wild, 

 hut now budded, and yielding luxuriant crops. 



Tv/elve years ago the first small improvements were made 

 here, the land and work together costing fourteen hundred dol- 

 lars ; last year the proprietors received six thousand dollars for 

 their crop, and refused an offer of forty thousand dollars ($40,000) 

 for the property. 



Eleven years ago a father and two sons, ruined by the war, 

 purchased eighty acres, with a wild grove on it, for five hundred 

 and fifty dollars. 



The trees they budded with the sweet orange ; and they took 

 care of the trees as best they could ; they were so poor that they 

 were compelled to use their own strong arms to cut down trees, 

 with which they built a rude house to shelter them, and the little 

 furniture needed was fashioned with their own hands. 



They managed to live somehow — it is easier to rub on over a 

 hard road in a mild climate than in an inclement one — and took 

 good care of their trees ; though they themselves might suffer for 

 food, they were determined their trees should have " full and 

 plenty" for they knew them to be the "geese that would lay 

 golden eggs." 



And they were entirely right. 



Last year that hard-won grove brought them in nine thous- 

 and dollars, and it has really just begun to bear. 



The hard working days of this trio, are over, they may take 

 their ease, while a skillful man, at a good salary, look after their 

 "golden gooses; " and they have merely to sort and pack the 

 " eggs, " and this, by preference, as wise men who would make 

 sure that the fruit is properly sweated, graded, and packed, for 

 on these important points, depends the good or bad fortune of the 

 crop ; what matters it if a grove yields its thousands of luscious 

 fruits, if those fruits are rotted and valueless by the time they 

 reach the market ? 



