43 
[ Rep. 564. ] 
peninsula of Yucatan. It has not the elevated mountains of the former 
to^ chill and charge its atmosphere, with thunder, lightning, storm, and 
rain : it has not even the wide surface of the latter to cool the air so 
greatly by night, or to heat it as greatly by day. But, above all, its happy 
equilibrium must be sustained by a friend peculiarly its own—the great 
G-ulf stream, which cherishes the shores it embraces with the heat which it 
brings from the equatorial seas. The perpetual trade wind, in its passage 
across this warm river of the ocean, imbibes its equalizing temperature, 
and steadily distributes it, in travelling westwardly, over the whole sur¬ 
face of tropical Florida. 
The whole extent, then, of southern Florida must present unparalleled 
advantages for vegetable cultivation and for animal enjoyment. By 
analogy with Yucatan, its atmosphere should become proverbial for 
healthiness.. Consumption, which annually destroys fifteen per cent, of 
the population between Boston and New Orleans, should at least be as 
rare a disease as it is in Campeachy, where it is shunned as a virulent 
contagion; and the thousands of sufferers who are sent in its incipient 
i stages to perish amid the sudden transitions of the south of Europe, may 
^ hereafter change their voyage to recover in the equable temperature of 
the south of Florida. 
The eastern shore, however, possesses some advantages for a settle¬ 
ment which are not common to the western side. The trade wind arrives 
at it with the steady warmth of the Gulf stream, and the pure freshness of 
the ocean, which may be somewhat disturbed in its course across the in¬ 
terior by the variations and exhalations of the soil; and vessels bound to 
it will not be exposed to that delay in time, or those dangers in naviga¬ 
tion, which necessarily attend a voyage round Cape Sable. But especially 
in reference to the location of the first nursery in Florida, the circum¬ 
stance niost essential to its success will be found in speed and safety of 
communication with the great commercial emporium of the North; as 
nine-tenths of the valuable exotics of the world can be obtained more 
easily and cheaply via New York, than in any other way. 
You are respectfully referred to document No. 198 and report No. 454, of 
the last session of Congress, containing a letter from the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and a report from the Committee on Agriculture, for an outline of 
the past services and future plans of the subscriber, to accomplish the impor¬ 
tant enterprise of domesticating tropical plants in the United States. You 
will thence perceive that his hopes of ultimate success are founded on an 
act of the Legislstive Council , of Florida, incorporating, restrictively, a 
Tropical Plant Company, and on a bill of the national House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, granting, conditionally, a township of land; and that, conse¬ 
quently, if the company should finally be organized, and the bill become 
; a law, one or two years must, subsequently elapse before any available 
' funds can probably be obtained from either measure, or both combined. 
Nevertheless, during the ensuing winter and spring the subscriber shall 
be employed in collecting the valuable vegetables of Yucatan and Ta¬ 
basco, with the ho 2 -)e of transplanting them in Florida about the beginning 
of the periodical rains in May, and of thus commencing a permanent 
depot for the continued, reception of superior species of all celebrated 
plants of the torrid zone. To realize this hope, andntervening accumu¬ 
lation of funds is essential for the transportation of a cargo of living plants, 
for the preparation of the soil to contain them, and for the maintenance of 
