THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
249 
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an evergreen foliage, and are therefore called Liveoulcs. 
The Live-oak is, or has been, one of the most valuable 
of our forest trees—so valuable that the Government 
has protected and preserved large tracts or reservations 
of it in Florida, where no person is allowed to cut any 
timber. It is used altogether iu ship-building, and the 
knees, or ribs, of vessels made from it will last a hun¬ 
dred years or more. There are yet shown on Cumber¬ 
land Island, near the coast of Georgia, the stumps of 
trees from which were shaped the timbers of the fri¬ 
gate “ Constitution,” so celebrated in our history. 
The Live-oak is fast decreasing in numbers, and men 
are yet employed in cutting its valuable timber, which 
is shipped to the various navy-yards and stored up for 
future use. 
I once visited a camp of “Live-oakers” on Mosquito 
Lagoon, on the east coast of Florida. Three hundred 
men were employed, and they lived in little villages of 
palmetto huts, each group having its captain, teamster, 
and cook. They were all Northern men, most of them 
from the lumber camps of Maine, men bom in the 
woods, and well accustomed to fatigue. At first the 
Oaks were cut upon the bauks of the Lagoon, but these 
were soon exhausted, and mile after mile the men had 
followed, building roads of logs across the marshes, and 
rude bridges over the creeks and swamps, until they had 
finally reached the margin of Oak growth seven miles 
away. There was no other village near, and this settle¬ 
ment, with its many huts, huge barns (for all hay and 
provender for the cattle had to be brought from the 
North), stores, warehouses and wharfs, would be 
abandoned as soon as the supply of timber was ex¬ 
hausted. 
Every morning a gang of men went into the woods ; 
a certain number cut down the huge Oaks, others 
hewed the logs square, cut out the “knees” or bent 
limbs, which are the most valuable, and marked on every 
Jiiece its contents in cubic feet. The timber was then 
taken by the teamsters, who hung them under the 
axles of their huge wheels, eight feet in diameter, and 
drew them to the river. Their teams contained six, 
eight, and sometimes ten yoke of cattle ; and they were 
often nearly a day in accomplishing the distance to the 
lagoon. The native cattle were used, as, though hardly 
half the size of Northern oxen, they could undergo 
more fatigue, could travel quicker and more surely 
among the stumps and roots, and could live on less 
food. After the timber had been taken to the banks of 
the lagoon, it was loaded upon huge, boat-like rafts, 
called “lighters,” and floated twenty miles away to the 
inlet, where vessels were lying in wait for it. Every 
part of the process of securing this timber was attended 
with great hardship, and even danger. 
The trees are draped with long festoons of Spanish 
Moss or Tillauclsia, which is not Moss at all, but an air- 
plant. It garlands every tree nearly, and grows in every 
swamp in Florida, in little sprays of gracefully curling 
tendrils, or iu huge masses of interlaced and matted 
Moss. Large quantities of it are gathered and buried in 
some pond, or steamed, until the outer cuticle comes 
off, leaviug a woody fibre which is useful to us in 
various ways, chiefly as a stuffing for mattresses. 
One hot day in August I was walking along the 
shores of a beautiful lake in Florida, the banks of which 
were lined with a luxuriant growth of trees and vines, 
made almost impenetrable by the hanging Moss, when 
suddenly I heard sounds issuing from a tree near the 
thicket in which I was. I could see no one anywhere, 
and it was sometime before I traced the sounds to a 
tree. Thero, half-hidden in the dense shroud of Moss, 
was a boy ten years old, singing : 
“ Oh ! Santa Fe is a very good lake, 
’Tis a very good place for me ; 
For it has a bank that never will break, 
And that every body can see." 
As I stepped out upon the sandy shore he shrank back, 
much ashamed of having been overheard. Nevertheless, 
Ije invited me to his platform in the tree, and I climbed up 
upon the cross-pieces which were nailed upon its trunk. 
He was a very pleasant little fellow, with blue eyes 
and yellow hair, the son of a planter who owned a great 
portion of the land about the lake. From our position 
we could look across the lake into the pine woods two 
miles away, and up its shore for several miles. Tall 
Cypresses grew thickly along the lake shore, draped, 
like our own tree, with long pendants of moss; behind 
us was the plantation, a narrow lane leading up the hill 
to the houses and out-buildings, surrounded with orange 
and lemon trees. 
“And now, my little friend,” said I, sitting down by 
his side, “ how came you to have such a delightful play¬ 
house up in this tree ?” 
“This wasn't built for a play-house; but Papa made 
it ever so many years ago for mamma to watch from 
when he went across the lake. Do you see that green 
bank across the lake ? That is an orange grove that 
Papa set out when sister was born (she is two years 
older than I), and when he would go over there with 
the men to work, Mamma would get so lonesome, that 
he built her this place for a look-out. We call it ‘ the 
look-out tree;’ and when I was small, Mamma would 
bring me here on hot afternoons, and sit here till almost 
dark. One time she had waited for Papa till sunset, 
and he did not come, though she saw the boat leave the 
shore, and she thought she would go down. But just as 
she took me in her arms and got up, she saw a wild-cat 
coming right along the fence, toward the water. She 
didn’t make a noise but got right down behind the moss 
and waited. The wild cat jumped off the fence near 
the foot of the tree, began smelling of the foot-prints 
in the sand, and then scratching at the foot of the tree. 
He seemed ready to climb right up when something 
made him look out toward the lake, and there was the 
boat, coming as fast as our boys could pull it. That 
frightened him and he ran away. After that Mamma 
didn’t go] out there much, and would not let me go, 
unless nurse or Papa was with me, till I was quite 
old.” 
“And what was the bank of which you were singing ?” 
“ Oh! that is our orange bank across the lake. Noth¬ 
ing but frost can hurt that.” 
Then he told me of the portion his father had set 
aside for him. That each tree, being old as himself, 
now bore over two hundred oranges; and that'lie had 
received more than a hundred dollars from his orange 
bank last year. 
Then I related to him the stoiy of the Swiss Family 
Robinson, of their house in the tree, which his “ look¬ 
out” recalled; and we chatted till the sun drew near 1 the 
tops of the trees, and we walked up to the gate together, 
and said good-by.— Fred. Beverly. 
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