The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1875-04-29
Correspondence Of the Cincinnati Gasette.
A Northerner's View of Florida.
DAYToNA, Fla, April 2

With the falling of the leaf and the bleak
winds of November comes the inclination on
the part of all Inhabitants of colder latitudes
To seek for season at least more genial cline.
The snow-clad fields, the leafess trees, the cold
gray clouds driven before the wintry winds,
suggest to them all that they have ever heard
or read of the perpetual summer of the tropics:
The antithesis k;ndles the imagination, and
they revel in dreams of blue skies and summer
foliage, of the orange, the banana, and the
palm, of summer airs in whose breath is no
harshness and of bright waters whose spark
ling ripples are never CONCEALED by the frosty
hand of winter.
Alone among the Territories of the Union
bounded by the Atlantic seaboard, Florida af-
fords in the largest measure the soothing and
genial influences of tropical climate, and in
some degree the exuberance and variety OF
tropical vegetation.
Yet the feeling first experienced by the visi-
tor to her shores is often one of disappoint-
ment. A country in the main monotonousy
level at no great elevation anywhere above
tide-water, covered in great part with interim
nable pine forests, and of that variety of pine
which suggests only the baldest utilities, with
an underground in many places of saw pei
metto, presenting an almost impenetrable COW
er, sluggish looking streams, offering the alter
are features unattractive to the tourist, dis
tressing to the insalid, and suggest to the prac-
tical worker in search of new home, q return
to the first principles of pioneer life not wholly
captivating to the imagination.
As you follow the sandy trails, for they are
too lacking in de6niteness of beginning, end,
and continuity to be dignifed by the name:of
highways, you come occasionally to break jim
the wilderness, and are introduced to the means
and appliances of Florida life in the piney
woods.
For the most part, partly improved clear
ing, inclosed with fences run without reference
to any particular point of the compass-for
from his isolated situation the Florida farmer
has inexact ideas concerning the boundaries of
his estate-within which will be found grow
ing, whatever else is not, patch of sweet po-
tatoes, generally field of corn, and almost
always either cotton or cane. In the garden
the family of gourds is we'll represented, and
including okra and eggplant comprise most of
the vegetables to which much attention is
given. Outside the fence q herd of small,
wild-looking cattle stare at the intruder with
defiant eyes, Somewhere about the premises 8
drove of black, ill-conditioned hogs are snuf6ng
the faintest possible odor of food, frowzy-
looking mule or marsh pony is struggling about
making abortive nibbles ct patches of wiry
looking grass. 0utbuildings for the most part
of carelessly laid-up logs palmetto-thatched.
Carts and farm implements in every conceiva-
bic state of fracture and premature invalidism,
half dozen surly looking dogs glaring at you
from the veranda or under the house, which is
without cellar. and elevated few feet upon
posts, itself built Of unchinked logs, with
rough scored timber for floor, and huge open
Fireplace furnished with hide bottomed chairs,
musauito barred beds, and unpainied table,
not always suggestive of over zeal in the duties
of ouse-keeping table furniture of the odd
est combinations and most primitive styles.
Books of the fewest, and where the exception
confirms the rule, invariably devotional in
character.
Of adornment, personal or other, no sign.
Yet contrasted as these houses frequently are
with background of noble oaks, or luxuriant
magnolias or the brilliant foliage of the orange,
with their broad verandas and wide-open halls
not by any means unpicturesque.
Almost without exception the stranger is
made welcome to the rude hospitalities that the
place affords, and treated with grave courtesy
In singular and agreeable contrast to the eager
and prying curiosity often exhibited 0y the
same class at the North.
But generally accurate as this representation
Is, it does not state the case fully nor fairly.
She has beyond all comparison the most ex.
tended area of any State in the Union, adapted
to the successful cultivation of the two most
profitable productions known to agricultural
economy-sugar and sea island cotton. She
possesses, in that measure of abundance we
term inexhaus,ibie, four of the most useful
kinds of wood known-oak, pine, cypress and
red cedar. The Southern portion of the State
isa wide extended savanna of luxuriant pas
ture. Hardly county in this State that may
not be made accessible by water communica-
ton. Every river, lake, and tidal water
abounds in fish. For healthfulness her record
equals that Of any equal area in the Union.
Her climate is simply Incompatible.
Nor is this all. By virtue of her topograph'
ical position she enjoys monopoly, upon the
Atlantic slope, of thes cultivation of all that
vast variety of semi-tropical productions for
which we have been andin large measure still
are dependent upon foreign importations.
With the exception of few Of the extreme