Litchfield enquirer., 1880-02-12
Florida Letter.
ORANGE Cry, Florida, February 2nd 80.

 interested in Florida, that perhaps trip up the St. John river, and a look at some of the places along it's banks may not be uninteresting to you who are shivering in the Zero tempera- ture of Connecticut. Let us take look at Jacksonville, having presumably explored all the wonders of that city, and find something to entertain us in Southern Florida. We start in the evening and comfortably ensconced in our stateroom know nothing of the river till early dawn, when we are out on deck to view the approach to Palatka.
 This house is on bend of the river which displays it to great advantage, so that on dis embarking and making short tour we find it not so large as we supposed. There are, how ever, her fine hotels, and, as in winter these have many guests, there is plenty of life and gayety Rows of sour orange trees serve as 8 shade and their dark leaves look rich and luxuraint. And here let me answer a ques- ticn asked me many times before l came South relative to finding ripe oranges and bl"s- sons on the trees at the same time. This can only be when there are the last seasons oran- ges which have been left because they were not worth picking Gas might be in the case with sour oranges) or for some such reason |; as the orange has it's regular time for flowers and fruit as much as an apple tree. They begin to blossom in March, the fruit to ripen in October, but it is not picked for market till the last of November, and from then till Feb ruary.
 The St. Johns, much of the way between Jacksonville and Palatka, is very wide, from two to four miles; and, for many miles up, there are numerous lakes through which it passes, which add to the size. The banks have a very tropical appearance, and when the river is narrow enough, or the channel lies to one side, one sees cypress and live oaks drapcd with sombre gray moss, and tall pal mettos lifting their stately heads above the rest, and thick curtains of vines twined among all There is however no variety in the land scape, and spite of all that has been said in praise of the beauties of the St Johns, give me rather the wooded hills and sunny valleys of the picturesque Ohio.
 There are on these hammock lands frequent groves, and now and then little groups of houses on the rivers bank, but these settle ments are not large and though there is a Post Office to every hamlet, there are few houses of any size. Walaka is on the right bank of the river just below Lake George, and boasts rather more of settlement than any other as far up. The inhabitants make dismal pun on the name, and say in sorrowful accents "We lack hotel"
 Lake George is 8 beautiful sheet of water about eighteen miles long with several little places on it's banks, and groves and residences on Drayton Island near the southern end This lake is the largest of the chain along the river, and affords a fine place for sailing, of which the people around take advantage both in their every day travel from place to place, and in frequent regattas to display the skill of their boatmen.
 Still farther up we reach Lake Beresford, which stands off as an excrescence from the river but into which all the boats run, and our next landing after this is Blue Springs, place insignificant in itself only as regards the beauty of the spring, but worthy of note as being the nearest point on the river from Orange City, one of the most thriving little places in the region of the upper St. Johns, of which more anon. Lake Monroe comes next, and here we find on the west side of the river, Sanford, the metropolis of Orange County. Farther on across the lake, in Volusia County, is Enterprise, at present the County seat, one of the few old towns but aside from large hotel, the enterprise lies chiefly in the name.
 The regular line of boats run no farther, the river from Lake Beresford up being narrow and tortuous and so you must wait till and my row-boat start out on an exploring tour for description of the head waters of the St. Johns. QUlLLIsT.