The Hartford herald., 1880-03-17

This city Was, in the earlier and bet
| ter days of this country, the head-centre
and rendezvous of the rich cottOn-plant-
ers, the statesman and politician, the
gay cavalier and queenly beautie- of
the SouthrOn; and ii the walls of the
quaint old City Hotel, with its length
ened piazza and its varigatei and check
cred pavement, the old Capitol building
standing riS q riS with its high and mas
siye pillars supporting and protecting
Its grand piazza, its spacious grounds
enclosing and surrounding il, regularly
and beautifully laid oil with the many
serpertine walk-ways and miniature
shaped Hover beds-ln fine, | say, ii
these and they could talk, many tale
would he told of the elegant leisure, the
plotting and contemplating. tine gay
and festive scenes then enjoyed and nay,
never To he forgotten pleasures by those
only who have survived the terrOrs II
war and the wreck Of fortunes.
This, Leon county, is one among the
earliest settled counties in this state,
and before the late war the most OF the
lands were owned and cultivated by the
rirh planters of that day, who were
generally the owners Of numbers of
slaves. Their staple crops, then a. now, ,
were cotton and sugar cane corn and
oats were at that time but little cultiva-
ted. But since the war and under Fed
eral reconstruction, bayOnets and gen
eral intimidation, things have changed;
oppression and subjectiOn, until very re-
Gently, ruled, and that too, supplement-
ell with that deadly blight To our Amer
lean industry and energy, resumption,
synonym for universal bankruptcy,
have paralyzed the energies, and blight
ed, in part, and forever, many of these
peoples future prospects.
All the productions Of the soil uf our
State are cultivated and grown here,
save that of wheat and some Of the
grasses, and in short, ''seed time and
harvest" begins here the first of Janu-
AIRY and ends the last day of December
/ following, ~ you see, my very intelli-
gent reader, that this is cmphatically n
poor mans a. well as a rich mans coun-
try, because fOrsoOth the farmer and the
poor man can work here from alpha to
omega from the beginning of one year To
the ending thereof, and leisure and rest
at intervals, are solely ut his option; and
hence, il is, he j. not at the mercy of "a
merciless, cold, wintry and muddy eli
mate where he has, in the course Of
nature, to tug and work hard six months
in the year to make and lay up provis-
ions for subsistence of his family and
stock, to he i'm turn, by almost an equal
amount Of labor through wintry storm
and blasts fed out and wasted in part,
his hard earnings of the previous
months. The people of this county and
country don't simply know the Ken
tucky meaning and depth of mud and
slosl, as their roads here, in so far as !
have seen, are sandy, dry and firm
even so after many days of hard and
continuous rain.
During this month the farmers here
have been busy blowing their grounds
they were retarded very much for six
weeks or two months previous to about
the 18th of this month on account of the
exceedingly dry weather, and conse-
quently the hardness OF soil and the
difficulty of breakingj and planting
sugar cane and Irish potatoes and SOW
ing oats, which latter crop grows luxur-
antly and yields very bouptifully here;
and in fact they are sOwn at any time
from the lst of November until the LIST
OF February, and now and here the out
fields look rs green and aS far advanced
as with us in May.
Where am at present, dOmiciled in
sight of, and about three quarters of IA
mile from the Capital, my host has
about four acres in Il truck-gar,ien, with
a very intelligent Englishman as his
gardner, and have daily seen planting
and growing, maturing and matured,
almost the entire range and catalogue
of vegetables, and verify | say, that
this, with many others | have seen,
looks to he rs far advanced us ours are
late in June. ! saw, since the last rain,
where he had set out over three thOuS-
and cabbage plants, many tomatoes,
and corn that was just coming up, and
some from q to = inches high. Imerely
make mention of these things in answer
to many queries and by way, too, of
showing the character of the climate
and what has and can he done here
towards making good living, if not
plenty of money. The next month,
February, the farmers here will begin
the planting of cotton, corn and other
field productions. | am not writing,
now, To play I'D cdptdndum, but simply
to drive home some hard and solid facts
i'm regard to these matters.
iltit tiit dplic' ptdCii anu SidIt anu
other such fruits almost indigenous to
Kentucky grow To great perfection
as also the more southern semi-tropical
fruits, including the orange, red banana,
pineapple, and Others too numerous to
mention latter fruits, however, are
not 80 much a speciality here a. in South
eastern Florida, i'm as much a. this Sec
ton of the State is much better adapted
to general farming and grazing, and
therefore the planters attention here is
directed and devoted To raising cotton,
sugar cane, corn and oats and many
other like productions of our soil as also
raising and fattening cattle, hogs and
sheep, and killing and curing their own
meat. So il will I've seen that whilst
rich man can lie down. wallOw, and
take his ease in the shade, cool and re-
gale himself by drinking the lime and
lemon water. eating oranges and red
bananas and slipping od Wdun, his
ScuppernOng and St. Augustine grape
wine and other such luxuries common
to this country. Then, upon the other
hand, the poor man can just a. well
with u little labor by working half, out
of full time, have all these blessings and
more; and when he returns home from