The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-04
Much DAMAGED AT MAITLAND.
Tender Vegetation OF All Kinds Kill
ed by the Cold.

Maitland, Fla, Jan. S.-Despite the fact
that we are in the most favored portion
or Orange county, this morning finds US
unable to sit under our own vine and
fig tree, and find protection from the sun.
Our vines and zig trees are frost-bitten
and leafless, and the vines lifeless to the
ground. A week ago everything was
green and growing ana beautiful, the re-
suit of an almost complete chain OF nour-
ishing rains that had been heightened far
into the winter season. Never before
were more vines, plants and flowers eX-
posed, and the freeze of Saturday night
and the boar frost of last night have left
them all a shapeless mass of frozen pulp.
Only very few hardy vines and plants
esca ped.
All this destruction, of course means
only loss of, the beautiful and attrac-
tive environments of our winter homes :
but this is not all; for the Strawberries
the bananas, the guavas. etc, are also
stricken and we lose much that would
nave come to our tables in dessert lux
uries. Then the gardens have been
stricken, and that means the loss of much
that our tables will need before the sea.
son is fully over
The above refers simply to our winter
residents, people who have summer homes
at the north and good incomes to live on
They can easily lose all this and as read
lily purchase a new supply Not so the all
the-year-round resident, who depends
upon the sale of his strawberries, ba-
nanas, guavas, etc, for the support of his
family and to keep up Rs farm, garden
and grove. The loss to him is heavy as
well as VeXatious.
AS to the large truck farmers they have
been badly bit Last week | took a trip
to Lamps and on all sides of the route |
w st Arifb lar
bers of truck farms and strawberry fields
and especially their unusual thriftiness.
Many of the owners had put all their la
| Dor and means into those enterprises,
which to-day, in many cases. are a total
loss. No doubt that in some favored local
tiles the damage has been light, but gen.
orally there has been great loss and it fall
upon men untitled to stand the added
burden.
These losses cover the tender product
that have fallen beneath the chilling
breath of the frost king. Good judges,
experienced in orange culture, are positive
that the leaves of the orange, lemon and
grape fruit trees have been injured and the
tender new growth and buds killed. This
means a set back TO the older trees and
| rebuilding of the young budded trees. OF
course, nursery stock has, in exposed
places, suffered severely.
Now what effect will all this have upon
Floridd'S future, in view of the fact that
we had a cold snap last winter that set
back guavaS, bananas, etc? Ever since
the big saw mills and turpentine stills
were set up all over the state have seen
a steady change in our once reliable eli
mate. The cutting down of thousands
upon thousands of trees has given us a
variable climate and multiplied and i'm
creased In severity our cold snaps.
For myself, l have always contended
laaf do ito~ i11
the colder states, and that her real growth
and prosperity was to come from winter
residents and winter guests People with
safe incomes who needed the benefit of
our genial climate. To them a freeze is
but nothing of night. something they are
used to in the north, and a few cold
snaps do not deter them from coming here
winter after winter, and from making
here homes that have many comforts
| not possible where ice and snow are seen
for months at a time.
Editor william Drysdale of the New
! York Times, who has spent winters in the
West India Islands, Central America and
the Bahamas, and is now wintering in the
famous South of France" writes me
from Marseiles the past week, that so far
as his past and present experience goes in
winter resorts, he prefers Orange county,
Florida, having spent three seasons here
in Maitland and fully tested the climate of
the whole of South Florida.
l could mention many families of means
who have been spending their winters
here for twenty or more years. No heavy
freeze, nor any number of cold snaps have
driven them away. I hold therefore, that
our future growth and prosperity cannot
be measured by the number of cold snaps
such as came to US Saturday and Sunday
nights, and the sad effects of which we see
all around us to-day. The heaviest losers
will find some means of recuperating their
| losses, and everything will move ahead
until a generous soil and a genial climate
shall email BILE us to again sit in comfort and
ease under our own vine and fig tree