Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1900-06-01
FLORIDA-HER CLIMATE
healthfulness, Products, For
tunes and Failure s.

Mr.. EDITOR;
The climate, geography, and
Topography of Florida are so diff.
ferent to other parts of the country
that it is difficult to describe Flori
da III terms applicable to other
states east of the Mississippi river,
and has more miles Of sea-coast than
any other state. Having the sea
on three sides, and an average of
one hundred and twenty five miles
from the Atlantic to the Gulf,
daily sea.breezes are so constant
all the year that the temperature
in summer seldom rises abov,
ninty-two degrees in the sbadt,
or falls below twenty. eight III
winter. Winters are usually dry,
while daily rains occur from the
middle of June till the middle of
September, thus furnishin & ample
humidity in the summer to make
that season less oppressive here
tina n in states further north.
Nights here are never warm.
One writer has said that Florida
lands are worth ten dollars an
acre while Florida climate is worth
one thousand dollars an acre.
Thousands of invalids visitFlor.
ida every winter, some of whom
die before they leave the train;
others live a few weeks or months
to die finally of maladies contrac-
ted in other states. These deaths
increase the mortality of the state
and tend 10 depreciate in the
minds of the public the healthful-
ness of the country, yet statistics
show Florida to be the healthiest
state in the union.
We would not be understood
as saying there are no unhealthy
localities In Florida. Indeed there
are localities here as sickly as the
swamps of Arkansas. But some
parts of the state, especially the
lake regions of South Florida, are
almost totally exempt from chills
and fevers and diseases resulting
from bad colds. Here no village
or country physician has ever
been able to derive an income
from The practice of medicine suf-
ficient to support himself and
family. 1t is fifteen miles from
the home of the writer to the
nearest practicing physician. In
his twelve years residence here,
the writer never spent more than
ten dollars for medicine for him.
self and family.
But Florida is not a paradise
The financial prosperity of heI
people has not been cOmmensur
ate with the superior climatic
conditions of the country. Every
where are evidences of absolute
financial failures. These are moi
so much the result of natural
causes as they are of the class Of
men who rushed headlong and
blindly into industries for which
the men were wholly unified
Lawyers, doctors, professors, mer
chahts-men of all occupations
and professions, from every state
in the union and from foreign
coun!ry's, spent all their means
for Florida sand, regardless of the
quality or adaptation to the indus
try growing of oranges) in which
they intended to engage; never
stopping to think that there is {
long hungry gap between pine
forest and bearing orange grove
When it was too late the majority
realized, as did Dante's Inferno
that they had left hope behind
Those of a more practical mine
realized, in part, their UtOpiar
, dreams, and transformed the pine
, forest into a bearing orange grove
+ "a thing of beauty, but not a JOY
forever, for Boreas, five winter
, ago, destroyed in a few hour
' what it had required years of la
Dor and millions of treasury II
1 create.
0 Those who have rebuilt or re
r suscitated their groves now real
4 ize fortunes from their fruits
some trees producing fifty to ON
, hundred dollars worth of fruit il
0 one season.
Other Industries have beer
# opened up-lumbering, turpentin
d tobacco, strawberries etc, givin
e employment to labor at goo
n wages. Strawberry lands that
4 few years ago would have sol
Al high at ten dollars an acr,
If now brings two hundred dollar
an acre III the woods, and is har
to buy at that price. We coul
here give a number of instance
Ie where net profit of one thou
Y. and to fifteen hundred dollars a
acie was realized or strawberrie
this year.
The crops had been markete
of by the first of May, leaving Il
ID growers six months of the yes
Ill RI sit in thu ahaua and folk M