Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1881 — SOUTHERN FLORIDA. [ARTICLE]

SOUTHERN FLORIDA.

A Cttree That to mC » Tropical aa to fee t The climate here b not salubrioua, and re a tropical clime is a failure. The winter has proven that the seaaon here Im not reliable, and that tropical fruit may not only fail, but the trees be killed here. Many orange trees twenty five years old, in perfect bearing, ana as well protected as can be in this neighborhood, were killed root and branch by the frost ol last winter. Bananas are unheard of, and many persona here don’t know whether the banana grows on a vine like a watermelon, or on a tree like a cocoanut or an acorn. I have beard of banana, citron, pomegranate, lemon, orange, bread fruit and many other tropical fruits as the production of western Florida,, but I must confess that I have found them an imagination and a vanity, for they are not here, not even the oranges, and at this minute you oan buy a sweet orange, a banana or a lemon at the fruit stands in Louisville

much cheaper than you oan buy the same thing here. The reason of this is that the frost of the winter killed the trees here and the fruit must be brought from 200 to 400 miles, and being shipped in small quantities for the consumption at this place costs more and the dealers here actually pay more than do the dealers in Louisville. The ice formed here with good opportunity, like dripping water, in immense quantities and to a wondrous thickness for this laititude and for several days, and of course the tropical trees; were killed; but it seems to me that this should be no excuse for charging such enormous prices for strawberries, which now are in season time, and sell at seventy-five cents a quart. If sales could be had. at that price, it would pay to raise those berries In hot houses in Louisville, yet these people have them here at this time, raised in tie open air, nd yet land is so unproductive that I have no doubt a large area is necessary to produce a quart; but then the soil is too poor to produce weeds, and hence, the cultivation amounts to but little, and berries ought to come cheap. The ground will produce no grain-nothing in the way of herbage except after much fertilization. There is enough strength in the earth to produce the orange tree, but there is little enough of the controlling influence of the Gulf stream to permit the trees to freeze, and thus render a mans life lobor futile: So, besides lumuering, ‘tar’ ‘rosum,” “turpentine,” and other lumber interest, there is actually no industry here worthy attention, but of fishing.