Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1902 — A Letter From Florida. [ARTICLE]

A Letter From Florida.

The following very interesting letter from Miami, Florida, was received a few days’ ago by D. H, Yeoman, from his son-in-law, Rev, M. V. Brown, whose removal to Florida, was mentioned a few weeks ago. Miami, Fla., Sunday P. M. D. H. Yeoman: Well, I expect you are anxious to hear about Florida, We arrived after a very tiresome journey. We were on the train for 48 hours w ith scarcely a break. We crossed very poor and very rough country, but I for my part feel more than paid for the coming. This part of Florida is more than I had anticipated. Miami is a beautiful new city with streets as white as snow, smooth as a floor and hard as rook. It is made of the native rock. Florida has been a perfect jungle, some parts of it are yet, but this southern part is settled up and cleared up by nothern people so is getting to be very fine. There is a fortune here for a man with a little money. The government appropriation for deep sea dredging through the bay of Biscayne right up to the city is booming everything. Land is now 840 per acre whereas it could be brought not long since for 820. The climate is superb, winter and summer. And the people coming here are the cream of the country. I only wish you would come down and see. So far as I am concerned, I do not think I will ever come back north to live. And it is my purpose at present to secure if possible, a home, at least, in this place for after years. A few acres here planted in oranges will in a few years furnish an independent living for a man. But today is the day of salvation. If this land is not taken up now it will soon all be sold. In a few years it will be a paradise, then it would take a fortune to get it.

There is a chance here in a number of different ways. Cattle raisers, dairy men, poultry-men, the country needs them all and would yield a good profit. Living at present is pretty high, but it is because our meat, eggs and butter are not produced here. Yet they might be. The country will produce food for them. Well the children are having a great time with the mosquitoes. They are pretty bad at present but will only last a short time. The first east wind that blows sweeps them all back to the Everglades. That is the only pest we haveThere are no flies to speak of. We have seen perhaps a half dozen. Fruits? They are innumerable, guava, lime lemons, oranges* cocoanUt, Aligator pear, mangoes, sugar-apple, pine-apple, figs, pawpaw (not your kind) and many others. Flowers of all colors and shapes, with just enough of our northern bloomers to keep it from seeming a dream. It would surely be a'great privelege to never have to leave this place. 1 just learn there is a good deal of land about 20 miles south of us to be taken up as claims. lam going to look the matter up and if possible enter 160 acres. That is if I can meet the con ditions and not give up my work here. The man who told of it has just entered a claim, and says the conditions are very easy. Our church here is new, but the parsonage is old. We are expecting to build soon then we will have a nice work; better than I oould have gotten in the N. W. Con. in 15 years. The work is much better than I supposed. It does not pay much salary, because it is new; but it will come up rapidly on this. Well I guess I will stop. Hope you will see your way clear to come down and see us at once. Yours truly, M. V. Brown.