GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 117

 The largest towns are Dade City, with 1296 inhabitants in January, 1920, Brooksville, with 1011, and Zephyrhills (formerly Abbott), with 577.
 In i88o nearly one-third of the inhabitants of Hernando County were from other states, chiefly from Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia, in the order named.
 The leading religious denominations among the white people in 1916 were Baptist, so-uthern Methodist, Roman Catholic, northern Methodist ( ?), and southern Presbyterian; and among the negroes, Baptist, African Methodist, and northern Methodist (?). The Catholics seem to be chiefly concentrated near the western edge 01 the region in Pasco County, where there are several places whose names begin with "San" or "St." founded about forty years ago, and two Catholic schools.
 Agriculture. The fertile soil attracted farmers at an early period, and in i85o Benton County (which corresponds with the present Citrus, Hernando and Pasco) had 82 farms, averaging 167 acres apiece, With 32.4 improved, land and buildings worth $966, implements and machinery $82, and live-stock $802. No returns were received from this county in i86o, and those of 1870 are probably not very accurate, but by i88o the farms had increased in number to 589, and diminished in size to r35 acres with 26.2 improved, land and buildings worth $623, implements and machinery $16.8o, and live-stock $378. No fertilizer was reported as used there in 879. The cattle and hogs probably rangeal mostly in the open pine lands of the lime-sink region, as they do now.
 Even vet farming in Hernando and Pasco Counties is chiefly concentrated in the hammock belt, so that the following table, based on the returns from these counties, ought to represent conditions in this region from 1890 to 1910 pretty well.