GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 241

many people spend about half the year in Florida and half in some other state, and are therefore entitled to be counted in either place.
 But when we take several cities together such errors (except the seasonal one last named) ought to offset each other to a considerable extent. And it is safe to say that the population of the ten largest cities (which were not the same places each time, though) nearly doubled between 1890 and 1895, decreased a little in the next five years, and then mo re than doubled in the decades 1900-1910 and 1905-1915. The increase from 1915 to 1920 was less than 15%, but the rural population at the same time was practically stationary, as seems to have been the case in most other states. The ten cities or towns next in rank did not seem to be affected so inuch by the freezes of 1895 and 189c), strange to say, and they just about doubled every ten years between 1895 and 1915, but gained very little in the last five years.
 WINTER RESORTS
 The mild dry winters of peninsular Florida naturally attract many visitors from the colder states, and they are an important source of revenue, ranking in that respect close to the products of the phosphate mines, forests and farms. It would be very difficult to estimate the total number of "tourists" that visit central Florida in an average year, but the average maximum number that are expected at any one time in the height of the season may be guessed at by means of the hotel capacity.. Of course all the hotels are not likely to be filled at the same time, and many if not most of them are, open all the year for the accommodation of commercial travelers, etc. But at the same time no hotel directory is absolutely complete and up to date, and there are many winter visitors who rent cottages or even live in tents, so that the indicated hotel capacity is probably as good a measure of the tourist business as can be found.*
 *The tourists are presumably all white (and mostly adults), though the negro population must be augmented a little also in the winter season by a. certain number of waiters, porters, etc.