CHAPTER XIV.
 FLORIDA FOLKS AND FAMILIES.

 FLORIDA is rapidly becoming a Northern colony. The
tide of immigration to this State is large and steadily in-
creasing, and is beyond doubt soon to assume immense pro-
portions, and the immigrants as a class are unusually intel-
ligent people. Nearly all of native American birth, the
foreign-born element is of insignificant dimensions at this
date.
 Generally described, they are people who read-and con-
tinue to read-and are well posted on the resources and ad-
vantages of the various sections of the United !States, and
know exactly what they desire. They come here with a


fixed purpose, that only requires
observation and examination of the
for their proposed special enterpri
citement attraction here, with vision:
up in lumps, but a healthy feeling
mate, and a slow but steadily i
from the soil. There is a total al
ious, eager class of excited, young
flannel shirts, broad felt hats, top-b


a short period of local
precise soil and climate
se. It is no mining ex-
ns of gold to be picked
of hope of a genial cli-
ncreasing wealth made
sence of the wild, anx-
,single men arrayed in
oots, armed with knives


and immense navy revolvers, their brains filled
ary ideas of suddenly acquired wealth, that are
in Western countries and mining regions.
 The immigrants to this section are the ex
site; they are, as a class, middle-aged men,
families, evidently of good average education,


with vision-
so plentiful


treme oppo-
mostly with
veil dressed,