LETTERS FROM FLORIDA.


lay ever before me, realizing
taste, and industry, with but ve


It was on the St. Mark's.
the Saratoga of Florida, bi
almost entirely destroyed.


visit i
could
neatly
ing th
newly
many


The
at d
 T


what education, good
ry little money, can do.
place was once deemed
ring the war had been
three years before my


t was waste and barren; but from my wind
then see a large track of land well plowed,
fenced, where grain and potatoes were co
e broad fields with. rich green, and where
planted cotton and sugar-cane would be:
days spring up with promise of abundant


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and


remunerative harvest.
 What had wrought this change ? What had
this oasis in the desert ? Three years before a fe
gray-haired man, over whom the doctors had
nounced sentence of death, resolved to make one
effort for life, and try what Florida, instead of
sicians. could do for him. He purchased the


orange-grove of any size
eral desolation-an old grc
and covered with lichens,
rejuvenation. The fences


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6


that had survived the
,ve, whose trees, moss-b
gave but faint promi
all around the place


a
made
seble,
pro-
more
phy-
only
gen-
ound
se of
were


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A, r


tumbling down, gates off the hinges, and everything
telling of neglect, desertion, and decay.
 In the middle of the grove stood a long, rambling,
one-story house, with many dilapidated out-buildings.
It was evidently once among the aristocratic resi-
dences of the place, but, like the grove and surround-
ing property, was fast tending to ruin.
 Here, sick and very feeble, the new owner began
the work of rejuvenating both the property and him-
" If / /'
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