LETTERS FROM FLORIDA.


Northern


settlement


would willingly work fears


secure.
 Pretty settlements are springing up, not only along


the banks of the St.


John's, but around the beautiful


inland lakes, where one family-and sometimes two or


three-five or six years ago, felled


broke the ground in


the midst of


the first trees and
the forest, where


never before had


there


been an acre of


Some of these, when I first went South,


cleared land.
were isolated,


and to an inexperienced eye gave little promise of any


great comfort or success.


rantly


I judged, as you did, igno-


for now orange-groves, just coming into bear-


ing, are plenty all along the


tages and neatly


banks, and


clad women


pleasant cot-


children indicate


that they have passed out of pioneer life into organized
townships or pleasant villages, making steady progress
year by year toward elegant and refined homes.


Many of these


new settlements have been started


by two


or three


brothers,


leaving


home


to select


family


homestead


and after clearing and fenc-


acres,


getting in their first


planting


vegetables, planting the seedlings or sour stumps"


for the young
nuity to erect


orange-groves,


neat,


they


comfortable


exert their inge-
shelter for their


parents


the younger portion of the family,


will join them when all this rough preliminary work
has prepared the way for them.
 Ah if you could realize how very truthful all this


is, which-shivering over your


Northern coal fires-


may possibly appear


like exaggeration


or rhapsody,


you could better understand how very small a portion