Palmetto Leaves Part 6

Some of the inquiries, however, we may as well dispose of in the beginning of this letter.

And first as to the little boy who has lost his cat, and wishes to know if we cannot spare Peter to take her place. Alas! we have a tale of sadness to unfold. When we began our "Palmetto-Leaves," we were the embarra.s.sed possessor of four thrifty cats: now every one of them has pa.s.sed to the land of shades, and we are absolutely _catless_. Peter, we regret to say, was killed in consequence of being mistaken for a rabbit, one moonlight night, by an enterprising young sportsman; Annie was unfortunately drowned; and 'Cindy fell victim to some similar hallucination of the young son-of-a-gun who destroyed Peter. In short, only our old family mother-cat remained; but, as she had a fine litter of kittens, there was hope that the line would be continued. We established her sumptuously in a box in the back-shed with her nurslings; but, as cruel Fate would have it, a marauding dog came smelling about, and a fight ensued, in which Puss's fore-leg was broken, or, to speak quite literally, chewed up.

Wounded and bleeding, but plucky to the last, she drove off the dog with a "predestined scratched face," and, taking up her kittens one by one in her mouth, traversed a long veranda, jumped through a window into the bed-room of one of her mistresses, and deposited her nurslings under the bed.

All agreed that a cat of such spirit and gallantry had shown that she ought to vote by her ability to fight, and that she was at least worthy of distinguished attention. So the next day the whole family sat in council on the case. Chloroform was administered: and, while Puss was insensible, a promising young naturalist set and bandaged the limb; but, alas! without avail. The weather was hot; and the sufferings of the poor creature soon became such, that we were thankful that we had the power, by a swift and painless death, to put an end to them. So a pistol-ball sent Puss to the land where the good cats go; and the motherless kitties found peace under the blue waters of the St. John's. The water-nymphs, undoubtedly, "held up their pearled wrists and took them in," and doubtless made blessed pets of them. So that is the end of all our cats.

Phoebus rejoices now; for there is none to molest or make him afraid.

His songs increase daily in variety. He pipes and whistles; occasionally breaks forth into a litany that sounds like "Pray do, pray do, pray do!" then, suddenly changing the stop, he shouts, "De deevil! de deevil!

de deevil!" but, as he is otherwise a bird of the most correct habits, it cannot be supposed that any profanity is intended. This morning being Sunday, he called "Beecher, Beecher, Beecher!" very volubly. He evidently is a progressive bird, and, for aught we know, may yet express himself on some of the questions of the day.

The next letter on our file wants to know the prices of board at Green-Cove Springs, Magnolia, and Hibernia. The prices at these places vary all the way from twelve to thirty-five dollars per week, according to accommodations. The higher prices are in larger hotels, and the smaller in private boarding-houses. "The Florida Guide" says board can be obtained in Jacksonville, in private families, at from eight to ten dollars per week.

There are three more letters, asking questions about the culture of the orange; to which the writers will find answers, so far as we can give them, when we come to speak of the orange-orchards up the river.

A lady writes to ask if we know any way of preserving figs.

Practically, we know nothing about the fig-harvest, having never been here when they were ripe. Our friends tell us that they are not successful in preserving them in cans. They make a delicious though rather luscious preserve done in the ordinary way, like peaches. But we will give our inquiring friend the benefit of a piece of information communicated to us by an old native Floridian, who professed to have raised and prepared figs as fine as those in Turkey. His receipt was as follows: "Prepare a lye from the ashes of the grape-vine; have a kettle of this kept boiling hot over the fire; throw in the figs, and let them remain two minutes; skim them out and drain them on a sieve, and afterwards dry in the sun." Such was his receipt, which we have never tried. Probably any other strong lye would answer as well as that from the grape-vine.

As to those who have asked for flowers from Florida, we wish it were in our power to grant their requests; but these frail beauties are not transferable. We in our colony have taxed the resources of our postal arrangements to carry to our friends small specimens, but with no very encouraging results.

We have just been making the _grand round_, or tour up the St. John's to Enterprise, across to St. Augustine, and back; which is necessary to const.i.tute one an accomplished Floridian sight-seer: and it had been our intention to devote this letter to that trip; but there is so much to say, there are so many wonders and marvels to be described, that we must give it a letter by itself. No dreamland on earth can be more unearthly in its beauty and glory than the St. John's in April.

Tourists, for the most part, see it only in winter, when half its gorgeous forests stand bare of leaves, and go home, never dreaming what it would be like in its resurrection-robes. So do we, in our darkness, judge the sh.o.r.es of the river of this mortal life up which we sail, ofttimes disappointed and complaining. We are seeing all things in winter, and not as they will be when G.o.d shall wipe away all tears, and bring about the new heavens and new earth, of which every spring is a symbol and a prophecy. The flowers and leaves of last year vanish for a season; but they come back fresher and fairer than ever.

This bright morning we looked from the roof of our veranda, and our neighbor's oleander-trees were glowing like a great crimson cloud; and we said, "There! the oleanders have come back!" No Northern ideas can give the glory of these trees as they raise their heads in this their native land, and seem to be covered with great crimson roses. The poor stunted bushes of Northern greenhouses are as much like it as our stunted virtues and poor frost-nipped enjoyments shall be like the bloom and radiance of G.o.d's paradise hereafter. In April they begin to bloom; and they bloom on till November. Language cannot do justice to the radiance, the brightness, the celestial calm and glory, of these spring days. There is an a.s.surance of perpetuity in them. You do not say, as at the North, that a fine day is a "weather-breeder," and expect a week of storms to pay for it. Day after day pa.s.ses in brightness. Morning after morning, you wake to see the same sunshine gilding the tops of the orange-trees, and hear the same concert of birds. All the forest-trees stand in perfected glory; and the leaves have sprung forth with such rapidity and elastic vigor as gives the foliage a wondrous brightness.

The black-jack oaks--trees which, for some reason or other, are apt to be spoken of as of small account--have now put forth their large, sharply-cut, oak-shaped leaves. We say this because it is the only one of the oak species here that at all resembles the oaks we have been accustomed to see. The pawpaw-bushes are all burst out in white fringes of blossom; and the silver bells of the sparkle-berry are now in their perfection. Under foot, a whole tribe of new flowers have come in place of the departed violets. The partridge-berry or squaw-berry of the North grows in the woods in dense mats, and is now white with its little starry blossoms. Certain nameless little golden b.a.l.l.s of flowers twinkle in the gra.s.s and leaves like small constellations. We call them, for lack of botanic language, "sun-kisses." Our party, the other night, made an expedition to the "second branch," and brought home long vines of purple wisteria, red trumpet-creeper, and some sprays of white blossoms unknown to us: so that our house still is a flower-show. Spring is as much a pomp and a glory here as in Northern States; for although the winter is far more endurable, and preserves far more beauty, yet the outburst of vividness and vigor when the sun begins to wax powerful is even greater and more marked than at the North. The roses are now in perfection. Ours have not thriven as they might have done were it not for the all-devouring orange-trees; but still they give us every morning, with our breakfast, a comforting a.s.sortment. La Marque, Giant of Battles, Hermosa, a little cl.u.s.ter rose, and a dozen more, have brightened our repast. This is the land to raise roses, however; and we mean yet to have a rose-garden at a safe distance from any orange-trees, and see what will come of it. Here are no slugs or rose-bugs or caterpillars to make rose-culture a burden and a vexation.

Finally, as we have had so many letters asking information of us, we wish somebody who is wise enough would write one, and give us some on a certain point. One of our orange-trees has become an invalid. The case may be stated as follows: Early in the season, Mr. F., in looking over the grove, found this tree, then loaded with fruit, dropping its leaves; the leaves curling, or, as they say here, "rolling," as is the fashion of orange-trees when suffering from drought. Immediately he took all the fruit from the tree, pruned it, dug about the roots, and examined them to find something to account for this. For a while, by careful tending, the tree seemed to be coming to itself; but, when the blossoming-time came round, half its leaves fell, and it burst into blossoms on every spray and twig in the most preternatural manner. It reminded us of some poor dear women, who, when they lose their health, seem resolved to kill themselves in abundant good works. It was really blossoming to death.

Now, we ask any wise fruit-growers, What is this disease? and how is it to be treated? We have treated it by cutting off all the blossoms, cutting back the branches, watering with water in which guano and lime have been dissolved; and the patient looks a little better. A negro workman testified that a tree in a similar state had been brought back by these means. Can any fruit-grower give any light on this subject?

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MAGNOLIA WEEK.

April 20.

It is vain to propose and announce subjects from week to week. One must write what one is thinking of. When the mind is full of one thing, why go about to write on another?

The past week we have been engrossed by magnolias. On Monday, our friend D----, armed and equipped with scaling-ladders, ascended the glistening battlements of the great forest palaces fronting his cottage, and bore thence the white princesses, just bursting into bud, and brought them down to us. Forthwith all else was given up: for who would take the portrait of the white lady must hurry; for, like many queens of earth, there is but a step between perfected beauty and decay,--a moment between beauty and ashes.

We bore them to our chamber, and before morning the whole room was filled with the intoxicating, dreamy fragrance; and lo! while we slept, the pearly hinges had revolved noiselessly, and the bud that we left the evening before had become a great and glorious flower. To descend to particulars, imagine a thick, waxen-cupped peony of the largest size, just revealing in its centre an orange-colored cone of the size of a walnut. Around it, like a circlet of emeralds, were the new green leaves, contrasting in their vivid freshness with the solid, dark-green brilliancy of the old foliage. The leaves of the magnolia are in themselves beauty enough without the flower. We used to gather them in a sort of rapture before we ever saw the blossom; but all we can say of the flower is, that it is worthy of them.

We sat down before this queen of flowers, and worked a.s.siduously at her portrait. We had, besides the full blossom, one bud of the size and shape of a large egg, which we despaired of seeing opened, but proposed to paint as it was. The second morning, our green egg began to turn forth a silver lining; and, as we worked, we could see it slowly opening before us. Silvery and pearly were the pure tips; while the outside was of a creamy yellow melting into green. Two days we kept faithful watch and ward at the shrine; but, lo! on the morning of the third our beautiful fairy had changed in the night to an ugly brownie. The petals, so waxen fair the night before, had become of a mahogany color; and a breeze pa.s.sing by swept them dishonored in showers on the floor. The history of that magnolia was finished. We had seen it unfold and die.

Our pearly bud, however, went on waxing and opening till its day came for full perfection.

The third day, our friend again brought in a glorious bouquet. No ordinary flower-vase would hold it. It required a heavy stone jar, and a gallon of water; but we filled the recess of our old-fashioned Franklin stove with the beauties, and the whole house was scented with their perfume.

Then we thought of the great lonely swamps and everglades where thousands of these beauties are now bursting into flower with no earthly eye to behold them.

The old German legends of female spirits inhabiting trees recurred to us. Our magnolia would make a beautiful Libussa. A flower is commonly thought the emblem of a woman; and a woman is generally thought of as something sweet, clinging, tender, and perishable. But there are women flowers that correspond to the forest magnolia,--high and strong, with a great hold of root and a great spread of branches; and whose pulsations of heart and emotion come forth like these silver lilies that illuminate the green shadows of the magnolia-forests.

Yesterday, our friend the Rev. Mr. M---- called and invited us to go with him to visit his place, situated at the mouth of Julington, just where it flows into the St. John's. Our obliging neighbor immediately proposed to take the whole party in his sailing-yacht.

An impromptu picnic was proclaimed through the house. Every one dropped the work in hand, and flew to spreading sandwiches. Oranges were gathered, luncheon-baskets packed; and the train filed out from the two houses. The breeze was fresh and fair; and away we flew. Here, on the St. John's, a water-coach is more to the purpose, in the present state of our wood-roads, than any land-carriage; and the delight of sailing is something infinitely above any other locomotion. On this great, beautiful river you go drifting like a feather or a cloud; while the green, fragrant sh.o.r.es form a constantly-varying picture as you pa.s.s.

Yesterday, as we were sailing, we met a little green, floating island, which seemed to have started out on its own account, and gone to seek its fortune. We saw it at first in the distance,--a small, undulating spot of vivid green. Our little craft was steered right alongside, so that we could minutely observe. It was some half-dozen square yards of pickerel-weed, bonnet, water-lettuce, and other water-plants, which, it would seem, had concluded to colonize, and go out to see the world in company. We watched them as they went nodding and tilting off over the blue waters, and wondered where they would bring up.

But now we are at the mouth of Julington, and running across to a point of land on the other side. Our boat comes to anchor under a grove of magnolia-trees which lean over the water. They are not yet fully in blossom. One lily-white bud and one full-blown flower appear on a low branch overhanging the river, and are marked to be gathered when we return. We go up, and begin strolling along the sh.o.r.e. The magnolia-grove extends along the edge of the water for half a mile. Very few flowers are yet developed; but the trees themselves, in the vivid contrast of the new leaves with the old, are beauty enough. Out of the centre of the spike of last year's solemn green comes the most vivid, varnished cl.u.s.ter of fresh young leaves, and from the centre of this brilliant cl.u.s.ter comes the flower-bud. The magnolia, being an evergreen, obeys in its mode of growth the law which governs all evergreens. When the new shoots come out, the back-leaves fall off. This produces in the magnolia a wonderfully-beautiful effect of color. As we looked up in the grove, each spike had, first, the young green leaves; below those, the dark, heavy ones; and below those still, the decaying ones, preparing to fall. These change with all the rich colors of decaying leaves. Some are of a pure, brilliant yellow; others yellow, mottled and spotted with green; others take a tawny orange, and again a faded brown.

The afternoon sun, shining through this grove, gave all these effects of color in full brightness. The trees, as yet, had but here and there a blossom. Each shoot had its bud, for the most part no larger than a walnut. The most advanced were of the size of an egg, of white tinted with green. Beneath the trees the ground was thickly strewn with the golden brown and mottled leaves, which were ever and anon sailing down as the wind swayed them.

Numbers of little seedling magnolias were springing up everywhere about us; and we easily pulled up from the loose yielding soil quite a number of them, wrapping their roots in the gray moss which always lies at hand for packing-purposes.

The place had many native wild orange-trees, which had been cut off and budded with the sweet orange, and were making vigorous growth. Under the shade of the high live-oaks Mr. M---- had set out young orange and lemon trees through quite an extent of the forest. He told us that he had two thousand plants thus growing. It is becoming a favorite idea with fruit-planters here, that the tropical fruits are less likely to be injured by frosts, and make a more rapid and sure growth, under the protecting shadow of live-oaks. The wild orange is found frequently growing in this way; and they take counsel of Nature in this respect.

After wandering a while in the wood, we picnicked under a spreading live-oak, with the breeze from the river drawing gratefully across us.

Our dinner over, Mr. M---- took us through his plantations of grapes, peaches, and all other good things. Black Hamburg grapes grafted upon the root of the native vine had made luxuriant growth, and were setting full of grapes. There were shoots of this year's growth full six and seven feet in length. In the peach-orchard were trees covered with young peaches, which Mr. M---- told us were only three years from the seed.

All the garden vegetables were there in fine order; and the string-beans appeared to be in full maturity.

It is now five years since Mr. M---- bought and began to clear this place, then a dense forest. At first, the letting-in of the sun on the decaying vegetation, and the upturning of the soil, made the place unhealthy; and it was found necessary to remove the family. Now the work is done, the place cleared, and, he says, as healthy as any other.

Mr. M---- is an enthusiastic horticulturist and florist, and is about to enrich the place with a rose-garden of some thousands of choice varieties. These places in Florida must not in any wise be compared with the finished ones of Northern States. They are spots torn out of the very heart of the forest, and where Nature is rebelling daily, and rushing with all her might back again into the wild freedom from which she has been a moment led captive.

But a day is coming when they will be wonderfully beautiful and productive.

We had one adventure in conquering and killing a formidable-looking black-snake about seven feet in length. He had no fangs, and, Mr. M---- told us, belonged to a perfectly respectable and harmless family, whose only vice is chicken-stealing. They are called chicken-snakes, in consequence of the partiality they show for young chickens, which they swallow, feathers and all, with good digestion and relish. He informed us that they were vigorous ratters, and better than either terrier or cat for keeping barns clear of rats; and that for this purpose they were often cherished in granaries, as they will follow the rats to retreats where cats cannot go. Imagine the feelings of a rat when this dreadful visitor comes like grim death into his family-circle!

In regard to snakes in general, the chance of meeting hurtful ones in Florida is much less than in many other States. Mr. M----, who in the way of his mission has ridden all through Florida, never yet met a rattlesnake, or was endangered by any venomous serpent. Perhaps the yearly burnings of the gra.s.s which have been practised so long in Florida have had some effect in checking the increase of serpents by destroying their eggs.

As the afternoon sun waxed low we sought our yacht again, and came back with two magnolia-flowers and several buds.

This week, too, the woods are full of the blossoms of the pa.s.sion-flower.

Our neighbor Mr. C---- has bought the beautiful oak-hammock, where he is preparing to build a house. Walking over to see the spot the other evening, we found a jungle of pa.s.sion-flowers netted around on the ground, and clinging to bush and tree. Another neighbor also brought us in some branches of a flowering-shrub called the Indian pipe, which eclipses the sparkleberry. Like that, it seems to be a glorified variety of high huckleberry or blueberry. It has the greatest profusion of waxen white bells fringing every twig; and, _blase_ as we have been with floral displays, we had a new sensation when it was brought into the house.

Thus goes the floral procession in April in the wild-woods. In the gardens, the oleanders, pink, white, and deep crimson, are beginning their long season of bloom. The scarlet pomegranate, with its vivid sparks of color, shines through the leaves.

We are sorry for all those who write to beg that we will send by mail a specimen of this or that flower. Our experience has shown us that in that way they are _not_ transferable. Magnolia-buds would arrive dark and dreadful; and it is far better to view the flowers ever fresh and blooming, through imagination, than to receive a desolate, faded, crumpled remnant by mail.

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BUYING LAND IN FLORIDA.