Biscayne Bay, Dade Co., Florida, Between the 25th and 26th Degrees of Latitude

Biscayne Bay, Dade Co., Florida, Between the 25th and 26th Degrees of Latitude. - A complete manual of information concerning the climate, soil, products, etc., of the lands bordering on Biscayne Bay, in Florida.

THE information contained in the following pages has been carefully collected almost entirely by Mrs. JAMES E. WALKER, of Albany, N.Y. The facts stated are but a small portion of the large amount of material in her possession. The compiler has endeavored to give due credit to all by name whose statements are given, so that none may suppose he has either drawn upon the resources of his imagination or appropriated the ideas and language of others as his own. HENRY E. PERRINE. June, 1876. In our northern States there are thousands of health and pleasure seekers who every fall eagerly hasten away from comfortable and luxurious homes to escape the rigors of approaching winter. Of late years the current of travel has been constantly increasing, being directed more and more toward that portion of our country which, beyond dispute, can now claim to be more healthful and free from disease than any other section of the Union. The statistics furnished by the Surgeon-General of the United States establish this fact. He says: The diseases which result from malaria are of a much milder type in the Peninsula of Florida than in any other State in the Union. These records show that the rates of deaths to the number of cases of remittent fever has been much less than among the troops serving in any other portions of the United States. In the middle division of the United States, the proportion is one death to thirty-six cases; in the northern, one to fifty-two; in the southern, one to fifty-four; in Texas, one to seventy-eight; in California, one to one hundred and twenty-two; in New Mexico, one to one hundred and forty-eight; while in Florida, it is but one to two hundred and eighty-seven. More will be said upon this subject -4- further on. The facts compiled in this little pamphlet with great care, are not intended alone for the benefit of the invalid and mere seeker of pleasure. They are to attract the attention of the large number of people who for many years have been struggling in the various avenues of business, in our cities and large towns, men whose earnings, even if large in the aggregate, have been each year swallowed up by the increased cost of living in these later days. For those who would like a home in a more genial clime, where they can, by patient industry, within from two to six years, lay the sure foundation for a permanent income, where the expenses of living are not more than about one-fourth as great as in the north, these pages will surely be of interest and will repay them for the time consumed in their perusal. The peninsula of Florida extends abruptly from the main land of the continent, in a direction a little east of south. It is nearly 400 miles in length, and has an average width of 130 miles. Its formation is peculiar. Every other peninsula in the world owes its existence to a central mountain chain, which affords a stubborn resistance to the waves. Florida has no such elevations, and mainly a loose, low, sandy soil. It has another peculiarity. It is said, that at no other point in the world do the trade winds divide, as at Cape Sable. On the one hand, passing up the east coast to the Atlantic, and on the west into the Gulf of Mexico. This it is that produces that wonderful equability of climate, that puzzles a northern man to understand, why it should be so much cooler in summer than at the north. The base of all southern Florida is limestone, not tertiary, but modern and coralline. This it is that prevents all miasma, and this decomposed limestone with its admixture of vegetable mold, makes the best soil in the United States for the introduction of tropical plants. This it is, also, that causes the difference in fertility of this soil, as compared with the siliceous sand of the more northern part of the State. Biscayne Bay is located on the south-eastern coast of Florida, between the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth degrees of north latitude, below the frost line, and is included within the limits of Dade county. The following facts are quoted from the Florida Settler and Immigrants Guide, prepared by Dennis Eagan, Commissioner of Lands and Immigration: The climate of Dade county is exceedingly agreeable and conducive to health. The thermometer throughout the year shows a temperature of about seventy-five degrees, the extremes being fifty-one and ninety-two degrees. It is never visited by frost, and the heat in midsummer is much less oppressive than at New York or places further north, being tempered -5- by the influence of the Gulf Stream, which flows within a few miles of the coast. The water is pure and good. Many fine springs are found in different parts of the country; some of them mineral springs of considerable value. The everglades, which are within the limits of Dade county, simply consist of a shallow lake of vast extentthe water is from six inches to six feet in depth, and teems with aquatic and semiaquatic plants, which present to the eyes of the beholder a scene of perpetual verdure. Out of the surface of the lake rise innumerable small islands, which are covered over with a growth of cypress, sweet bay, crabwood, mastic, cocoa palms, cabbage palmetto, and live and water oaks. The waters abound in turtles, fish, etc. Around the margin of the everglades is a prairie, from half a mile to a mile in breadth; * * * this prairie comprises some of the richest land to be found in the United States, and has a productive capacity for every variety of vegetable life known in the tropics that is unsurpassed. * * * * Between the margin of the everglades and Biscayne Bay and Barnes Sound, there is a strip of land from three to fifteen miles in breadth. It is for the most part rocky pine land, and some portions have a considerable elevation above the level of the ocean. The deposits are oolitic and crystalline calcareous rock. In the vicinity of the bay the land is covered with an undergrowth of sago palm, called the coontie, probably from the Indian designation of the root. It yields an excellent article of starch, and also farina, which cannot be distinguished from Bermuda arrow root, except by the aid of the microscope. The soil is well adapted for the cultivation of sea island cotton, which is here perennial, and can be picked at almost all seasons of the year. Along the bay tobacco, equal to the best grown in Cuba, can be cultivated (yielding from five to seven cuttings each year), while every variety of tropical fruit can be grown successfully. The banana, plaintain, cocoanut, guava, sapadilla, pomegranate, mamma, tamarind, pine-apple, lime, lemon, and citron. Limes are so abundant in some places that they literally cover the ground. Grapes ripen in May. The finest varieties of fig are found in great abundance. The olive tree yields an oil equal to the best of Lucca. The castor oil plant is also very productive, and the Sisal hemp of commerce, from which the best of cordage is made, is wonderfully abundant. Sugar cane grows to a great height, and ratoons from seven to ten years. The tomato gets to be a stout bush, with hard, woody stalk, and bears continually. Biscayne Bay abounds with a great variety of fish, and is also the favorite haunt of the green turtle; it here finds an -6- abundance of the peculiar seaweed it prefers and on which it thrives and fattens, and the water swarms with them. Key West offers a market for all that can be caught, and turtle catching, in this section, is a most lucrative employment. Sponges are very abundant, and a large trade is now carried on in Key West in this article. The sponges taken from these waters probably realize for the gatherers fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars per annum. Northern persons, in going to this section, must leave behind them all their preconceived ideas as to soil, for they will find that the above-mentioned rocky pine lands are the very best for the cultivation of most of the tropical fruits, but the prairie lands, to use the language of Col. M. A. WILLIAMS (the State agent for the survey and location of the lands granted to the State by the general government), are inconceivably rich, beyond description, and are well adapted to the growth of the most exhausting crops of sugar cane and tobacco. L. D. STICKNEY, says in his pamphlet on Florida, It is a great mistake to suppose that sugar cannot be made to advantage without the investment of large capital. The cane produced on less than ten acres of ground, is usually ground in a wooden mill, which does not cost more than $100 (generally the work of the farmer himself), while the juice is boiled in the common utensils of the kitchen, or at best, as the New England farmer manufactures his maple sugar. The yield is usually greater, in proportion to the stock worked, than where the machinery has cost ten or fifteen thousand dollars! Cane is cultivated with more ease than corn, not requiring so much hoeing. From midsummer to the time of harvesting, the hands may be employed in other business; and even at the time of taking off the crop, no great increase of hands is required, as in Louisiana or Texas, where frost prevails. One hand can cultivate six acres with the hoe, or ten to twelve with the aid of a horse and plough. At the same time he can raise other crops sufficient to subsist himself and family. Twelve hundred pounds of sugar to the acre, is an average yield, though four thousand pounds have been produced. (This refers to the yield on land further north than Biscayne Bay; it is very certain that the larger yield can be relied upon in this locality.) The molasses is always expected to pay the expense of manufacturing. Col. M. A. WILLIAMS, while engaged in the United States survey in 1874, writes: This country is attracting attention; those who are here (and there are several from various States, who have come since January), are perfectly delighted. WM. M. SWAN, who was with him, writes, Biscayne Bay comes up to the preconceived idea general with strangers in -7- Florida. If this place (I mean the entire Bay), had a competent party to write it up as it is, into notice, the larger part of the travel and investment would undoubtedly center here. The whole of Biscayne Bay, is far more beautiful than the scenery along the Indian river and the St. Johns. * * * * * We met here a Mr. SAMUEL ROGERS, of Omaha, seeking health, and a desirable tropical home for his family. After carefully plodding over the beaten track, the St. Johns and Indian river, he finally selected this as the Eldorado he had been seeking. Mr. ROGERS is one of the founders of the new thriving city of Omaha. Under date of May 30th, he writes: The nights are always pleasant, calling for a blanket before morning. I must admit, that with the exception of Key Largo, I have not found mosquitoes any thing as bad on the whole, as I was led to believe. * * * * * A Mr. JONES, of New York, reported to be very wealthy, says, he has traveled over the continent of Europe two or three times; has visited all of the Islands of the Mediterranean in search of a climate favorable to his (heart) disease. He decides unequivocally in favor of the Bay, and announces his intention to buy a small tract of land, put up a splendid cottage, stock an orchard complete in every fruit suitable, have his steam yacht on hand for his convenience to travel anywhere; but his home must be here. The climate he says, is far more agreeable and delightful the year round than any he has found. He has been boarding with Mr. ADDISON for one or two seasons. We see plenty of deer, and one of our party on Sunday killed one and wounded another. Mr. NOYES brought in a live fawn and saw ten yesterday, although too shy to get a shot. Partridges are numerous. I wish I could have time to write fully on the fruits that could be grown here. Bananas, plantains, etc., the year around. The Rev. D. W. W. HICKS, of Miami, Biscayne Bay, Dade county, in a speech, made before the Florida Fruit Growers Association, said: Mr. President and gentlemenI place myself below the frost line and within a territory, the most beautiful by nature, and the most susceptible to the attentions of industrial art, probably, on the continent. It may not compare in rugged grandeur with the far West, up the canyons of the Yellowstone, or within the picturesque valleys of the Rocky mountains; but more beautiful, because with us, nature is in repose and at rest, holding in her lap the riches of a semitropical clime, adorned with the perpetual bloom of Spring, and regaled with the unceasing concerts of the oriole and mocking bird. * * * * * * Who can do justice to that climate? -8- The sick are restored to health, the poor may speedily become rich by industry. * * * * While borne upon every breeze is the balmy health giving breath of the Gulf Stream. BYRON in one of his rhapsodies, speaks of being intoxicated with eternity. The sentiment seems vague and almost unnatural, but whoever casts himself into the eddying blessings of the climate of which I speak, will, if he have a spark of sentiment, forgive the poets license. The rheumatic and the consumptive, with ordinary care, lose their ailments with us. Eighteen months ago, one came from the hyperborean regions of the North, lame and almost despairing. He was accompanied with crutches. A few months enabled him to throw them aside, and to-day you would rejoice to take a tramp with him through the Coontie forest, or better still a sail in his boat upon the bosom of the Bay of Biscayne. He is well. Rheumatism and my friend have parted company, and his crutches are the relics of a past age. The climate suits the consumptive, because rude, abrupt changes in the atmosphere are almost unknown. The Gulf Stream hugs our shores so devotedly that from the North, Northeast, East, Southeast and South, no chill can obtrude upon us. The strongest breeze is tempered with a warm and genial spirit. It is impossible to conceive of a more perfect climate, taking it all in all. Of course we have plenty of sunshine, and hot sunshine too; but with the sunshine comes the breeze, and not a day in the whole year need be lost on account of the heat. * * * * * * If the soil is thin, for the most part it is very rich and yields abundantly. The rock is near the surface when it does not protrude and is soft, nutritious to plants, and otherwise valuable and useful. What will grow there? Every thing that I see about me in this hall except discontent! (The platform on which the gentleman stood was covered with various fruits: oranges, lemons, limes, citrons, bananas, and many varieties of vegetables.) This looks like home. I see familiar things, but miss more than I recognize! I think I must yield the palm to you in oranges, but in all other varieties of citrus, you must take a back seat. Our guava is a royal heritage, only we have not yet found how to market them. We have about twenty varieties and thousands upon thousands of bearing trees. The fruit delicious to a cultivated taste fresh from the tree, while every housewife in the land, and every lover of sweets, can descant with eloquence upon the marmalades and jellies made of this desirable fruit. The tree is hardy with us, and will take care of and propagate itself, and is on terms of great cordiality -9- with our rocky plantations. It should bear in three years. Ours is the natural country of the lime, lemon and citron; children of a common stock. We have several varieties of the lime. The trees are of rapid growth, constant bearers, very prolific, subject to no disease, and very tenacious of life. The fruit is large, How large? as a Sicily lemon. I consider the lime as profitable as the orange, and more so, with us. It should be cultivated for citric acid, of which it yields more than any other fruit. The time will come when our part of Florida will supply citric acid to the world. A peck of limes will yield a gallon of juice; one and a half gallons of juice should produce one pound of citric acid, which in the markets of the world should bring $1.25 in gold. * * * Lime trees will bear in three years and can be planted as thick as blackberry bushes, but to cultivate them, they should be eight to ten feet apart. Too much attention can not be given to this matter. Citric acid is a commodity always, everywhere, and increasingly in demand. The lime belt is narrow and limited. Ours is the most productive in the world. The limes are larger than those of any other country and the percentage of acid is perceptibly greater. Fortunes await in this department of industry alone, and the outlay of money to get a start is insignificant compared to the planting of an orange grove. Ours is the country of the palm and the cocoanut. The tree grows with us enormously and bears continuously. They are meat and drink in a thirsty land. Then we have the mango and maumee apple, fruits one soon becomes familiar with, after which, intimacy is never interrupted. But the sugar apple is, from my point of view and experience, the choicest of all. There is nothing comparable to it. Exquisite is a nice word, and orange, mango, maumee, avocado pear, pine-apple, banana, are names, the bare mention of which sets ones mouth watering, but gentlemen, they are all, compared with the sugar apple, common things! I can give you no adequate idea of it, and I will not attempt to put my experience of its lusciousness into mere English, for after all is said that may be said, the apple itself must be seen, handled (very tenderly) and eaten when, gentlemen, you must come down to Dade to eat the proof of my words. (Some one in the audience; cant you send us a few?) No; for two or three reasons. First, to pull a sugar apple is to eat it. Second, some one would be sure to capture it on the way. Third, it must be eaten where it grows. (SOLON ROBINSONHow does it taste?) Ah! my friend, ask the lover how the pure kiss of affection tastes, and he will describe it accurately. The fruit immortalizes our country, and a true description of its -10- deliciousness, its creamy, frosted sweetness, its fragrance beneath the dimpled protecting ring will immortalize its author. Of the alligator pear, I need not speak at large. They are brought in large quantities to Key West from Cuba every year, and readily sell at from forty to seventy-five cents per dozen. They grow well with us. The fruit is large, and love of it is acquired; but once truly relished, bread is at a discount. Ours is the bananas own country, and shortly this delicious and valuable fruit will receive a large share of our attention. The pine-apple belongs to us; nothing grows better. It is peculiarly adapted to our rock soil, and will thrive and bear fruit if a hole is made in the soft rock for its accommodation. Our soft rock is admirably adapted for building purposes. It is easily worked but soon hardens when exposed to the sun and air, and then coheres like public plunder! When burned it is first-rate for lime and mortar, and also as a fertilizer. Mr. HICKS in answer to the question, whether he would advise emigration, said, yes; but I would advertise to all, that it is no country for a lazy man without means. A man with money to keep him in necessaries for a couple of years could get a paying start and so go on to fortune. Industry pays quite as well there as in any part of the globe. R. M. BACHE, of Philadelphia, author of The Young Wrecker of the Florida Reef, writes: The climate of Biscayne Bay, like that of all the Reef, is wonderfully equable and pleasant, insular in its character, rarely oppressively hot in the shade, and during most of the year leaving nothing to be desired regarding enjoyability, the only trying weather being an occasional norther. Fish as well as turtle, are abundant, and game of various kinds on the land. The impressions I have about the soil, is that it is very fertile; I do not see how, from its formation, it could be otherwise. Capt. GIBBS of Buffalo, N.Y., writes from Biscayne Bay, under dates of March 14th and April 7th, and 25th, 1876 (to his wife and Mr. J. P. TRIBLE): I am in love with this country; the climate is simply everything that is beautiful, it is all and more than all that has been said of it. There has never been a case of ague that I can hear of. I do not wish to come back, and shall not if you will come down here. I have not had an ache, pain, cough or sneeze, since I have been here. (He left Buffalo with a bad cough.) Two men can raise more stuff, off from ten acres of land here, than four times the number can from a hundred acres in the North. With irrigation in the winter season, there is no end to the growth of everything. Squashes (they call them pumpkins here) once planted, grow forever. Sweet potatoes the same, and -11- many other things. * * * * * There is a man from Orange county, who says the pine land here is better than in Orange county, and he is coming down to settle, this side of New River, so as to get below the frost line. * * * Bermuda grass grows luxuriantly. I have seen it on both pine and hammock lands. You can have green peas, new potatoes, cabbage, onions, etc., every month in the year, they had them at Christmas and New Years. Capt. GIBBS proposes to plant on the place he has purchased on the Bay, ten thousand cocoanut trees, which are expected to bear in six years, and will require no care whatever, save to be fenced in for protection from stock while growing. One hundred nuts to the tree (which is only one fourth what may be expected when in full bearing) would give a pretty fair income, at the lowest price $15.00 per thousand, paid on the ground by buyers. DANIEL G. BRINTON, A. M., M. D., in his book for tourists, and invalids, (Florida and the South), says of Biscayne Bay: Undoubtedly the finest winter climate in the United States, both in point of temperature and health, is to be found on the Southeastern coast of Florida. It is earnestly to be hoped, for the sake of invalids, that accommodations along the shore at Key Biscayne, and at the mouth of the Miami, will before long be provided. While it is the very best, it could also be made the most accessible part of the sea coast of Florida, as the whole journey from the North could be made by water. Game as deer, bear, turkeys, etc., etc., very abundant in the pine woods, which extend along the coast, and fish swarm in countless numbers in the bay. Turtle of the finest kinds can be caught on the islets off the shore. Oysters are plentiful. The abundance of game on the shore ridge from Cape Sable to Miami, led it to be chosen as a favorite spot of resort by the Indians, and it is still distinctively known as the Hunting Grounds. Dr. BRINTON continues on page one hundred and twenty-eight of his book, and these are the words of Dr. R. F. SIMPSON, U. S. A., writing about Fort Dallas, on the Miami. The very spot I have been maintaining approaches the nearest, the model climate for consumptives; I have been on duty at most of the posts in Florida, but none compare with this for salubrity. The sea coast of south east Florida, therefore fulfills the four conditions which make up the best climate for a consumptive. I have other testimony about it, well worth presenting. It, too, comes from the same unimpeachable source, the medical statistics of the United States Army. We are inquiring particularly about throat and lung complaints. These army statistics are here of immense importance. They specify the -12- diseases of each station. I have taken these four. Consumption (phthisis pulmonalis), bronchitis, inflammation of the lungs (pneumonia) and pleurisy; and have ascertained their relative frequency at various points in the South. Here are the results, omitting fractions. In Arkansas, each year, one man in every sixteen came under the surgeons hands, with one or the other of these diseases; on the southern frontier of Texas, also one in sixteen; at Baton Rouge, La., one in seventeen; on the western frontier in Texas, one in nineteen; on the west coast of Florida, one in twenty-one; on the east coast of Florida, one in thirty-nine. This is confirmation strong indeed. Even in the favored northwest we may look in vain for any thing equal to it. The sick reports of St. Paul, Minn., show one in every nineteen, yearly treated for these complaints. * * * * * All that is needed to make it one of the most eligible spots in the South for the invalid or the tourist, are a few well-kept, moderate priced hotels and weekly steamers. * * * * I have already detailed at some length the position, soil, etc., of Biscayne Bay, but as already said, I build for the future, and not the present. It has the best warm climate in the United States for invalids and it deserves to become a much frequented resort. The reader will bear in mind that Biscayne Bay is between the same degrees of latitude as that of the Island of New Providence, on which Nassau is situated. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49300
Author: Perrine, Henry E.
Release Date: Jun 27, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English