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pine barrens and the hommocks. In unknown among us, and according to the the hommocks, the soil, which is of ev- last census returns, the deaths in East ery color, has vast quantities both of Florida is only a quarter of one per cent., lime and vegetable matter; rendering less than any other portion of the Unithem vastly productive and almost in- ted States. If that fraction of a per exhaustible. A singular feature in the cent. could be abolished, the whole world country generally is, that the higher "and the rest of mankind" would soon portions are almost invariably the richer. be here. As it is, we expect many of This part of Florida is evidently an them here this fall and winter. upheave caused by a subterraneous The productions are various and valfire. In traveling over the high lands uable, comprising sugar-cane, Cuba toyou see at every step traces of workings bacco, cotton, long and short, corn, arof the great deep. The rocks sticking row-root, sisal hemp, and tropical fruits, up, and lying strewed over portions all of them growing luxuriantly, as well both of the pine barrens and the hom- as you could expect anything of the mocks, are evidently submarine-such vegetable kind to grow in a rich soil, and as may be found at the bottom of the gulf, all covered with sea periwinkle, oyster and clam shells. These shells of ten being incorporated in the formation; in fact, the beholder is no doubt as sensibly struck with the evidences of the country's having been submerged as could have been the children of Israel, when, walking through the Red Sea, they saw the waters heaped up on either side, and trod under foot the floundering fish.

There is a white stratum of shell-lime under the surface of the whole Peninsula at various depths. In all this there are shells only partially decomposed. The hommocks and high portions of the open country were no doubt basins, while the sea was over it, into which were poured for centuries, the washing of a thousand streams from ten thousand hills, rich! rich! rich! And they being a thinner portion of the layer above the raging fire, were thrown higher in the eruption.

The climate in the summer is more pleasant than higher latitudes or than in any country in the same latitude not similarly situated in contiguity to the ocean, in the winter milder than any other portion of the United States. We but seldom have frosts that kill vegetation before the last of November, and in the southern portion of the Peninsula, seldom any at all. This portion of the Peninsula is destined some day to become the resort of the invalids of half our continent. The diseases of the country are few, simple, and easy of treatment. The debilitating effect of long summers is remedied with us by the cool nights which we have all the summer. The cholera, that death-plague of other countries, and the most of our states, is

in a warm and damp climate. Every thing of the vine species flourishesmelons of 60 to 70 lbs. are not uncommon.

In traveling through the country, along the road, the stranger forms an unfavorable opinion of the land; the roads passing generally over the poorest portions. But let him not be disheartened, but look around and he will soon be pleased well enough to move to the Land of Flowers. And though he may object because of the small proportion of hommock, and in fact of the large proportion of poor land; he will soon be reconciled upon reflection; if the entire peninsula were rich hommock, though all were high land, it would most likely become a mere grave-yard. As it is, it is the healthiest country in the world.

THE SALT OF FLORIDA.-In 1829, the easterly half of the island of Key West, consisting of a series of salt-water ponds, was leased out by the proprietors to the Lafayette Salt Company, who put up works on it, principally consisting of covered pans, after the plan adopted at Cape Cod and New-Bedford, from which the company must have taken from 15,000 to 20,000 bushels of salt annually. until 1846, when the hurricane almost entirely destroyed the improvement. The wreck of the materials was sold to Chas. Howe, Esq., who bought the landed property and rebuilt the pans and vats. He also constructed ground pans, after the manner of those in the Báhamas, from all of which he took, in 1848 and 1849, an average of over 38,000 bushels. The years 1849 and 1850 were not quite so successful, from the wetness of the season; yet there was still made in those seasons an average of 20,000 bushels.

Salt-Sisal Hemp-Indian River Country-Prospects.

The works were considerably increased in extent last year; but from the unusual fall of rain, no more than 20,000 bushels were raked. This year 500 acres were exposed to evaporation, and it is believed that near 60,000 bushels have been made.

SISAL HEMP OF FLORIDA. Judge Heermans, the intelligent representative from St. Lucie county, exhibited to us several specimens of Sisal hemp grown by him on India river, from plants introduced into Florida by the late Dr. Perrine, of Indian Key. We learn that the plant from which these samples are manufactured, grows thriftily on the poorest soil, and for that reason is well adapted to many portions of this state. Time and population would seem to be all that are needed to make this an important article of commerce.

Judge Heermans gives a most tempting description of the Indian river country-a region of the state too little known of our people by reason of the presence of the Indians. The climate is delicious-the thermometer never going higher than 96, and seldom reaching that point. Frost is almost a stranger to the oldest inhabitant,' and as a consequence the tropical fruits flourish in perpetual freshness. The pine-apple, the orange, lemon, banana, lime, &c., grow to perfection, yielding a bountiful crop. This beautiful country is kept from being inhabited, except by a few fearless pioneers, by Bowlegs and his marauding band, who are in undisturbed possession of it-lords of all they survey Their presence there is a monument of reproach to our government.

Had they been removed, according to treaty stipulations, doubtless South Florida to day would have boasted of thousands of inhabitants, busily engaged in developing the rich resources of this, the garden spot of America, and in blessing the rest of the world with our productions and commerce. We trust, how ever, that the day is not far distant when we shall be able to say to the multitudes abroad who are waiting to make South Florida their home, that the Indians are gone, and the entire country open to settlement without fear of further interruption.

We hope Judge Heermans will favor our readers with the results of his experience in cultivating the hemp and tro

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pical fruits, samples of which, we understand, were exhibited by him.-Tallahassee Floridian.

THE PROSPECTS OF FLORIDA.-Florida, by the recent census, will exhibit, as we are informed, an increase of nearly 100 per cent. since the taking of the last census. This is a gratifying result considering the numerous obstacles and discouragements which have existed. Since the first of June last, we learn there has been a greater immigration into the country than for any two years previously, and we look forward with confidence to the fact that ten years hence our state will show an increase unparalleled even in the remarkable increase of our sister southern states. Florida possesses as yet but a sprinkling of population compared to her vast extent; the success which has hitherto attended agricultural pursuits in this state has given an impulse to cotton growers to seek its virgin and productive soil; but, with the exception of the production of cotton, the resources of the country have been comparatively unopened. Some attention has been paid to sugar planting, and with great success, but the great expense and large capital required to be invested in sugar planting, have prevented hitherto the establishment of any great number of large sugar estates, although they are daily increasing, and nearly every family manufactured some quantity besides that required for their own use. Sugar planting, we believe, however, is destined to be the great staple of our state, the climate and quality of the soil giving it peculiar advantages beyond any other portion of the United States.

The extensive pine barrens, much of which is of remarkable fertility, afford the means of an extensive business in the manufacture of timber, a trade now beginning to assume great importance, and also in the production of naval stores, a branch of business scarcely touched as yet. Extensive water courses permeating the whole country, and the peninsular position of the country afford the facilities necessary to the transportation of lumber and naval stores to market.

In the lesser branches of commercial production, we have various species of wood suitable for the manufacture of furniture, many valuable species of

drugs and dyewoods, moss, hemp, arrow root, and the orange and lemon, a traffic alone of immense importance. It is one of the difficulties of so extensive a catalogue of profitable employment, that with a sparse population they must be neglected for the more direct and familiar crops of corn and cotton, and that there are few who have the ability, the intelligence, or the skill, requisite to the introduction of new branches of employment. Lands are now cheap and abundant, and the largest portion of them are in the hands of the state, and will produce as they are sold a large revenue to the state, and thus relieve the expenses of the state go

vernment.

We shall present our readers, so soon as we can obtain them, the full statistical results of the late census.

become auxiliaries to this state central society, and their officers ex-officio members thereof, with the privilege of sending to the annual meetings of this society as many delegates as they may choose.

5. There shall be elected at the time of organizing the society and annually thereafter, a president, one vice-president, a corresponding secretary, a re cording secretary and treasurer, and an executive committee of nine members, which number shall be increased, if a majority shall deem it necessary, and who, with the president, vice-president, and secretaries as ex-officio members of the committee, shall elect a chairman, in whose absence, the president or vicepresident of the association may preside.

days.

6. There shall be annually a fair, to be held in or near the city of TallahasSTATE CENTRAL AGRICULTURAL So- see, at some suitable place to be providCIETY OF FLORIDA.-The first attempt ed by the executive committee, at at an agricultural fair in Florida was which suitable premiums shall be offermade, in Nov. last, at Tallahassee. Mr. ed for the encouragement and promoMartyn, a gentleman connected with tion of the objects of this association. the business of this Review, was pre- 7. The next annual fair of this society sent, and speaks of it in the language shall be held on the fourth Wednesday of highest encomium and encourage- of November next, and continue four ment. The Sentinel says, "Considering all the circumstances, everybody is astonished at the measure of success which has attended it. It has been pronounced by several intelligent persons, one of the most creditable first trials they have ever seen anywhere. The show was considerable—the attendance fair, and, but for the inclement weather, would have been very large. As an experiment, it has surpassed all expectation, both as to the articles exhibited and the interest awakened on the subject, and we doubt not it will be attended with the best results."

We append the constitution of the State Agricultural Society of Florida:

1. This association shall be called "The State Central Agricultural Society of Florida."

2. Membership shall be constituted by the payment to the treasurer of the society of one dollar annually.

3. Its objects shall be the encouragement and promotion of Agriculture, Horticulture, Manufactures, and the Mechanic Arts.

4. All county agricultural societies organized in this state, and the adjunct counties of Georgia and Alabama, may

8. It shall be the duty of the executive committee to appoint the time and prepare the place for the annual fair, which shall be in the month of November, and shall continue for four days; and to prepare the premiums to be of fered, a notice of which shall be published at least six months previous to the first day of the annual fair; and for this and all other purposes, the chairman of the executive committee shall have authority to draw upon the treasurer of the society for any moneys in his hands; and to aid in offering liberal premiums, the executive committee, or any of its members, may solicit and receive contributions to the funds of the society, and pay them over to the treasurer.

9. It shall be the duty of the executive committee to appoint the necessary committees to judge and award premiums, and to appoint all necessary of ficers, servants, and assistants, and to make all necessary and suitable arrangements for the convenience of exhibitors for premiums, and for the security and protection of their property; and to make all necessary and needful rules and regulations for conducting the

Agricultural Society-Key-West, a Depot for Steamers. 335

fair in proper order, and to be paid out of the treasury of the society for all such proper and necessary expenditures, on the order of the chairman.

10. It shall be the duty of the executive committee to procure some competent person to deliver the annual address, which shall be on one of the days of the fair; and, also, to procure some one or more to deliver a lecture or lectures, on one or more of the evenings of the fair, upon horticulture and botany.

11. All exhibiters for premiums must be members of the society.

The following officers were then elected for the ensuing year:

GOV. THOMAS BROWN, president. Col. JOHN J. MAXWELL, vice-president. Col. EDWARD HOUSTOUN, Secretary and treasurer. JOSEPH CLISBY, corresponding secretary.

The following gentlemen were nominated and appointed to constitute, with the board of officers, the executive committee for the ensuing year, to wit:

Gen. R. K. Call, Col. George T. Ward, Doct. G. T. Maxwell, Philip T. Pierce, Esq., Robert H. Hall, Esq., Hon. Wm. B. Wynn, Hon. M. A. Long, Gen. R. W. Williams, James Y. Jones, Esq.

KEY WEST AS A DEPOT FOR CALIFORNIA STEAMERS.-A writer from Florida adduces the following reasons in favor of Key-West over Havana:

1st. The distance from New-York to Central America is less on a line passing through Key-West than measured via Havana; and from New-York to Tehuantepec the advantage of distance is greatly in favor of Key-West.

2d. A steamer bound to Chagres, via Havana, must twice cross the gulf stream, and in a diagonal line stem its rapid current for full twenty-four hours. If passing through Key-West, the steamer would keep upon the edge of the stream, where the eddy would be in its favor, and the crossing of the gulf avoided.

3d. Smoother seas and calmer weather are found upon the edge of the gulf stream than in its centre, particularly in that part lying between Savannah and Tortugas, which would lessen the passage made via Key-West.

4th. A steamer can enter the harbor of Key-West at any hour of the night, immediately enter at the custom-house, make fast alongside of the coal wharf, and, without a moment's delay, proceed to coaling and watering, and, if neces

sary, leave before dawn of day. Should she take the Havana route, and arrive off the Moro Castle after sun-down, she must anchor and wait until nine o'clock on the following day, before any communication is made with the shore; and the day is well nigh gone before coaling is commenced, thus consuming nearly twenty hours of her valuable time.

5th. A steamer can be coaled at KeyWest, as has been fairly proved, in less time than at Charleston, as soon as at New-York, and in one-fourth of the time consumed at Havana.

6th. Vessels not wishing pilots can enter the harbor of Key-West free of pilotage; at Havana, pilotage is invariably enforced.

7th. Coal can be landed as cheap, can be stored in yards in immediate proximity to the landing, and be placed in the bunkers by man or horse power, in less time and at less expense than at Havana, where the coal is passed on board in baskets from launches alongside, a slow and tedious process.

8th. Provisions of all kinds can be purchased, at prices in favor of KeyWest, to the amount of duty levied on the same at Havana-they all being exported to that city from the United States. Fresh meats are sold at less rates in our now small market than the steamers pay the Havana butchers. Were there an increased demand, prices would come down. Tampa Bay, two days' sail from Key-West, is perhaps the finest cattle market in the south. Full-grown cattle can be bought in that town, to an unlimited extent, for $10 per head. Green turtle, weighing from one to five hundred pounds, abound on our coast, and can be delivered for three cents per pound. No better meat can be taken to sea than turtle. It can be kept for twenty days alive, requires no food nor care save watering, and the entire animal is eatable. It can be roasted, stewed, boiled, fried, force-balled, and souped, to satisfy the appetites of salted Californians. fish market of Havana is supplied by our smacks, so there can be no competi tion in that line. Our waters are alive with the finest varieties, and we could fill half the markets in the states.

The

9th. The only articles that Havana could furnish the steamers at less rates are fruit and vegetables; but we doubt whether she would be able, in one year from the day that Key-West is made a

depot, to compete with the Yankees of are no landing permits, nor passports, Florida in these productions. Should nor boat hire, nor danger of any kind there be a demand to justify the expen- in getting on shore; nor is there extorditures, half the state would be turned into fruiteries and vegetable gardens, and the result would show that the Spaniard, with his rich soil and mild climate, had found a successful competitor.

10th. There is no sweeter water carried to sea than that afforded by our large cisterns. Rain-water never becomes sour, nor does it acquire an unpleasant bilgy taste, but it improves with age, and remains pure for years. Our water is superior to the Havana river water, and is sold for the same sum.

tion of any kind. They are upon the soil of freedom, and among their own people. The above are some of the reasons why Key-West should become a depot for the United States mail steamships.

12th. A telegraphic wire can be carried across the Key and along the coast, connecting at Savannah with the NewYork lines, at as little expense as over any like distance in the states, and thus enable the California news to be published in New-York four days in advance of the mails. As no wire can be carried across the gulf from Havana, a telegraph There is impracticable from that city.

11th. Passengers meet, at Key-West, with no obstacles in landing.

ART. III.-EARLY LIFE IN THE SOUTH-WEST.

No. II.

MAJOR JAMES KERR, PIONEER, OF TEXAS.

THE effort to rescue from oblivion the memory and noble conduct of the pioneers of the south-west, in a work like De Bow's Review, is alike worthy of our applause and our aid. No class of men of modern times furnishes more novel and interesting material for sketches of the kind than the pioneers of Texas.

Texas was first settled by a class of men who have been greatly traduced and misunderstood-those who sought an honorable field of adventure, in the anticipation of bettering their condition in life, and laying the foundation for the comfort and independence of their descendants. The occasional presence of an outlaw constituted but an exception to the general truth, and it is beyond denial that the first settlers had fewer vicious men among them than those who emigrated after and in consequence of the revolution of 1835.

Prominent among the early pioneers of colonial Texas was the gentleman whose name heads this article, Major James Kerr, whose history, while it presents no extraordinarily distinguishing fact, is full of interesting incidents, and entitles it to a place in this connection.

He was the son of the Rev. James Kerr, a respectable Baptist minister, whose father was an Irishman. The latter resided in Pennsylvania, but in

1780 the father of the subject of this sketch removed and settled two miles from Danville, now Boyle county, Kentucky, where James was born on the 24th September, 1790, and was one of five sons and four daughters. At that day it was impossible to afford the means of acquiring a good education in that new and infested region. To defend the country from savage inroads required all the time and means the settlers had; and hence the children grew up with simply the rudiments of an English education. Their father, however, as well as their mother, possessed a strong mind, well stored with useful knowledge, and by their efforts they were blessed in imparting to their growing family much that was valuable to them in after life, and to direct their minds in the path of virtue and patriotism. Through their mother, who was a Wells, they were first cousins to the great western orator and statesman, Phillip Doddridge, of Virginia, who died in Congress, in 1832.

A portion of the family removed to Missouri, then a part of Spanish Louisiana, in 1797. The parents visited the same distant region in 1799, where the mother died near St. Louis; and in 1808 the remainder removed and settled in St. Charles county. The four surviving sons were just arriving at manhood when

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