Palmetto-Leaves

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

For children, the climate cannot be too much praised. In our little neighborhood are seven about as lively youngsters as could often be met with; and the winter has been one long out-door play-spell. There has not been a cough, nor a cold, nor an ailment of any kind, and scarce an anxiety. All day long we hear their running and racing,—down to the boat-wharves; in the boats, which they manage as dexterously as little Sandwich-Islanders; fishing; catching crabs, or off after flowers in the woods, with no trouble of hail, sleet, or wet feet. Truly it is a child's Eden; and they grow and thrive accordingly.

Now as to malaria. That is a word requiring consideration to those who expect to make Florida a permanent home, but having no terrors for those who come to spend winters merely. There is no malaria in winter; and Dr. C—— may be consoled in reflecting that frost always destroys it: so that, when the thermometer is, as he says, at thirty-two degrees, there is no danger, even though one be in the same State with forty swamps. In fact, for ourselves, we prefer a cool winter such as this has been. An October-like winter, when it is warm in the middle of the day, and one can enjoy a bright fire on the hearth morning and night, is the most favorable to out-door exercise and to health.

But merely to come to Florida, and idle away time at the St. James or the St. Augustine Hotel, taking no regular exercise, and having no employment for mind or body, is no way to improve by being here. It is because the climate gives opportunity of open-air exercise that it is so favorable; but, if one neglects all these opportunities, he may gain very little.

It cannot be too often impressed on strangers coming here, that what cold there is will be more keenly felt than in a Northern climate. Persons should vary their clothing carefully to the varying temperature, and be quite as careful to go warmly clad as in colder States. In our furnace-heated houses at the North we generally wear thick woollen dresses and under-flannels, and keep up a temperature of from seventy to eighty degrees. In the South we move in a much lower temperature, and have only the open fire upon the hearth. It is therefore important to go warmly clad, and particularly to keep on flannels until the warm weather of April becomes a settled thing.

In regard to the healthfulness of Florida, some things are to be borne in mind. In a State that has the reputation of being an invalid's asylum, many desperate cases necessarily take refuge, and, of course, many die. Yet, notwithstanding the loss from these causes, the census of 1860 showed that the number of deaths from pulmonary complaints is less to the population than in any State of the Union. In Massachusetts, the rate is one in two hundred and fifty-four; in California, one in seven hundred and twenty-seven; in Florida, one in fourteen hundred and forty-seven. Surgeon-Gen. Lawson of the United-States army, in his report, asserts that "the ratio of deaths to the number of cases of remittent fevers has been much less among the troops serving in Florida than in other portions of the United States. In the middle division, the proportion is one death to thirty-six cases of fever; in the northern, one to fifty-two; in Texas, one to seventy-eight; in California, one in a hundred and twenty-two; while in Florida it is one in two hundred and eighty-seven."

Such statistics as these are more reliable than the limited observation of any one individual. In regard to sudden changes of climate, Florida is certainly not in all parts ideally perfect. There are, at times, great and sudden changes there, but not by any means as much so as in most other States of the Union.

Sudden changes from heat to cold are the besetting sin of this fallen world. It is the staple subject for grumbling among the invalids who visit Italy; and, in fact, it is probably one of the consequences of Adam's fall, which we are not to be rid of till we get to the land of pure delight. It may, however, comfort the hearts of visitors to Florida to know, that, if the climate here is not in this respect just what they would have it, it is about the best there is going.

All this will be made quite clear to any one who will study the tables of observations on temperature contained in "The Guide to Florida," where they can see an accurate account of the range of the thermometer for five successive years as compared with that in other States.

One thing cannot be too often reiterated to people who come to Florida; and that is, that they must not expect at once to leave behind them all sickness, sorrow, pain, inconvenience of any kind, and to enter at once on the rest of paradise.

The happiness, after all, will have to be comparative; and the inconveniences are to be borne by reflecting how much greater inconveniences are avoided. For instance, when we have a three-days' damp, drizzling rain-storm down here, we must reflect, that, at the North, it is a driving snow-storm. When it is brisk, cold weather here, it is an intolerable freeze there. The shadow and reflection of all important changes at the North travel down to us in time. The exceptionally cold winter at the North has put our season here back a month behind its usual spring-time. The storms travel downward, coming to us, generally, a little later, and in a modified form.