BUYING LAND IN FLORIDA.
May 2.
E have before us a neat little pile of what we call "Palmetto letters,"—responses to our papers from all States in the Union. Our knowledge of geography has really been quite brightened by the effort to find out where all our correspondents are living. Nothing could more mark the exceptional severity of the recent winter than the bursts of enthusiasm with which the tidings of flowers and open-air freedom in Florida have come to those struggling through snow-drifts and hail-storms in the more ungenial parts of our Union. Florida seems to have risen before their vision as the hymn sings of better shores:—
"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wistful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land."
Consequently, the letters of inquiry have come in showers. What is the price of land? Where shall we go? How shall we get there? &c.
We have before advertised you, O beloved unknown! who write, that your letters are welcome, ofttimes cheering, amusing, and undeniably nice letters; yet we cannot pledge ourselves to answer, except in the gross, and through "The Christian Union." The last inquiry is from three brothers, who want to settle and have homes together at the South. They ask, "Is there government land that can be had in Florida?" Yes, there is a plenty of it; yet, as Florida is the oldest settled State in the Union, and has always been a sort of bone for which adventurers have wrangled, the best land in it has been probably taken up. We do not profess to be land-agents; and we speak only for the tract of land lying on the St. John's River, between Mandarin and Jacksonville, when we say that there are thousands of acres of good land, near to a market, near to a great river on which three or four steamboats are daily plying, that can be had for five dollars per acre, and for even less than that. Fine, handsome building-lots in the neighborhood of Jacksonville are rising in value, commanding much higher prices than the mere productive value of the land. In other words, men pay for advantages, for society, for facilities afforded by settlements.