Palmetto-Leaves

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

One essential to every country-house on the St. John's is this accessory of a wharf and boathouse. The river is, for a greater or less distance from the shore, too shallow to admit the approach of steamboats; and wharves of fifty or a hundred feet in length are needed to enable passengers to land.

The bottom of the river is of hard, sparkling white sand, into which spiles are easily driven; and the building and keeping-up of such a wharf is a trifling trouble and expense in a land where lumber is so plentiful.

Our friend Mr. —— is, like many other old Floridian residents, originally from the North. In early youth he came to Florida a condemned and doomed consumptive, recovered his health, and has lived a long and happy life here, and acquired a handsome property.

He owns extensive tracts of rich and beautiful land on the west bank of the St. John's, between it and Jacksonville, destined, as that city grows and extends, to become of increasing value. His wife, like himself originally of Northern origin, has become perfectly acclimated and naturalized by years' residence at the South; and is to all intents and purposes, a Southern woman. They live all the year upon their place; those who formerly were their slaves settled peaceably around them as free laborers, still looking up to them for advice, depending on them for aid, and rendering to them the willing, well-paid services of freemen.

Their house is a simple white cottage, situated so as to command a noble view of the river. A long avenue of young live-oak-trees leads up from the river to the house. The ground is covered with a smooth, even turf of Bermuda grass,—the only kind that will endure the burning glare of the tropical summer. The walls of the house are covered with roses, now in full bloom. La Marque, cloth-of-gold, and many another kind, throw out their splendid clusters, and fill the air with fragrance. We find Mrs. —— and her family on the veranda,—the usual reception-room in a Southern house. The house is the seat of hospitality; every room in it sure to be full, if not with the members of the family proper, then with guests from Jacksonville, who find, in this high, breezy situation, a charming retreat from the heat of the city.

One feature is characteristic of Southern houses, so far as we have seen. The ladies are enthusiastic plant-lovers; and the veranda is lined round with an array of boxes in which gardening experiments are carried on. Rare plants, slips, choice seedlings, are here nurtured and cared for. In fact, the burning power of the tropical sun, and the scalding, fine white sand, is such, that to put a tender plant or slip into it seems, in the words of Scripture, like casting it into the oven; and so there is everywhere more or less of this box-gardening.

The cottage was all in summer array; the carpets taken up and packed away, leaving the smooth, yellow pine floors clean and cool as the French parquets.

The plan of the cottage is the very common one of Southern houses. A wide, clear hall, furnished as a sitting-room, opening on a veranda on either end, goes through the house; and all the other rooms open upon it. We sat chatting, first on the veranda; and, as the sun grew hotter, retreated inward to the hall, and discussed flowers, farm, and dairy.

On the east bank of the St. John's, where our own residence is, immediately around Mandarin, the pasturage is poor, and the cattle diminutive and half starved. Knowing that our neighbor was an old resident, and enthusiastic stock-raiser and breeder, we came to him for knowledge on these subjects. Stock-breeding has received a great share of attention from the larger planters of Florida. The small breed of wild native Florida cattle has been crossed and improved by foreign stock imported at great expense. The Brahmin cattle of India, as coming from a tropical region, were thought specially adapted to the Floridian climate, and have thriven well here. By crossing these with the Durham and Ayrshire and the native cattle, fine varieties of animals have been obtained. Mr. —— showed me a list of fifty of his finest cows, each one of which has its distinguishing name, and with whose pedigree and peculiarities he seemed well acquainted.

In rearing, the Floridian system has always been to make every thing subservient to the increase of the herd. The calf is allowed to run with the cow; and the supply of milk for the human being is only what is over and above the wants of the calf. The usual mode of milking is to leave the calf sucking on one side, while the milker sits on the other, and gets his portion. It is an opinion fixed as fate in the mind of every negro cow-tender, that to kill a calf would be the death of the mother; and that, if you separate the calf from the mother, her milk will dry up. Fresh veal is a delicacy unheard of; and once, when we suggested a veal-pie to a strapping Ethiopian dairy-woman, she appeared as much shocked as if we had proposed to fricassee a baby. Mr. ——, however, expressed his conviction that the Northern method of taking off the calf, and securing the cow's milk, could be practised with success, and had been in one or two cases. The yield of milk of some of the best blood cows was quite equal to that of Northern milkers, and might be kept up by good feeding. As a rule, however, stock-raisers depend for their supply of milk more on the number of their herd than the quantity given by each. The expenses of raising are not heavy where there is a wide expanse of good pasture-land for them to range in, and no necessity for shelters of any kind through the year.