Strawberries And Cream In January

Strawberries and Cream in January 

Which Delights and Ann Arbor Man in Southern Florida

Bartow, Fla., Jan. 9th.,1888.

Dear Argus:- Thinking that a few lines from the land of flowers might be of interest to some of your many readers, I take the liberty to write you describing some of the luxuries of a winter so far spent in Southern Florida. The climate, certainly, is one of the greatest luxuries, where the mercury ranges from 60 to 80 degrees during the day and very seldom gets below 50 degrees at night. So far this winter here has been frequent rains, but I am told this is not common in Florida, as they have their rainy season during the summer months and not much in the winter. Flowers of all descriptions are in bloom and roses in profusion and the finest I have ever seen. This is a busy season for gardeners in this section, they are marketing their winter crops such as tomatoes, beans, potatoes, (Irish), peas, radishes. lettuce, turnips, etc, and planting tor their early spring crop. The land is fine for gardening purposes, when properly handled and fertilized, but the natives seem to know but very little about it and care less. They seem to be very shiftless. There are comparatively few hearing orange groves in this section, to what there are in other sections, but there are a great many groves that have been started in the past two years, that seem to have made a fine growth and are looking fine. They are commencing to set out quite a few peach trees in this section but only two or three small varieties of them seem to do well. These are the Peen To and Bid well. They are in bloom now and I am told they get from 50 to 60 cents a dozen for them. Strawberries seem to do well here when properly cultivated. They are now ripening. I saw some of the finest Sharpless berries, a few weeks ago that I ever saw, which shows what can be done here, when the berries are properly treated. You will probably make up your mind by the tone of this letter that I am well pleased with Florida. Well I feel about as a Connecticut man told me he felt after he came here. He said he felt like kicking himself for not discovering this country before.

MICHIGANDER.