APPENDIX.

ORANGE-GROWING IN FLORIDA.

A CORRESPONDENT of the Louisville "CourierJournal" says:

But

"There are many errors afloat about Florida. Some suppose the orange belt covers the State. Orange culture is not safe north of the twenty-ninth parallel, and better south of the twenty-eighth. The sweet orange-tree will not grow in wet land any more than the apple-tree. The sour one is sometimes found in wet locations, and may be used in such places as a stock on which the sweet orange can be worked. as the sour tree is a much slower grower, it must dwarf the sweet graft or perish beneath the superincumbent weight. No one who desires a permanent orchard of sweet trees would ever use a sour stock. The orange blooms in January and February, and a freeze at such times destroys fruit and trees. The northern counties are subject to such frosts, and hence experience has taught the old settlers that orange-culture can not succeed in such a climate. Cold continued long enough to form ice of half an inch must destroy the unpro

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tected trees, and smaller ones succumb to a less degree of cold. The lemon and lime succumb to still less cold, and the guava is destroyed at the freezing point, if continued for a few hours. The whole class of the custard apples are equally tender. The banana and pineapple fail near the same point. A multitude of other fruits and trees fall with these last.

"Another error one sees going the rounds of the papers is, that the orange will thrive under the native forest trees, and that it requires protection from the direct rays of the sun during summer. We know that the tree will not thrive in the shade of any tree unless it be the palmetto, which sends its feeding roots but a short distance. Few trees can endure a greater degree of sunshine than the orange, and it is used in some of the hottest portions of the world, as at Guanaguato in Mexico, to shade the coffee plants. The 'die-back' is the effect of cold, not of sunshine—of want of proper nutriment, not of heat of the sun in summer. Our advice to the fruit-grower, then, is to get as far south on the peninsula of Florida as he can find dry land, and as near water communication as may be."

REMARKABLE FOUNTAIN IN FLORIDA.

TAKING a narrow path, I crossed through some dense underwood, and all at once I stood on the banks of Wakulla Spring. There was a basin of water one

hundred yards in diameter, almost circular. The thick bushes were growing almost to the water's edge, and bowing their heads under its unrippled surface. I stepped into a skiff and pushed off. Some immense fishes attracted my attention, and I seized a spear to strike them. The boatman laughed, and asked me how far below the surface I supposed they were. I answered, about four feet. He assured me that they were at least twenty feet from me, and it was so. The water is of the most marvelous transparency. I dropped an ordinary pin in the water, forty feet deep, and saw its head with perfect distinctness as it lay on the bottom. As we approached the center, I noticed a jagged, grayish limestone rock beneath us, pierced with holes; through these holes one seemed to look into unfathomable depths. The boat moved slowly on, and now we hung trembling over the edge of the sunken cliff, and far below it lies a dark, yawning unfathomable abyss. From its gorge comes pouring forth, with immense velocity, a living river. Pushing on just below its mouth, I dropped a ten-cent piece into the water, which is there 190 feet in depth, and I clearly saw it shining on the bottom. This seems incredible. I think the water possesses a magnifying power. confident that the piece could not be so plainly seen from the top of a tower 190 feet high. We rowed on toward the north side, and suddenly we perceived the water, the fish which were darting hither and thither, the long flexible roots, and the wide, luxuriant grasses on the bottom, all arrayed in the most brilliant prismatic hues. The gentle swell occasioned by the boat

I am