"A Letter from the Land of Flowers, Fruit and Plenty"
Pasco County and The Farmers' Alliance
Macon, Florida [1889]
EDITOR MERCURY:
 Believing that your readers would like to hear from South Florida, I will write a few lines. This part of the state is thinly settled. Pasco county has a population of 4,500, is on the western coast of South Florida, has good railroad facilities and the citizens will give you hearty welcome, if you wish to come to a country where there are no northers and the winter months are almost like spring time. The weather during December has been delightful, the thermometer ranging from 60 to 75 deg., during the day, and at night it falls to 50. The most disagreeable season is the rainy season in the summer. At this time of the year we have but little rain. The most of Pasco county is high, rolling pine lands, which produces fine vegetables, grapes, long staple cotton and fruit, if they are fertilized. The low lands are good for raising vegetables and oranges, when they are fertilized. The hammock lands will grow fine vegetables and fruits without fertilizing. Oranges is the staple crop of South Florida. In this part of the state we raise corn, potatoes, grapes, vegetables, (cabbage, tomatoes and beans are raised for market), tobacco, oranges, lemons, pine apples, bananas, limes, plums, peaches, (peaches don't do well) and figs. There is money in an orange grove but you need not expect to get a good grove for the asking. They are high priced. It takes money and a great deal of hard labor, from six to ten years to get them to bearing, after which it is necessary for you to give them constant attention and fertilize them plentifully. Forty trees will do well on an acre and a tree will bear  from 500 to 3,000 oranges. They bring on an average at the tree $1 per box, and a box holds from 96 to 300 oranges. Macon is a nice and pleasant town on the South Florida and O. B. [Orange Belt] railroad and one mile from where the F. S. [Florida Southern] and F. C. [Florida Central] railroad crosses. There is considerable excitement in this and other counties over the finding of phosphate beds. Men are here now buying lands wherever they can find phosphate. [The Farmers' Alliance] The Alliance is coming to the front. It is a power in the land. Brethren, let us, like brave soldiers, come to the front and be true to the cause we are fighting for. Victory is ours, if we will only work as a unit. Brethren, read your state paper and the national organ; keep well posted. The Alliance is gaining strength here and all over the state. We have an Alliance store here and at San Antonio on the Orange Belt railroad. Both are doing a good business. Yours, J. F. MOODY.

* This letter is from The Southern Mercury, Dallas, Texas, January 9, 1890. Professor Robert C. Cotner of the University of Texas called it to the attention of the Quarterly.