General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1916 Original Publisher: The author Subjects: Gardening Tropical plants Landscape gardening Florida Architecture / Landscape Gardening / General Gardening / Flowers / General Gardening / Garden Design Gardening / Landscape Gardening / Ornamental Plants Gardening / Regional / General History / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: MAKING A HOME IN FLORIDA. There is a class of people that comes down to Florida merely to escape from the cold and discomforts of winter. Whatever there may be of beauty here does not seem to appeal to such, or only in a small degree. They arrive in November or December and after spending a winter or two here they buy a piece of land and build. After completely clearing out all the native vegetation from the land they put up a cheap and nasty house of hideous design, – I say design, because their builders appear to have deliberately intended to make them unattractive. The final touch is perhaps added to the pile in the shape of a paper roof. Almost any kind of a shelter seems to be good enough, – though probably their owners are abundantly able to build decently, – and in this they remain until March or April and then flit north, leaving the place to look out for itself, to grow up with the vilest weeds which spread their seeds over the land of those who remain here. I am not attempting to cast any slur on the tourist or winter resident in general. There are thousands of such who are charmed with the beauty of Florida, who fully appreciate its splendid climate and who are ready to join in any move to upbuild it and advance its interests. Neither am I wishing to say anything disrespectful about t…