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Adrian, Feb. 3.—F. R. Stebbins, Dr. J. S. Johnson, W. K. Choate, of this city, and N. M. Sutton, of Tecumseh, started for Florida yesterday.1 They go by way of New Orleans direct to Jacksonville, from which point their routes of travel will be determined by circumstances.2 Adrian, Feb. 8.—A card from F. R. Stebbins and his party for Florida, dated Cairo, Ill. February 3, states that they have been held there thirty hours by the snow storm.3 IN THE SUNNY SOUTH Banana Lagoon, February 16.—It was a cold day when we left Adrian; colder at night when we claimed our berths on the Pullman sleeper in Chicago; and still colder when we ran into the depot at Cairo, with the ten inches of snow on the level in southern Illinois, being piled up in huge winrows [sic] along the tracks, with the usual alacrity of a gang of colored shovelers, all of whom had shawls tied over their heads and ears, and large wraps of rags tied and wound around their otherwise considerably conspicuous feet, to save their comely persons from freezing. We hailed the arrival at Cairo with delight, and we were at least equally rejoiced when we left it, for we laid there in perfect quiet thirty hours. South of us, for sixty miles, down into Tennessee, the road was blockaded with over twenty inches of snow on the level, and the trains abandoned. After this long delay, with four engines on our train, we pushed through the blockade with only our sleeper off the track, on slow motion; changing to another, we in due time found ourselves beyond the snow, and safely landed in New Orleans. A two days’ tarry in that city convinced us that the exposition this winter is a complete and emphatic failure, both in exhibit and attendance. In comparison with last winter, one there Feels like one who treads alone Some banquet hall deserted. 10 1886 Florida’s Freeze Up I think more than half the area of space is vacant, on the lower ®oors. The galleries, full last year, are entirely deserted. All the best exhibits are gone—the¤ne Mexican saracenic, or Moorish building, which cost ¤fty thousand dollars , empty and closed—all the Mexican goods gone—the walls of the art building half bare—the best pictures having been all removed—nothing in the furniture and carriage department. The horticultural building contains nothing but a few cactus plants, dead banana stalks, and withered tropical plants, all killed by the “great freeze,” and everything around the grounds is looking like the ruins of some badly dilapidated gentility. The visitors are very few, and the scattered male and female attendants of a few show cases, and state exhibits, inside, in their enforced imprisonment, scarcely look up as you approach them, or if they do notice a visitor, it is with a half vacant, uninterested stare, as if in wonder what the stranger is there for. At quite a number of the exhibits there is no one in attendance—they are simply left to run themselves.4 The seven hundred and thirty miles from N.O. to Jacksonville, we passed with only one detention, of ten hours, beyond Tallahassee, by a double freight train wreck. Everywhere the great disaster of the freeze is apparent in Florida. The great¤re in Chicago was no worse for that city, than this freeze for Florida. All the millions of unpicked oranges, except a few groves in lower Florida that you can count on the ¤ngers of one hand, are entirely lost, or rendered nearly worthless, and over three fourths of the groves north of Indian river are very badly damaged in the trees.5 We are now quietly tied up at Burnham’s wharf, ¤ve miles from Canaveral light house, awaiting the abatement of a “norther” now raging. The oranges in the two groves here are unhurt, and the lemon trees still green, and the golden fruit uninjured, while nearly all the lemon trees through other parts of the state are killed. All the pine apples, even here, are killed for one season. All the many tropical fruit trees and shrubs, are killed everywhere north of St. Lucie, sixty miles south of here. Many a poor fellow who has been some years hard at work and just beheld in his oranges his money to clear him from debt, has met ruin in this freeze. We inaugurated the ¤shing season...

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