Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/355

 *idly becoming known to the world as "The Celery City," a title once held alone by Kalamazoo, Michigan, though it might well have been disputed by Arlington, Massachusetts. If you travel back and forth enough in Florida you can come to know certain spots in it, spots favored or otherwise, by their odors, also favored or otherwise. I know haunts in the upper part of the State toward which the fond, free scent of jasmine will lure you through many a sunny mile of stately, long-leaved pines, themselves giving forth a resinous aroma for a solid foundation on which the airy jasmine scent is built.

Farther south where the jasmine hardly dares the beat of the summer sun the orange groves send out messengers that beguile you through long distances in the same way. None of these calls you to Sanford. There the homely fragrance of crushed celery leaves drowns all else and salutes your appreciating nostrils from afar. I am told that Sanford people carry these odorous bunches of translucent golden-green beauty at weddings just as other, custom-bound folk carry bride roses, but I think the tale is persiflage. Certainly you have but to step from the train there in April to be accosted by a demure and smiling young woman who says, "Won't you try some of our celery?" holding up a tempting stalk or two, "We grow celery here and we are very