Nothing can answer better than Elm and Sycamore. Beech is more valuable for giving heat, and keeps longer, and, therefore, it requires more time to rot into mould. Oak-leaves are the most lasting; but they require two years, at least, to make good leaf-mould, just because they are so lasting for hotbeds, and also because containing so much gallic acid. We find nothing comes amiss for this purpose except the Fir or Pine tribe, and even they are useful for some purposes if kept long enough. The softest leaves that you gather, even though you ferment them by throwing them into a heap, and turn that heap frequently, will require the greater part of a twelvemonth to be in nice order for potting, though I have used them, after being well fermented, and then dried in cakes, in less than six months. If you want a stock early, keep your Maple, Sycamore, Ash, and Elm together by themselves. As stated, Oak are the most lasting for beds and giving bottom-heat. P. W.

Silver Springs, Florida, February 11,1857.

J. Jay Smith, Esq. - Dear Sir: Florida ought to be visited in winter, by our Northern friends. It is indeed a most delightful climate. Every day, here, has been a glorious, sunny day. We have been all the time visiting springs, plantations and sugar manufactories, besides a good deal of shooting and boating. We visited first the Orange Springs, a most beautiful location, with all the features of a tropical landscape. Palmettos of all kind are there in profusion; the groves are covered with Magnolias glauca) of large size and beautiful appearance - some measuring from 10 to 14 feet in circumference, straight and tall as arrows; oranges, red and white bay, myrtles, live oaks, Lauras Carolinensis, etc. To-day we saw a Cupressus disticha, which my wife wanted to have measured; it was 23½ feet in circumference! The hammocks are densely filled with such vegetable giants. Vines and creepers of all sorts run from tree to tree. They are almost all now swelling their buds; some have their foliage almost developed; the yellow jasmine is in blossom, and the elder and wild plum are in their spring dress. I saw two families of the Erica, which I did not find in any other place. The aspect of their hammocks, as they call those evergreen forests, is truly magnificent.

Sometimes a road runs in the middle of one of these groves, and the scenery is then almost tropical.

Orange Springs has a peculiar appearance, by the profusion of its palm trees. The spring is clear, and abundant with a fine, large basin, but it is very sulphurous. Silver Springs, which I should rather call Emerald, are more to my taste. The springs form a large basin of about five acres, which, in some parts, has a depth of about 40 to 50 feet. The bottom is varied with aquatic plants and mosses, and pure marl or shell limestone. The plants are of that bright bluish green which you see in the large bottles in your drag stores by gaslight. The limestone is still more brilliant; it is a rich display of prismatic colors, dazzling the eye, but the predominant color is always that bright, lovely emerald. I had a fine bath in that noble basin. The temperature of the water seemed to me to be about 60°.. Some very large trout are found in it. If there was a good road, and more convenient accommodation, I have no doubt it would soon be a place of resort, in winter, for such as, like myself deem your northern winters rather too trying.

Of fruit and fruit trees I have seen but little in Florida. Orange groves are numerous enough, but they are most of the bitter, wild fruit. In southern Georgia a small insect is playing great havoc among the plantations, but here it seems to be unknown, at least no body could tell one anything about it. Peaches would be in great abundance if the inhabitants would go to the trouble of planting them. Fig-trees are more cultivated, but you can ride over scores of miles without such a useless thing as a fruit tree. Cotton is all in all. Strange to say, in a climate where good fruit would be such an effectual preventive of bilious diseases, no fruit, and few, very few vegetables, are found.

The soil of Florida is almost uniformly sandy, very sandy, with substrata of marl and phosphatic limestone, in the hammocks. Vegetation is most luxuriant where this substance prevails. It is almost the only building stone found over the country. I am going back to Ocala, and from there to some plantations, till your snow is gone. Ocala is a most beautiful little town, as far as location and scenery are concerned. The walks all round are splendid, in the midst of the magnolias and palmettos; with the exception of those hammocks, all the rest is one vast forest of broad-leaved pine; some lakes and very few streams and plantations - few and far between. But the mildness of the climate is such that we sleep with open windows. The thermometer for a week past has been up to from 60° to 80° at noon, with a pure sky and calm, balmy weather. It has frozen this winter in Florida. Oleanders are nearly killed, but I see no harm done to evergreens.