Here is an account of Florida Station in East Arnhem Land after three years of operation:
A VISIT TO FLORIDA CATTLE STATION NORTHERN TERRITORY. [From our special reporter}
Leaving Port Darwin on October 27 in Messrs. Millar Brothers' steamer Active, we enjoyed a very pleasant run. On the 30th we sighted the Crocodile Islands, which lie about 20 miles from the land to the north of Glyde's Inlet. We were not Long in making the mouth of the inlet, and steamed up to an anchorage within about & miles of the station. Glvde's Inlet is about 3O miles in length from the mouth to the head of navigation, carrying good bold water all the way, with a width varying from about a quarter of a mile at the mouth to about 80 yards at the higher landing, where the smaller boats from Palmerston discharged station stores, at a distance of 4 or 5 miles from the station...The steaming distance from Port Darwin was computed to be about 350 miles. The Florida, Station is built on the further side of a rise from the inlet...We soon covered the 8 or 9 miles intervening between the lauding and the station, and were agreeably surprised by the appearance of the homestead. The main building ("Government House"), in fact all the station buildings, are substantially made of sawn timber, principally cypress pine, paperbark, and ironwood. The site has been admirably chosen. It is on a small hill, the end of a small range of rising ground, about 150 yards from and above a horseshoe lagoon that partially surrounds this spur of the range.
It looks down on the station garden and horse paddock, and the rich grassy plains beyond. While the cook waa busy converting the flour and other stores we had just brought into toothsome viands
we discussed the merits of some very fine pineapples, bananas, papayas or pawpaws, mulberries, guavas, pomegranates, melons, and passion fruit, the produce of the station garden, with which our table was laden. The rest of our stay at the homestead was devoted to an inspection of the stock...
We found the cattle, with a few exceptions, in good condition...Mr. Macartney and his Manager, both of whom have had a very extended experience among cattle...
Our inspection of the country was most satisfactory, grand richly-grassed plains, intersected every few miles by permanent creeks, with here and there large lagoons, proved to be permanent by the number and size of their finny denizens. The plains are divided, or framed as it were, by what appear to be gently rising hills...
The tablelands are well watered by permanent creeks, which are kept always running by the frequent rains with which this part of the country is blessed; in fact so frequent are they that it may fairly be said that there is no dry season here. A record of the rainfall has not been kept, but Mr. Randell has noted that during the two years and four months or so in which Florida has been occupied, the longest spell of dry weather experienced was two months. In many particulars
its climate presents a marked and very favourable contrast to that of Port Darwin.
That very excellent heatgauge, butter, testifies by its solidity and rich colour that Florida must- be many degrees cooler than Port Darwin The luxuriance of the vegetation is simply wonderful.
Mr. Macartney, who spent many years in the neighbourhood of some of the sugar districts of Queensland, feels confident that sugar will do splendidly on Florida.
The block of country which is comprised In the Florida Run contains an area of about 10,000 square miles, extending front a short distance west of the mouth of the Blyth River, eastward to the Gulf of Carpentaria, embracing the whole of the coastline,. with an average depth inland of about 50 miles. It takes in the Gulf coast from Caps Wessel to about the north end of Blue Mud Bay.
Travellers who have explored the coast and made short trips inland speak very highly of it. It is thought that the auriferous country that two parties of prospectors from Port Darwin, one by Bea and one by land, went in search of some years ago near Blue Mud Bay, but
could not reach because of the hostility of the natives, lies in the ranges some distance to the north-west of Blue Mud Bay...
the percentage' of natural increase [of the cattle herd] had been very high and the young stock fine and strong. One point about the breeding cattle worthy of note is that they are all fertile and rear their calves.
There are about 100 well-bred useful horses on the station, all in first-rate order, bearing eloquent testimony to the excellence of their pastures
. The stockyards are of a decidedly modern and permanent character, well and substantially built cf bloodwood posts and paperbark rails, with good strong workmanlike gates...
...Returning to the station it struck us as remarkable and worthy of note that the plain is covered with wild rice, whether indigenous or not we cannot say. It may be possible that the Malays, who spend some months every year on this coast beche-de-mer fishing, have dropped or planted some paddy, and that this is the result. There also are found large numbers of feathered game, amongst others bustards, scrub turkeys, geese, pigmy geese, ducks, jungle fowl, emus, native companions, jaberoos, three sorts of ibis, two sorts of cranes, several kinds of pigeons, snipe, quail, parrots, cockatoos, and numberless smaller birds. There are a few kangaroos, pretty large, and very fat vexy different in this respect from their southern congeners. The lagoons and rivers teem with fish, most of which are similar to those in Queensland waters...
...the natives along this coast are amongst the most dangerous and hostile in the Territory.The absence of white ants will prove an especial boon to the station garden, or it will allow of the growth to maturity of the, various fruit-trees that in Port Darwin are piped out and weakened by the ant, and blown down by the first puff of wind.
Among the trees in the Florida garden that seldom get a chance to mature in Darwin were noticed mangoes, guavas, papaya, oranges, lemons, cocoanuts, dates, tamarinds, and one or two other kinds of Chinese fruits.
The garden also contains pomegranates, figs, sisyphus, mulberries, bananas, custard apples, pineapples, passion fruit, water and sweet melons. Among the vegetables are yams, sweet potatoes, English potatoes, eschalotts, radishes, 'long reds,' 12 to 15 inches long and 3 inches thick, 'turnip' radishes bigger than ordinary turnips, splendid lettuces with big solid hearts quite a treat after the small leafy ones in Port Darwin cucumbers up to 6 lb. weight,
Chinese cabbage, English and Chinese beans, pie-melons, pumpkins of two kinds one pumpkin vine yielded 622 lb. of fruit. Watermelons run up to 20 to 30 lb
. weight and solid right through ; they bear all the year round. Two years ago they received a lot of fruit trees and plants from the Government Experimental Garden at Fannie Bay; amongst them were three rooted cuttings of mulberries, two of which died, and about fifty pineapple plants. When the only mulberry started into growth cuttings were made, and there are now fifteen trees, some of which are from 12 to 15 feet high, and cover a diameter of fully 20 feet. They are all loaded with fruit, rich black mulberries, quite equal for size and flavour to those grown in the southern colonies, but the great beauty about these trees is that they bear for nine months in the year, resting in June, July, and August. The fifty pineapple plants have increased to over 700, nearly all in bearing, some having two or three pines on a plant; they bear all the year round; some of the fruit taken as they came weighed 5 lb. each. With plenty of fruit all through the year, plenty of fresh milk and butter, game and fish in profusion, and cool breezes all the time, it is little wonder that all hands are healthy.
' 
[South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA), Thursday 5 January 1888]
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