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Something New And Good to Eat

Developers in South Florida wanted to promote the region both as a tourist destination and, more importantly, as a prime location for buying land. Land speculators used a variety of techniques to entice travelers to come to the area, from building rail lines and hotels to touting the benefits of the local climate and landscape for making hefty profits in agriculture.

This pamphlet, published in 1915 by the Dorn Brothers Company, sings the praises of the avocado as “a new product of exclusively tropical nature and origin.” The Company, based south of Miami in Larkins (later South Miami), extolled the virtues of the avocado from a variety of perspectives, including its taste, nutritional value, most popular options for how to eat it (with lime, mayonnaise, or French dressing), and its ease of growth and potential for money-making.

The Dorn Brothers explained that its business was the selection and selling of land suitable for avocado groves, and it encouraged interested investors to come visit or even to buy land sight unseen, a popular tool for land speculation in early Miami.



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