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THE Southern States. DECEMBER, 1894- TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. By S. P. Panton. To one who has for years confined his attention to the development of the Northwestern States, and then turned it to the South, the latter is a revelation that dissipates many erroneous ideas. During the last thirteen years the writer took an active part in advertising the attractions, resources and advantages of the Northern tier of States from Minnesota to the Pacific. That country was effectively advertised by all possible means, and emigration agents were kept at work in several of the European countries, as well as in the Eastern States and the Canadian provinces. It seemed quite natural that people of Northern latitudes should seek homes in a new country on similar latitudes, and the agents were quite conscientious in advising them to settle in Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, Oregon, and Wash-ington. There was a stretch of 2000 miles of new country, offering millions of acres of free lands that would produce the heaviest crops of the finest wheat ; there were fortunes to be made in growing live stock and wool, and bonanzas to be found in the mineral ranges of Montana, Idaho and Washington. All this was true ; the people flocked in by tens of thousands and found it so ; the appar-ently desirable lands were located and men who came from countries where the possession of land conferred distinction, were happy and proud in the ownership of their quarter and half section estates. For some time the agricultural and pas-toral industries were profitable, and many bonanzas were discovered in the mountains, though the discoverers rarely benefited thereby. But there were drawbacks. A few years of great crops and good prices in the blizzard belt of Minnesota and Dakota were followed by several seasons of early frosts that caught the wheat in the milk ; other years the rains set in at harvest time and poured so continuously that the wheat couldn't be thrashed, and sprouted in the shock. The settlers were housed up by blizzards all winter in their little box cabins ; their children were mowed down by the scourge of diptheria ; their lives were a dead, colorless monotony, varied by salt bacon three times a day when they had it, and the dreary aspect of treeless, blizzard-swept prairie proved the possession of land there to be any-thing but an unmixed blessing. When there were good crops the elevator charges and the freight charges for the long haul to tidewater left but little com-pensation for the hardships, the arduous toil and the generally depressed lives of the settlers in the blizzard belt. There was but one crop—wheat, there-fore but one pay-day in the year, and that uncertain. The climatic eccentrici-ties kept the crop in constant danger and the farmer in constant anxiety, and when bad seasons succeeded each other, the farm, the crops in the ground and even the implements were loaded with mortgages at such rates of interest that from that time forth the farmer was a slave to his creditors and the sooner he was sold out the better for him. A few yeirs in that climate made almost TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. 509 every settler long for something less Arctic and resolve to strike for the Pacific coast if he could ever raise the money for the migration. Montana is a much better country with a much better climate, and until recent years the demands of the mining camps exceeded the supply of agricul-tural products so that good prices were always obtainable. The western half of that State is an alternation of mountain ranges and beautiful, fertile valleys, and all conditions were much more favorable there than in the blizzard belt. Of late, however, the production of breadstuffs has exceeded the home demand so the and thence around the Horn to Eng-land, so the receipts generally hang about forty cents per bushel, and there is a mighty slim profit in that. Central Washington lies undeveloped because water for irrigation cannot be procured until capital can be induced to embark in the construction of very ex-pensive canals from the Columbia and Snake rivers. From the Cascade mountains to the coast the country is covered with a dense growth of gigantic timber that forbids the development of agriculture to any great extent. The beautiful valleys of Western Oregon have been settled so lon^ that all desira- A SOUTHWEST TEXAS HOME. wheat sells at Chicago prices less freights, or from 35 to 50 cents per bushel. Within the past few months the farmers, having concluded that the good old times are gone for good, have been agi-tating the reduction of wages to farm labor on the ground that it is impossible for them to continue the old rates. The arable portions of Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington are devoted chiefly to wheat, the crop of the Palouse country being so great that the farmers have been figuring on building an inde-pendent railroad to Puget Sound, 350 miles distant. The wheat goes by rail to Portland or the Puget Sound ports, ble lands are occupied and held at full values. To the new settler going into any part of the Northwest the prospects are not of the brightest. All good lands within reasonable distances from the railroads are owned and held at figures that would be considered extortionate in the South. Even at the greatest dis-tances from transportation the lands good for anything are owned by stock-growers, if not by farmers. A man can-not establish himself there now without some capital. He should have at least $5000 to buy and handle a good im-proved quarter section, and then he will TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. 511 find that he wants another, because the system of summer fallowing found ne-cessary in that country leaves only half of the land to be cropped in any one year, and eighty acres of grain will not pay a sufficient income. Of late years the prices of good improved lands in Montana, Idaho, and Washington, have been from $20 to $50 an acre in desir-able localities, ranging still higher close to the towns. It is pretty safe to say that very few farms in the Northwest will pay fair interest on $50 an acre, and the purchaser of farm land there cannot reasonablv expect much increase in eral bonanzas ten, fifteen and even twenty years ago, are still waiting for the railroads to open up their particular districts, and the capitalists to buy their prospects at the fabulous valuations they are still dreaming of. We have noticed of late years that capital and population have been attracted by simi-lar resources elsewhere, and through the South new cities have arisen and surpassed in growth our business cen-ters, situated in what we believed to be the richest mineral region in the repub-lic. A few of us have of late made some PASTURE SCENE. value over present prices. The boom has gone by. We of the Northwest have been laboring under the impression that it contained nearly all the attractions to immigrants that were left; that the field lor development was becoming so nar-rowed that each succeeding year would bring us a greater rush; that capital would be attracted by our great deposits of coal, iron and the more valuable metals; that our towns would rapidly become cities, and our prosperity would continue indefinitely, on an increasing ratio. But while there was and is development, it is much slower than we expected, and many of the men who discovered min-investigations, which convince us that there is a larger acreage of first-class land, lying undeveloped, to be bought at nominal figures, in the State of Texas alone, than there is in the whole Northwest. We have decided that much of the land in Southwest Texas may be made worth $500 an acre with much less expenditure of time, labor, and money than it would take to raise the Northwestern lands to $40 an acre, for the same reasons that have given im-proved California lands values of $500 to $2000. We are satisfied that a man with $1000. which would be just sufficient to put him under mortgage in the Northwest, can make a good, clean, in- TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. 513 dependent start in Aransas, San Patri-cio or adjacent counties with an absolute certainty of maintaining himself in inde-pendence, and in a few years enjoying a permanent income rarely equaled on any 320 acre farm in the Northwest. We are satisfied that while the North-west is rated a healthy country, this section of the coast is much more so ; it is absolutely free from malaria; pulmo-nary and catarrhal complaints are al-most unknown, and the children flourish in perfect immunity from those scourges of the North, scarlet fever and diphthe-ria. In no other part of the country have I found the people so unanimous-ly contented with the climate, which is of a nature to attract the people of the North to keep cool in summer and warm in winter. When I left the Yel-lowstone last summer the mercury registered 1 14 in the shade, and the sig-nal service station at Buffalo, Wyo., re-ported 1 1 5 . I came to Southwest Texas in August, and the highest tem-perature since my arrival was 92 , while it rarely reached 90 . The continual sea breeze makes it very pleasant all summer. Last winter (1893) I spent a week in a mountain town when the thermometers registered from 20 to 52 below zero. The coldest weather here, when a norther was blowing, was much the same as in a chinook, the warm winter wind of the Northwest. To one accustomed to the narrow range of products in the Northwest the possibilities here are bewildering. To say that almost all the products of the temperate zone will flourish here with all sub-tropic and some tropical growths, expresses a range far wider than our knowledge. But we find that the truck gardener can plant and mature vegeta-bles at any time of year and ship them North when there is such a dearth there that high profits are assured ; that the winter climate here favors the growth of the crisp and succulent vegetables grown at the North in summer, and the rest of the year can be devoted to products not grown North at any time. Having seen ripe tomatoes at Christmas, green peas in January and ripe strawberries in Feb-ruary, let us look at the subtropical products which include the orange, lemon, lime, pomelo, shaddock, pome-granate, fig, Japanese persimmon, and the grapes of the Mediterranean, the ginger, camphor, and cinamon trees, the cassava, from which tapioca is made, the great variety of valuable fibres, the canaigre, for tanning fine leathers for which there is a strong demand throughout the civilized world, and innumerable other plants of value. Almost any one of these products intelli-gently handled will pay several times the profit per acre of the best crops in the Northwest. This is, so far as known, the only part of the republic east of California where the finest European grapes attain the greatest perfection. As they ripen here from four to six weeks earlier than in Califor-nia, the viticulturists of this coast have the run of the markets when there is no competition, and their comparative prox-imity to the body of consumers gives them great advantages over the Califor-nians that are permanent. The supplv of vegetables and fruits is as yet so inadequate to the demands of Texas alone that the California fruits and vegetables cut the most prominent figure in Texan markets It will pay better to produce the whole supply here than to raise it 2000 miles away. It is safe to say that an industrious man who comes here with $1000, buys ten acres of land for $200, devotes half of it to vines and the rest to vegetables, will find himself the possessor of a reli-able income property in three years ; and if he keeps some poultry, a gun, and a fishing rod, he will have so little to buy for himself and family that his necessary cash outlay will hardly exceed the annual fuel bill of the Northern agriculturist. THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH. By George F. Milton. "The essence of a nation is that all the individuals must have many things in common, and also that all must have forgotten many things" — Ernest Kenan. The development of our polity, from a dependence on the State to the supremacy of the people collectively, has been slow in attainment. We little realize the struggle which has marked its progress. The historical, rather than the legal view of the character and intent of the Union has finally pre-vailed, and the evolutionary theory of constitional interpretation has been the result. The growth of this national tendency has been immensely hastened by three economic factors—foreign immigration, domestic migration to the West, and the development of manufacturing indus-tries. It is unnecessary to dwell on the non-participation in this movement of the slave holding States before the war. Although similarity of eco-nomic interest had embodied them into a homogeneous people long before the sparks of national fire had burst into a flame in the West, yet it was a unity of purpose bent on one object alone—the protection of an institution sectional in extent. Therefore, the true national idea was impossible. Slavery was abolished. It now be-comes an interesting question as to the effect of that great structural change on this people. It must be borne in mind in considering this that the first influ-ences the South faced on coming out of a war as exhaustive of resources as it was destructive of life, were retarding. The bitterness of defeat and the repug-nance to a union to which allegiance was compulsory, had to be removed by an application of mental and physical energy to a material development which . should wipe out the traces of the recent subjugation. The negro problem, social, civil and economic, had also to be set-tled before progress could be assured. But how trivial were these obstacles compared with the grand advantage given by the new idea as to labor! It was now noble to work, and toil was invested with a dignity before unknown. The "poor white" was thus enabled to enter the struggle against elimination unhampered by the prejudice of his race against labor, and his subsequent mental, moral and intellectual advance-ment has been the phenomenon of the age. Joined with the ennobling of labor, as a factor in the development of that economic progress, which leads to the full grasp of the national idea, was the discovery of the availability of the Appalachian mineral fields. These great mountain regions stretch-ing down through West Virginia, Vir-ginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ala-bama, furnished the wedge of economic force to split and dissipate the elements of the old structure by which the South was chained helpless to one condition. Here the people of the entire United States met, combined interests, frater-nized and commenced that advance which was to make the South glad the slave had been given freedom. The five or more billion dollars losses sustained by the war were soon to be but the product of a few years' activity of these industrial interests brought into being by the necessities of a people impoverished by that struggle. The figures for pig iron alone for the last decade will give some idea of the great growth of these interests, the per-centage of increase of output for the South being 408 per cent, against 153 per cent, for the entire country. How much greater this may be in the future, after a recovery from the present depression, can be imagined when it is stated by a special commissioner, appointed by the government, that with THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH. 5i5 the same wages the cost of production of a ton of pig iron is $3.18 less in the South than in the North. This region of industrial energy, stretching through the very heart of the South, gave impetus to commercial activity, and the result was the building of the railroad systems necessary as the arteries of distribution for the manu-factured and agricultural products. The people were thus enabled to mingle in closer relationship with the rest of the country and also a greater proportion began to live in cities. The presence of large bodies of people in close commu-nication with each other, personally or by means of the daily papers, causes a wider popular expansion of grasp as to the progress of the world and its inter-ests and politics than can possibly be effected in isolated communities. The desire of the South has been to attain that happy medium of moderately large, actively manufacturing and commercial towns, the centres of its rich farming and industrial sections. That this ideal is rapidly being reached is seen from the fact that the urban population grew from 1,616,095 in 18S0 to 2,567,053 in 1890, or 58.84 per cent, against an increase of the entire population of 20.07 per cent. These are the influences that have been most important in bringing about the changed purpose of the South's progress. The ennobling of labor, the development of mineral and manufac-turing industries, the increased means of communication, and the establishment of large centres of industrial, commer-cial and intellectual activity have pro-duced a South which no longer fears comparison. She has become a living factor in the life of the nation and has its diversity of interest and cosmopolitan life. It is well known that slave labor retarded the increase of population, tended to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few and restricted the diffusion of education ; let us see the effect of free labor in these three par-ticulars. The abolition of slavery has increased population proportionately. The gain of the South from 1870 to 1890 has been in step with the nation's for the first time since the Revolution. The increase was 61 per cent.; that of the entire country 60 per cent. The gain of the South was 14 per cent, greater than that of the New England States and 17 per cent, greater than that of the Middle States. Cotton is no longer the sole dependence. Great as has been the increase in the production of that staple from 4,700,000 bales in 1870, to 8,500,- 000 bales in 1890, other agricultural products have made even larger "gains. In 1890 this section raised 81,000,000 bushels of wheat, 641,000,000 bushels of corn, 100,000,000 bushels of oats, 128,000,000 pounds of rice and 11,000 tons of hemp. The tobacco yield is worth $35,000,000 annually, and the sugar refineries of Louisiana have doubled their product since 1870. The increase of cotton manuiactured has been 750 per cent, since 1870. In that year the North spun nine yards to the South's one. Now the proportion is reduced to three to one. Thus if thirty years after one of the most disas-trous wars known in modern times, we look at the land left helpless, what do we find? The total receipts from State taxation for 1890 for the farmer slave States were 28.49 per cent, of that of all the States. The internal revenue collected was 29.80 per cent. The value of their agricultural product was 35.90 per cent. The railroad mileage was 32 per cent. Their population was : entire, 35.51 per cent.; white, 28.50 per cent. The increase of taxable wealth for the decade was 41 per cent.; that of the population was 20.07 per cent. The South Central section alone containing the manufacturing belt gained 72.61 per cent, in wealth, being a greater proportionate increase than that of any other section. Even the direct trade, so much of which ot the entire country has been absorbed by New York city, has recently had a wonderful development, in the last three years the increase being in the South 33 per cent., against 20 per cent, for the nation. And more important still this progress is not the result of any sud-den inflation but, as is shown by the expe-rience during the recent panic, it is more 5i6 THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH. stable than that of any other section with the exception perhaps of the North Atlantic. There were less commercial and bank failures in the South and a smaller decrease in the- volume of busi-ness, as is shown by the exchanges, and the conditions point to a more rapid recovery there than elsewhere. Natu-rally this economic advance has not taken place without a tremendous revo-lution in the social and intellectual con-dition'. Especially has this been true of the education of the masses. The per-centage of attendance at the public schools shows a greater increase in the South than in any other section, the enrollment having advanced in the last decade Irom 32 per cent, to 59 per cent. in the South Atlantic, and from 38 per cent, to 60 per cent, in the South Cen-tral States, while the increase in the entire United States was from 62 per cent, to 68 per cent. The attendance at schools is thus nearly as great propor-tionately as in the other sections, the difference existing being due to the condition of the negro race who compose one-third the population, a large pro-portion of whom require the labor of their children during much of the school age. The efforts to educate the negro are fully as earnest as with the whites, and considering the relative economic conditions the percentages of enrollment, 52.08 per cent, and 67.83 per cent, re-spectively, are very close. These three great developments, of population, of wealth and diversified interests, and of diffused learning, have struck the death blow to sectionalism and prejudice. The influence of questions common with the rest of the nation has destroyed that unity of feeling which made a rela-tively weak people so hard to conquer. This is in verity the national idea. It need not invest the central government with monarchical powers or destroy the autonomy of the State, but it must, rather by a diversity of interests in all the sections, close communication between them, and widely diffused education, remove the traditional prejudices and render sectional feeling impossible. The only bar to further rapid progress is the negro. Although in industrial pursuits his advancement has been very encouraging, in the agricultural regions he hinders materially. The great need is an intelligent class of foreign small farmers. The negro thrown in close contact with these would probably learn the better methods and catch their pro-gressive spirit and be elevated in condi-tion as he has been under similar cir-cumstances, in the manufacturing and mineral regions. The South has grown beyond section-alism. The sole relics of it are those occasional ruins of the olden time — reminders of a past still revered but no longer regretted. The traveler may soon journey from one end of the United States to the other and observe no material difference in the character and life of the people, except such as may be the result of physical conditions. The school, the railroad, the printing press, and diversified industries are the factors which eliminate past divergencies and weld sections together with mutual interest and respect. The South is fast approaching the period when it will be, like the West, a mere geographical region. It is even now as little sec-tional as New England. This can be exemplified in its political representation. It must be remembered that as long as the negro votes actively as a unit there will be a "solid South" as far as party is concerned ; but even with that, in the Fifty-First Congress the percentage of republicans from the South was 20.64, while the percentage of demo-crats from New England was only n.54. But this majority in the South differs widely on great questions, as shown in the debate on the silver repeal bill last fall and later on the tariff question, while New- England's representation was practically united on both. AH this shows the absence of sectionalism, and it can be traced to the great economic develop-ment on a new basis of conditions. What cannot be predicted for the future? The South's progress is now on the same plane and equal to that of the nation. Its national idea is the pure product of a truly American develop-ment, and while it still retains those principles of restraint against changes of our institutions, which are our best protection against anarchy, in material THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH 5i7 and intellectual structure it is essentially a "New South." Tradition of a past eminence in cer-tain respects is still cherished, but there is an even greater feeling of joy over present conditions. AS TO GERMAN IMMIGRATION OF A HIGHER GRADE. By C. M. Marshal!. When the Western railways were in course of construction they had at their command the land and credit of the nation. With one hand they offered cheap homesteads to the settler, with the other they paid liberal wages to the laborer, thus enabling the newcomer to pay his way while the home was build-ing and the farm getting under way, and the completion of the railroads added new value to their lands. These conditions do not now exist in the South. Cheap lands are for sale along our completed railroads, cheap especially in large tracts, but the pur-chaser must himself in most cases bring the means to improve his land, stock his farm and provide for his living at the start. But small holdings and capi-tal rarely go together. There is in England and Ger-many, among the well-to-do and best classes, the old Saxon love for agriculture and country life ; in spite of unremunerative prices of farm pro-duce and consequent depression of land values, there is in these countries a demand for land far in excess of the supply. Englishmen, as a rule, prefer their own colonies. Germans have no outlet but the United States, and the class referred to will prefer to go where they can acquire large estates, where abun-dant labor is obtainable and where capi-tal and labor will be safely invested. During the past decade agriculture in Prussia has been so unprofitable that even the privileged Gittsbesitzer, land-owner or planter can rarely start more than one son in the same business. Vet a sum quite insufficient to purchase a desirable farm in Prussia would be ample capital to buy and stock and re-establish in its old time fertility, order and beauty, one of the many charming plantations of the South. By birth, bringing up and surround-ings, these men are fitted for the planters' life. Tastes and habits would render them congenial neighbors and useful citizens. They would give work to our laborers, black and white, and by close attention and intelligent management prove that agriculture at present prices is the safest profitable investment in the South ; and thus encourage our own people to similar enterprise. At the present, this class in Germany knows little or nothing of our country. The professional emigration agent does not reach it. His concern is with the laborer—the steerage passenger. The commercial traveler, the merchant or casual visitor to this country does not often get beyond the large cities of the North and West, or the seaports in the South. The German planter himself rarely tra-vels beyond the confines of the "Father-land," and from his own press he learns nothing of the true state of this country, least of all the South. The prevalent in-formation about us consists in distorting the accidents of a young country and of a free government into dismal or grotesque shapes. CONDITION OF THE FARMERS OF THE SOUTH. By IV. L. Glessner. To fully understand and appreciate the present financial condition of the farmers of the cotton raising section of the South, it is necessary to go back some years and review the causes which have led to that condition. Previous to the war every cotton planter raised on his own plantation all supplies of pro-visions for himself and slaves, and pur-chased only his groceries and clotning. During those years cotton was at sever-al periods as low as it is now, but those low prices, while they diminished the cash income of the planter, caused no financial distress. At the close of the war cotton had so advanced in price that the planters devoted their entire at-tention and acreage to the raising of cotton, arguing that it was cheaper to buy provisions than raise them, and for some years this was measurably true. Cotton gradually declined in price until it would no longer pay all the expenses of the plantation and the planters ran behind and were forced to mortgage their crops for advances from the ware-housemen hoping each year that the price of their product would advance in price sufficient to pay them out. They seemed to have forgot that they could raise their own corn and meat, and bought these articles on credit at an enormous advance upon cash prices. In the meantime commercial fertilizers had been introduced, and in the hope of increasing his product of cotton, the planter bought them in large quan-tities, running in debt for them. For a number of years cotton re-mained at an average price of ten cents a pound and the planters managed to make ends meet by increas-ing their debt a little each year. When cotton fell below ten cents the planters saw ruin staring them in the face, and then there came an organization known as the "Farmer's Alliance," which taught them principles of economy, and the planters learned to buy less and combined to buy at less prices. They also began to raise their own corn and meat, and diversified their crops to the extent that they virtually "lived at home." Of course, this economy on the part of the farmers meant less busi-ness for the merchants, and their trade fell off. Many of the "supply" stores, which had been furnishing the farmers with their provisions on time at exorbi-tant prices, were closed up and their places were supplied by "cash" stores, which did less business at less profit. The fact that the South was buying less from Northern markets no doubt gave the impression to Northern dealers that the South was growing poorer ; but such was not the fact—it was growing richer, as was evidenced by the fact that the South was in a better condition to meet the recent financial depression, and did meet it better than the North. As a result of their enforced economy and diversification of crops, the farmers of Middle and South Georgia are in a better financial condition to-day, with cotton at five cents per pound, than they were some years ago with cotton at ten cents. Ten-cent cotton had to pay for all the provisions used upon the plantation, and these provisions being bought on credit it had to pay a fifty per cent, advance upon cash prices. I have known ten- cent cotton to have to pay $1.25 per bushel for corn, 20 cents per pound for meat, and $30 per ton for hay. Now these articles are all raised at home, and with the same labor and teams that produce the cotton crop. The farmers have not materially cut down their acreage of cotton, as crop reports will show, but have simply put out corn, peas, potatoes, cane, etc., in addition, and thereby have made it pos-sible to raise their own meat. The cot- 51s CONDITION OF THE FARMERS OF THE SOUTH 519 ton crop is now a cash crop—it no longer has to buy bread and meat—and while the price is low there is really more profit in it to the farmer than when the price was higher. The official records, the bank statements, and the reports of the loan companies, show that the farmers of the South are in a better financial condition today than they have been in years. There are fewer mortgages, their obligations are met more promptly, and they have been gradually paying off the loans which they made some years ago. A collector for a fertilizer factory told me a couple of weeks ago that his collections had never been better than they were this season ; that he collected over ninety per cent, of his contracts, and these contracts were all made with farmers last spring. The Northern farmer may possibly not understand how it is that the acre-age of cotton has not decreased and the acreage of other products increased, with the same labor, as such a condition would not be possible in his section. In the first place he must remember that there is not a month in the year in which work cannot be done on the farm in South Georgia. The farmer sows his oats, wheat and rye any time from the first of October to the middle of Dec-ember. He breaks his ground for corn and cotton in January and February. He plants his corn in March and his cot-ton in April. While his cotton is com-ing up he can cultivate his corn, and then go into his cotton, working the crops alternately. Between his rows of corn he plants cow peas and ground peas, which fatten his hogs. His corn is made by the first of July. The soil is easily cultivated and there are few days when it is too wet to put a plow in the field. A crop of voluntary grass springs up after oats and melons, which will make from one to two tons of hay per acre. The farmer is not forced to plant all his crops within two weeks, for he has no fear of early frosts in the fall, and as a consequence he can plant a larger acreage with the same force. I make these explanations to show why a Southern farmer can make a profit by diversification of crops even at a low price. Some of these advantages are becoming known to Northern farmers, and the re-sult is a movement of that class to the South. I have had within the past six months not only more inquiries regard-ing the resources of the section traversed by the Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad, but have located more settlers, and the outlook is good for a very large immigration within the coming year. All of our new settlers are from the Northern States—men who have become tired of the rigorous winters of the North, and the constant struggle of try-ing to raise enough in five months to support them the other seven. Those who have spent a year in South Geor-gia are well satisfied with the change and are urging their relations and friends to join them. I have not spoken of the profits of fruit-growing, for it is a comparatively new industry in the South, but it is as-suming large proportions and within the next three years will bring into our sec-tion millions of dollars, with a very small outaly. The fact that our people have be-come fully awakened to the importance of diversifying their industries, and have become grounded in the principles of economy, betokens a prosperous future for our section. I have heard but little growling about hard times in Georgia, except from drummers, who complain about small sales. It is true that our people are not spending as much money as they did years ago, for the reason that they have no need to do so, and in that fact lies their prosperity and contentment. THE GAME OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. By Frank A. Hevivood. The Dismal Swamp in Eastern Vir-ginia and North Carolina contains over 100,000 acres. It is for the most part covered with a dense growth of cypress, juniper, cedar, gum, beech and oak. Several small streams flow through it and Lake Drummond, a body of water containing about twenty square miles, is in the center. The Dismal Swamp is a paradise for the lover of sport. It contains number-less resorts for bear and deer. The enor-mous lake abounds with fish. The robbins and blackbirds of the North winter on the banks of the canals. The tempting clearings offer inducements to the partridge, woodcock, squirrel, rabbit, and other small game. The bear has a prominent place in the Dismal Swamp, from its greater abundance and the quality of its flesh. He is more easily found, too, than his brethren of other sections. The deer of the swamp afford a wider field for gen-uine sport than those of other localities. The opossum and coon afford attrac-tions for the lover of fun, and there are many people who can recapitulate vol-umes of exploits among the birds. Those whose ideas concerning bears are gained from works of fiction have no adequate idea of the lord of the Dismal Swamp. The bear is not brave. He is cowardly, weak, dirty, and a prey to an inordinate appetite for pig. At very few periods can he be honestly called courageous when in the presence of man, but his strength is enormous, and in speed he will oftentimes rival an Arabian horse. The swiftness and power with which he uses his claws while capturing a "cattle- beast," or pig, or while destroying a beehive is incred-ible. But as to real genuine bravery, when becoming tired of being hunted, he tries to infuse variety into the affair by hunting his hunter, the bear does not possess it. The bear usually confines himself to the dense growths of reeds by day, sallying forth by night to the farmers' beehives, or to the haunts of the "razor back." Occasionally a bear will spring on the back of a "cattle-beast" burying his teeth in the frightened animal's neck and using his claws to catch at the trees and brush through which his victim dashes. For bear hunting in the Dismal Swamp there are two requisites besides the bear—men with guns and a man on a horse. The first- named halt on the border of a jungle where a bear is supposed to be hid, while the other drives the inhabitants of the jungle towards them. The master of the hunt posts the sportsmen here and there in pairs, so that each hunter has an especial rival against whom he is pitted and whom he must, if possible, forestall in shooting the bear. When the hunters are posted the horseman advances into the jungle, and with loud shouts starts the game. A little later and the bear shambles out directly into the arms of his enemies. Another method of shooting the bear is to tie a pig by the leg to a tree in the "open" and in the evening the hunter takes a position near by, employing a negro boy to keep the pig awake. Four drachms of good powder, an ounce and a-half of buckshot and a little attention to business will usually settle the bear question. Lake Drummond is, and has been for years, a favorite spot for deer. They are only hunted with dogs, a still hunter being looked upon with aversion by the natives, and he is lucky if he escapes without having the tails of his shirt nailed to a tree as a warning to the next tenderfoot who imagines that still hunt-ing is the only way to shoot deer. The "cattle-beast" is the local name given to the sturdy wild cattle which THE GAME OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. 521 roam about through the fastnesses of the swa.np. They are small undersized animals and as shy as a deer. When the farmer wishes a fresh beef he takes his gun and his dogs and runs the ani-mal to a stand-still. The "cattle-beast" is favorite meat for bear, and oftentimes carries the marks of severe encounters. The coon and the opossum of the Dismal Swamp are universal favorites for the table. An opossum alter fatten-ing on milk is a perfect roll of butter and in point of flavor and delicacy can-not be surpassed. Both of the animals are rich in fighting qualities. A high spirited coon will lie on its back and whip almost any thing that comes along ; but in the branches of a persimmon tree the opossum is king. He is subject to no man. His throne is the branch from which he hangs by the tail, and from it he swings and reigns. For coon and opossum hunting the hunter is provided with plenty of colored boys and hunting dogs, and he enters the swamp immediately after dark. It will not be long before a coon or an opossum will be treed. Then comes the fun. The "bird" is in the tree, the dogs are at its foot. The Southern moon silvers the green branches. Muscular negroes attack the tree with gleaming steel or mount into its limbs. Torches of lightwood blaze brightly. The hunters gather about. The tree falls, or the "bird" is shaken from its limbs. In either case there is a conglomerate mass of negro, dog and game. Be the game coon or 'possum, the captor of the beast in the mad rush is the envy of all his companions. The light of the full moon, the flare of the pine knots shining upon the black countenances form pictures never to be forgotten. Before the war fox hunting was a popular sport for the planters who lived about the Dismal Swamp. In the ante-bellum days "anyone who was anyone" kept a pack of hounds. The Dismal Swamp is the scene of the revelries of the squirrel and the rabbit. It is the winter home of the blackbird and the robin. A blackbird pie stuffed with Lynnhaven oysters is a dish for the gods. Every section of tidewater Virginia and Eastern North Carolina affords good bird and squirrel shooting, but there is no section supe-rior to the Dismal Swamp. LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS, GIVING THEIR EXPERIENCE IN THE SOUTH—XV. [The letters published in this issue form the fifteenth instalment in the series. These communications are published in response to numerous inquiries from Northern people who desire to know more about agricultural conditions in the South, and what is being accomplished by settlers from other sections of the country. These letters were written for the most part by practical farmers and fruit-growers, chiefly Northern and Western people who have made their homes in the South. The actual experiences of these settlers, as set forth in these letters, are both interesting and instructive to those whose minds are turned Southward. — Editor.] A Dakota Farmer's Opinion of Texas. W. A. Ward, Beaumont, Texas.— I came to this place from South Dakota about three years ago ; have spent three summers and two winters here in the coast country of Southeast Texas. I left the drouth-stricken and blizzard-swept Northwest to try to find a place where the rainfall was ample and not accompanied by wind and hail to destroy crops and where the heat of summer was modified by gulf breezes. I was satis-fied before coming South that the coast country offered these advantages. I visited several points in the coast region. I found here in Jefferson county, Texas, a comparatively high, well- drained prairie dotted with groves and plenty of good water, a good soil on deep clay sub- soil and a splendid home demand for all farm products created by the immense lumber business adjoin-ing this fertile prairie. While prices of land had been "boomed" in some other localities, here the cattle men had up to that time occupied the land, but were wil-ling to "turn it loose" at low prices — $2.00 to $3.00 per acre. Since that time the acreage in rice has increased from a few acres planted as an experiment to 5000 acres in Jeffer-son county alone this year, and the industry is extending into Liberty and Chambers counties to our west. Texas has State school funds at the rate of $7.35 per annum for each child of school age, and this fund is increasing by the sale of public school lands from year to year. State funds are usu-ally sufficient for six to nine months school in country and towns. Some districts with only eight scholars have a school by adding to the State fund by subscription. Local taxation for school purposes is seldom necessary here. I bought land two years ago at $2.75 per acre, now worth $5.00. I have grown two fair crops of rice on the flat land and set the sandy ridges to fruit trees, cultivating other crops between the rows. This year, in my orchard, I matured good crops of Irish potatoes and corn in early summer, and now have a fine crop of sweet potatoes ready to dig from the same land. Oats make a fair yield here and hay is very profitable. Rice yields from about $22.00 per acre on an average for land not irrigated to about $40.00 per acre for the average of lands watered by pumping. It is seeded, harvested and thrashed like other small grains. The Oriental varieties of peaches, pears and plums do well here, and I am convinced that the satsuma orange can be successfully grown. The com-mon sweet orange is grown in a small way by most everybody, but is believed to be too hazardous for a money crop. Peach trees set in my orchards in March, 1893 (then one year old buds), fruited in 1894, some of the trees ma-turing as many as forty peaches of the finest quality. The same trees are now LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. 523 good bearing size and promise a yield of from one to two bushels each next season—June and July. I will plant several thousand peach, pear, plum and satsuma orange trees this winter. Beaumont, the county seat of Jeffer-son county, and the lumber metropolis of Southeast Texas, is in the north-east corner of the county on the Neches river, a deep navigable stream which furnishes water connection with Sabine Pass in the southeast corner of the county. Lumber and posts for improving farms are cheap, a bill of good long-leaf pine suitable for a house, including floor-ing, drop siding, ceiling and finishing can be bought here for $10.00 per thous-and. I paid $5.00 lor four hundred good white oak posts with only two miles to haul to my farm. The impression that formerly existed in the minds of Northern people that this was a low wet land still contending with the sea for supremacy was very erroneous. It is apparently as old a country, geologically speaking, as Illi-nois, Wisconsin, or other parts ofthe up-per Mississippi valley. Mosquitoes and snakes are no more plentiful on these prairies than on the Dakota plains in a wet season. I put up 100 tons of hay this season and saw but one small snake in my meadows. As to health, I never saw and am not looking-for a more healthy climate. My family was afflicted with catarrh, which disap-peared almost as soon as we came, and we have all enjoyed the best of health from the start. We came in the spring and have remained here all the time. This locality offers the advantages of both an old and new country ; old in manufacturing, with a good home mar-ket, good shipping facilities, cheap material, &c.,but new in agriculture and with good cheap lands. The negro population is confined to the towns (mostly employed in the mills) where they are industrious and orderly and have separate schools and churches. The farmers and farm laborers are white and mostly Northern people who are coming in rapidly. The acreage in cul-tivation is being more than doubled yearly. There is no petty thieving here. People sleep with their houses open and property unprotected. I never felt more safe in the protec-tion of life and property than I do here. The laws are wholesome and well enforced. The homestead and the rights of women and children are es-pecially well protected. We have good roads and iron bridges graded and built at county expense. The native people are generous, intelli-gent and honorable to a marked degree, and they co-operate freely with Northern men, who receive the most hearty wel-come and encouragement in their efforts to develop the country. "Most Charitable People He Ever Lived Among." J. Higgins, Newberry, S. C.—For farming there is no better section than this, not only for cotton, but for corn, wheat, oats, tobacco, &c. I have been with these people nearly two years, and I would not ask for better treatment. I certainly think they are the most charitable people I have ever lived among. I am a Northern man, from the city of Augusta, Maine, and can speak with more knowledge of cotton manufacturing than of farming. Any-one wishing to engage in any kind of manufacturing will find it to their ad-vantage to invest their money in the South, because labor and material of all kinds is much cheaper than in the North. This place for climate and healthy condition cannot be equaled by any State in New England, and I believe the time is not far distant when the South will control the manufactures of the country. "Never Was a Healthier Place." J. H. Morse, Warrenton, N. C.— I have been South nine years and have met with the greatest kindness from the Southern people. They are always ready and willing to do you a favor, and when you are sick or in trouble they never hesitate one moment in work or deed. There never was a healthier place than Warrenton, N. C. It is entirely free from malaria and mosquitoes. The soil is red and grey clay soil. Every- 5 24 LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. thing that you have a mind to plant will grow. If the people would give one-half the attention to their crops that the Northern farmer does they would soon be independent. The land is easily cultivated. Fruits grow to perfection. The finest grapes I ever saw were grown in this place. We have peaches in abundance and all other kinds of fruits do finely. Fine tobacco is raised in this county, and it brings fine prices, too. I came from Litchfield, Conn., nine years ago and my family have been in excellent health during that period. This town is especially noted for its fine drinking water, which is a very essential consideration. One thing that is hardly ever known in this section is fog, which makes the climate so much more desira-ble for people troubled with throat and lung diseases. The winters are very mild. Just the Place He Had Been Looking For. Kimball Plympton, Rogers, Ark. — Contemplating a trip South in pursuit of health and business, I was casting about for some information that would enable me to decide where to go. Acci-dentally I came upon an advertisement of Rogers, Ark. I read the article over and was very favorably impressed with the description of the country. I at once decided that Rogers was just the place I had been looking for, and I have not regretted that I came here. When I arrived, although a perfect stranger, I was received like an old acquaintance and shown every courtesy possible. The people here certainly deserve the name of the "warm-hearted Southerners." They cannot do enough for you and they take great pleasure in showing you around over the country and seem proud of their extensive crops and fruit orchards, and well they may, for one might travel the country over and not find a more fertile country where the soil is better adapted to fruit culture and farming. This locality can not be surpassed as a health resort, being located in the northwestern corner of the State in Benton county, at an elevation of 1500 feet, where malaria and those epidemics are not known, with water of crystal purity from the numerous mineral springs. This is a city of about 2000 population, all white. The city has all the advantages that an enterpris-ing people can make ; there are water works which abundantly supply the city with pure spring water, public schools, churches and several manufac-tories. Anyone desiring a mild climate in winter and cool breezes in summer will find all their wants supplied in this locality. Besides the raising of all kinds of fruits and berries, vegetables and grains, there are many other business pursuits and openings for an energetic business man to enter into with profit. A Dane who has Prospered in Alabama. O. L. Anthon, Carthage, Ala.— I notice that you are publishing letters from people who have moved South for the purpose of locating and farming. I am a native of Denmark, Europe. A good many years ago I moved to Ala-bama, and located on the high, level, fertile lands in Hale county, about one mile from Carthage—a station on the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, where I have now lived for twenty-three years, and never enjoyed better health. This is the most suitable country I have found since I have been in the United States, for farming and fruit raising pur-poses. I have a good farm, and a com-fortable home ; good water ; fine health, and enough to last me my lifetime. Our crops are fine, and markets conve-nient. We can raise from a bale to a bale and a half of cotton per acre on our land, without the expense of fertilizing, and from forty to fifty bushels of corn. Stock do well the entire year, by running on the ranges. I advise all seeking homes to settle in this section of Alabama. Northern People Will Be Received With Open Arms, and Can Do Well. E. R. Burr, Nameless, Campbell county, Va.—It is with much pleasure that I give my testimony as to my ex-perience and treatment, from a Northern man's standpoint, in settling in the South, if only in return for all the kind-ness and attention I have received from my neighbors. I came down here last spring broken down in health and bought a broken down farm about six miles from Lynchburg, which had not been worked since the war. I was very unwell and could not do much work at LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. 525 first, but notwithstanding that, I made a fairly good crop and sold off a large quantity of bark and wood, and made more than I would have done at home. There is a ready and good market for all you can raise and prices are good. The people are glad to see you and aid you in every way in their power. There are good schools and Sunday-schools and churches, and I have never received more attention or been better entertained than I have been by some of the old rebels 1 fought against in the late war. My health is good and I feel like a new man, and would not sell my place at 25 per cent, advance, and I can say that if Northern people come down here and attend to their business they will be received with open arms and can do well. Makes More Than a Good Living Every Year. G. B. R. Smith, Howe, Grayson county, Texas.—I came to Texas about seven years ago ; have lived here continuously since then, engaged all the time in farming ; have experienced about all the kinds of seasons that ever come this way, and have never failed to make more than a good living any year. From my experience I conclude that any industrious, economical farmer with fair muscle and brain can do well in this country, and in a few years will own a good, well-stocked and improved farm that will not require any fertilizers to make a crop. We sometimes have to haul a little water for a month or two, about once in five years, perhaps, but then we have the pleasure of hauling lots of stuff from our farms to market. A careful study of the situation leads me to the conclusion that the renter in this country is ahead of the average land owner in the old States. Rents are cheaper here than fertilizers there, the land much easier cultivated (even though it does stick to the ploughs) and the yields much better as a rule. Of course we have our growlers, and there are many here who are 'not doing well, and never will, but I repeat—the man who can and will work judiciously is sure to win in this country. Climate Unsurpassed. Ebenezer Conklin, Cronly, Colum-bus county, N. C.—The climate here is unsurpassed, and the soil under proper cultivation will make excellent- corn, potatoes, rice, oats, wheat and all small grains. Fruit growing is a specialty. Tobacco does well here. Manufacturing opportunities are good. I have been a resident of this State twenty-nine years and I have never been treated better by any people than I have by those of the South, notwithstanding I fought against them in the war between the States. I am a native of Williamstown, Mass. "Don't Know What Hard Times Are." B. R. Garland, Crowley, La.— I came from Rockville, Ind., to Crowley, La., about three years ago, and have been growing rice successfully and profitably. The people of this section do not know what hard times are. Because there comes a year occasionally when they do not realize three or four times the cost of their lands they call, it hard times, but they know absolutely nothing of such want and suffering as are: experienced in some sections. In the first place, lands are cheap and sold on easy terms at a low rate of interest, and if a man has not a home of his own it is his own fault. Cheap lands, cheap fuel, cheap building ma-terial, cheap clothing and cheap food — all this in a land that will produce sugar, rice, cotton, corn, oats, sweet and Irish potatoes, fruits of all kinds and every manner and variety of vegetables. I know of many men who came here two and three years ago with from $200 to $500, and today have a quarter section of land with good buildings well stocked, their year's feed and seed and free from debt. How many countries can do this for a man ? I defy anyone to point out any section of the United States today that has done more for the industrious poor man or more for the health of the invalid or more for the capitalist in the way of steady rise in values and large returns in invest-ments than this section of Louisiana during the past five years. The people of this State have always performed their labor by the hardest 526 LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. and most expensive means, and now that new and improved machinery is being introduced it is cheapening the cost of production, and it is safe to say that rice is raised at a cost of $1.00 per barrel less than it was five years ago, with many possibilities of still further reductions. Much Easier to Make a Living Than in the North. C. A. Barnes, Delhi, La.—I came to Delhi, La., in the fall of 1892, and after looking around a little was so well pleased with the country and people that I wrote my family to come at once and they are equally as well pleased as I am. I settled on an old plantation of 460 acres, about one mile from town. The farm was without drainage or fences, and covered to a more or less extent with Bermuda grass. The land readily responded to improved drainage, and after considerable hard work I finally got rid of the Bermuda grass, which bothered me considerably at first. There is no trouble about a man doing well here if he will work. The soil is a reddish clay on the hills and will raise corn, oats, rye, sweet and Irish potatoes, vegetables of all kinds and different kinds of fruit. Land is easily cleared here. You can buy unimproved land at from $2.00 to $10.00 per acre ; improved at $10.00 to $20.00, according to locality and improvement. Our climate is delightful. Outdoor work can be carried on the year round. The forest trees are usually loaded with nuts and acorns, on which the pigs can fatten in the fall. Stock of all kinds do well, and can graze the year round. Flowers are abundant and can be grown the year round in the gardens. Fish and game are plentiful. People suffering from catarrhal and pulmonary troubles are usually much benefited in this climate. In the summer the days are warm, but the nights are generally cool and pleasant. Several crops may be pro-duced on the same ground the same year. We raise two crops of Irish potatoes every year. This town is situated on the Macon ridge, in Northeastern Louisiana, and is on the line of the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad, a division of the Queen and Crescent system of roads. We are nineteen miles from the Missis-sippi river, and our nearest market cen-tres are Vicksburg, Mississippi, Monroe, and New Orleans, Louisiana. It is much easier to make a living here than in the North on farms, and I would much rather live here. The peo-welcome Northerners, and are very kind and hospitable. In Southern Texas. G. W. Magill, Beeville, Bee county, Texas.—Having lived for a number of years in Kansas and Missouri, I came to Bee county, Texas, about three years ago. The change in the climate and conditions of the two sections of country is a very radical one. Our summers here are very long and hot, but we have the constant cooling and refreshing sea breeze right oft the Gulf of Mexico, some fifty miles from Beeville. Our winter climate is simply delightful : so mild and so pleas-ant. Roses bloom in the open yards all winter in great profusion, if given proper care and attention. Snow is unknown, and ice very rare. Our finest vegetables are winter grown. In fact, we have a land of almost perpetual summer and sunshine. Our only drawback is dry weather. While we do not have dis-tressing droughts like they have on the Western plains, being too far east and too near the coast for that, we have long dry spells sometimes that cut corn crops and grasses short. To insure fruits and vegetables to be a grand success in this country, one has only to secure a well and wind mill and irrigate, at a very nominal expense. Then failure is im-possible. The great field crop of this country is cotton. The fleecy staple is the lead-ing and sure crop here, the same as corn in Iowa. If a Northern farmer will come here and work and manage and save like Illinois farmers he will soon get rich. After having lived in several States, I am fully convinced that the best new and undeveloped country left is the LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. 527 coast country of Southern Texas, say from Houston to the Nueces river, the Western portion being the dryest. While it is a semi-tropical climate, it is all swept by the gulf breezes and is a healthy and pleasant climate. Little is known of it as yet. Until the last few years it was all big pastures, and is yet to a great extent. It is mostly an open prairie country, more brush than in the Western portions, with very fine rich, black, heavy soil, some black waxy, but mostly sandy, and some light sandy soil. Small grains and apples do not do so well, but almost everything else does. Grapes and pears are lead-ing fruit crops and get into market con-siderably ahead of California. Crops are forward with us here in Bee county this year. We had plenty of ripe watermelons and roasting ears out of the fields in May, and we had ripe grapes the first of June. This is a good country for anyone looking for a mild climate, a good new country, cheap lands for farming, or large tracts to colonize. Interested parties should come and investigate this region and judge for themselves. "The Country for Beginners." J. W. Davis, Llano, Texas.—After an experience and residence here for forty-two years, formerly from Kentucky, I find the lands here as rich and pro-ductive as those of Kentucky. In forty-two years we have had four or five drouthy years, which is not more than an average of the old States. While our climate is not so favorable for corn, which on an average is about thirty bushels an acre, there are no better wheat, cotton, sugar and rice lands in the world. Our society will compare favorably with any State in the Union. Christianity is represented by all de-nominations. We have excellent schools. Good lands range from $2 to $10 per acre ; the most of our country is well watered. This is the country for begin-ners. An Iowa Farmer in Louisiana. S. L. Cary, President Iowa Colony, Jennings, La.—The products of South-west Louisiana are more varied than further North, and also more valuable mainly on account of its semi-tropical climate. Sugar-cane and rice which grow to perfection here are more valu-able than wheat, oats and corn crops North, and Northern crops grown here mature so much earlier in the season as to bring much higher prices. Truck farming is very remunerative, as we can grow hardy vegetables all the year and tender varieties months earlier and later than North of us. The great-est amelioration of climate is only felt on the Gulf Coast line for less than one hundred miles inland. Sugar cane often gives a profit of $40 to $50 per acre ; rice, $25 to $50 ; with an average profit for sugar of $30, and rice of $10 to $25. Stock growing with improved breeds is paying well. Southern climate and Southern-grown feed stuffs put the Southern feeder and breeder at the head. Fruit growing is in its infancy. There are many obstacles to overcome, but not as many as where Jack Frost cuts both ends of the crops. We must find the fruits best adapted to our conditions. Nearly all varieties have been tried and enough have been found to stand the trial to make this a good fruit country, best in flavor, in size, color and keeping. It is an excellent corn country. Oats do fairly well. Sweet and Irish pota-toes of superior quality are easily grown. Grass is king here as else-where. This is emphatically a grass country. Textile fibre plants too nu-merous to mention grow in easy luxu-riance. Half A Century In Texas. J. H. Arnspiger, Van Alstyne, Grayson county, Texas.—I have lived in Grayson county, Texas, for fortv-nine years. We have never failed to raise anything we want to eat or sell, — corn, cotton, wheat, oats, barley, rye, in fact, everything that we have tried to raise. Fruit does well ; watermelons do exceedingly well. I have seen them grow to sixty and seventy-five pounds each. Sugar cane does well ; tobacco, vegetables, berries of all kinds also do well; in fact, we have the gar-den spot of the world for farming of all 5 2S LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. kinds. Land is cheap. Land that brings ioo bushels of oats per acre can be bought at for $30 to $35 per acre. I have raised 100 bushels of corn per acre and over one bale of cotton per acre. We have good schools, good churches of all kinds. There is a ready sale for every kind of produce raised, and always a good market for stock. Now is the time for home-seekers to come to Texas, as the country is settling up very rapidly. Improving farms is now all the go, and land is gradually increasing in value, never to diminish. You can buy land here, and not have to advance but a very small amount, and then pay as you would your rent, in other words, you can pay four or five dollars a year per acre until it is paid out. Texas has plenty of good water of all kinds, lime, sulphur, freestone, and all others as good as you can find. It is, I believe, as healthy a country as you will find anywhere. The people are friendly and sociable and society is as good as the very best. Everything-is cheap that you have to buy, with plenty of good wood to burn. ITEMS ABOUT FARMS AND FARMERS. A Prosperous Florida Farmer. Mr. M. H. Johnson of Leon county, Florida, has on his plantation a steam creamery in successful operation, He is using the milk from fifty- four Jersey cows, and his plant has a capacity for ten times that number of milkers. The milk from every cow is tested by a Bab-cock tester. As at present managed the revenue from the creamery is $4680 a year, but as the milk that produces thirty cents worth of butter will yield 38 cents worth of full cream cheese, Mr. Johnson will reduce his butter output and manufacture cheese. This will in-crease the income from this industry to nearly $6000 a year, more than one-third of which will be clear profit. He is now making over 300 pounds of but-ter a week, most of which is shipped to different points in the state, and nets thirty cents a pouud. Mr. Johnson raises his own stock iood, such as corn, oats, hay, peas, tur-nips, sweet potatoes, etc., and is pre-paring to grow clover. He will make seventy-five barrels of syrup from six acres of cane, and his mill is now turn-ing out seven barrels per day. This season he has harvested twenty-five bushels of oats and ten bushels of peas per acre from the same land, and then pastured his cows on it for several weeks, with an increased yield of milk. He cuts three tons of hay to the acre. He has orange and lemon trees in full bearing. Mr. Johnson buys no stock feed ; on the contrary he has an abundance to sell. This is his last year for cotton growing. He will have no tenants in the future. He will hereafter hire labor and devote all his farming operations to raising food crops. The South's Corn Crop. The following comparative statement of the production of corn in the Southern States in 1893 and 1894 *s compiled from reports of the Agricultural Depart-ment: Maryland 15,078,221 14,268,234 Virginia 31,234,046 32.195.S55 North Carolina 29,954,313 32,959,485 South Carolina 12,501,035 18,728,822 Georgia 33.678,277 35.143-737 Florida 4919,364 5,214,04s Alabama 28,328,514 34,760,317 Mississippi 25,817,179 35,931,206 Louisiana 15.216,266 17,880,183 Texas 61,170,965 69. 338,678 Arkansas 32,110,814 38,437,833 Tennessee 63.6j9.66 1 68,060313 West Virginia 14,089051 j 12,611,972 Kentucky 68,008,060 j 67892,301 Total 435,745,766 I 483,422,984 Yield 1S93. Bushels. Yield 1894. Bushels. This shows an increase of 48,000,000 bushels, divided according to States as follows: A gain of 1,000,000 bushels in Virginia, 3,000,000 in North Carolina, 6,200,000 in South Carolina, 1,500,000 ITEMS ABOUT FARMS AND FARMERS. 529 in Georgia, 6,000,000 in Alabama, 10,- 000,000 in Mississippi, 2,600,000 in Louisiana, 8,000,000 in Texas, 6,000,000 in Arkansas and 4,400,000 in Tennessee, with a decrease in West Virginia and a slight decrease in Maryland and Ken-tucky. Why Cotton Doesn't Bother Him. With one mule Mr. V. A. Hoffman, near Holly Springs, Miss., made the following crops this year : Three hundred and thirty bushels of- sweet potatoes, sixty-five bushels of Irish potatoes, spring crop, and forty bushels fall crop, three bales of cotton, one hundred bushels of cotton seed, two thousand bundles of fodder, twenty bushels of peas, five bushels of peanuts, three tons of hay, four hundred and forty-five bushels of corn. Four-cent cotton doesn't bother Mr. Hoffman. Mr. T. M. Adams, of Oak Hill, Florida, speaking of his success with bees, said to a correspondent of the Jacksonville Citizen that when he first went to Florida, about fifteen years ago, he purchased in Jacksonville on his way South a barrel of Florida syrup. On arriving at his destination some of the natives came to visit him, and finding that he had plenty of syrup, suggested a trade for some honey. Mr. Adams accepted the proposition, and liked the honey so well that he determined to have some bees of his own. After some trouble he became possessed of a small number. Since that time he has never been without them, but has never con-sidered it a business, simply spending two hours once a week looking them over, except in the season of extracting honey. This year he started with a spring count of seventy colonies, and began extracting on May 1, continuing until July 20, in which time he took from sixty colonies 23,850 pounds of honey and 150 pounds of wax, and increased his stock from seventy to 120 colonies. At the low prevailing price he sold the honey for something over $1200 and the wax for $36. During the extracting season Mr. Adams, assisted by his wife, spent two hours each day at the work. Mr. James M. Thornton, of Aus-tin, Texas, said recently to a Dallas News reporter : "I have traveled all over Texas and have experienced an agreeable surprise at the discovery that our farmers are taking to raising hogs, so that two years from now Texas will have all the bacon and pork necessary for home consumption and a surplus for shipment. The swine display at the Texas State fair this year was the finest I have ever seen in any State, and yet it is only a sample of what the farmers of Texas are doing." Mr. James A. Westbrook, of Mt. Olive, N. C, is one of the most success-ful truck farmers in North Carolina. He has made a fortune in the last few years raising strawberries. Last season he had thirty acres in strawberries, for which he received, after deducting freight and commissions, over $14,000. The cost of cultivating, picking, hand-ling, &c, was something over $3000, leaving nearly $11,000 clear profit on the thirty acres, an average of about $350 an acre. He experimented with a tract of an acre and a-quarter to see if the most careful and elaborate and ex-pensive cultivation that could reasona-bly be given it would produce results sufficiently great to justify the extra care and cost. From this acre and a-quarter he sold strawberries to the value of more than $1000, after deducting freight and commissions. The total cost of cultivating and handling was about $200, leaving a net clear gain of $800, or at the rate of $600 an acre. Mr. V. V. Montgomery, of Ed-wards, owner of the celebrated acre of land that netted $400 profits on its suc-cessive crops in 1893, was m town Wednesday. The acre was not quite so profitable this year, owing to its third crop—one of cabbages—being unusually late, but has paid him the greater moiety of that sum. Persons who doubt whether farming pays will be convinced after seeing Mr. Montgomery's acre, that he makes it pay him. He has ninety-six fat hogs to sell this season and plenty of corn and other forage. He reports that the Hinns county corn 53° ITEMS ABOUT FARMS AND FARMERS. crop, an excellent one—as is the case indeed all over the State—is bringing half a dollar cash a bushel, much to the delight of the farmers, who figure out a handsome profit for themselves at this price, although it is about fifteen cents under the rate at which Western corn can be sold.—The Commercial Herald, Vicksburg, Miss. Mr. E. A. Murray of Chattanooga, Tenn., has leased from the North Highlands Land and Improvement Company ioo acres of land just above Columbus, Ga., and also seventy-five acres of the Bussey farm, which is adjoining. A greater portion of this he will plant in sweet potatoes, the rest be-ing devoted to raising food products and other vegetables. Mr. Murray is an expert sweet potato grower, and last spring experimented on a tract of land near Fort Valley, Ga. His success there has doubtless induced him to work on a larger scale at Columbus. A number of farmers in Hale county, Alabama, have organized the "Farmers and Merchants' Co-operative Associa-tion," the object of which is to encour-age and promote the raising at home, as far as possible, of all needed supplies. E. W. Pabor, of Pabor Lake, De Soto county, Florida, said recently: "I think that pineapples will be the coming crop of this State. I set out 70,000 the past summer and expect to set out more soon. I have about 200,000 out now. I think they will net $350 per acre easily enough. They should net to the grower on an average 4^ cents each. I shall push this industry, as I have great con-fidence in it. "Then, too, I am working on bananas. I think that the dwarf variety can be made to pay. I am experimenting on several patches, so as to see the effects of different kinds of lands and cultiva-tion. I have about 700 or 800 plants now." Mr. W. L. Elzev, a prosperous farmer of Northampton county, Va., had sixty acres of his farm in cultiva-tion this year, the yield from which was 2700 barrels of sweet potatoes, 250 bar-rels of Irish potatoes, eighty barrels of corn, twenty tons of scarlet clover hay, eight tons of red clover hay and a variety of other products. Of the 2700 barrels of sweet potatoes he has shipped 1300 barrels, with net returns from same of $1610, the balance of the crop being stored for the winter markets. THE SOUTHERN STATES. THE Southern States. Published by fne Manufacturers' Record Publishing Co. Manufacturers' Record Building, BALTIMORE, MD. SUBSCRIPTION, = = = $1.50 a Year. WILLIAM H. EDMONDS, Editcr and Manasrer. BALTIMORE, DECEMBER, 1894. The SOUTHERN STATES is an exponent of the Immigration and Real Estate Interests and general advancement of the South, and a journal of accurate and comprehensive information about Southern resources and progress. Its purpose is to set forth accurately and conservatively from month to month the reasons why the South is, for the farmer, the settler, the home seeker, the investor, incomparably the most attractive section of this country. Observance of Law in the South. A study of the statistics of crime and pauperism in the United States will reveal some striking facts. The South has been so clamorously and so persistently maligned as a lawless section that it has come to be almost universally assumed to be true that the laws are more frequently violated in that section than in other parts of the country. Even the Southern people themselves, in a large part, having heard so much, and such continuous outcry against Southern lawlessness, and so much vaunting of alleged relative freedom from crime of other parts of the country, have grown to accept it as a fact that the South is less regardful of law and peace and order than the rest of the country. The Southern States asserted recently that there is less disorder, less violation of law, less crime in the South than in the rest of the country in proportion to popu-lation. An analysis of prison reports of the eleventh census will amply support this statement. The statisticians of the census classify the States of the union in five divisions: the North Atlantic, compris-ing Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania ; the North Central, comprising Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Da-kota, Nebraska, Kansas; the Western, comprising Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California; the South Atlantic, comprising Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida; the South Central, comprising Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas. The South Atlantic and South Central divisions include all the fourteen South-ern States, with the addition of Delaware, District of Columbia and Oklahoma. The aggregate population of these three is so small, (being less than 500,000), that it does not materially affect the results of this inquiry favorably or otherwise, and the classification of the Census Department will therefore not be disturbed. The charge of lawlessness in the South is made with reference to the white popu- 532 EDITORIAL. lation. People who talk about the South as a law-breaking section have in mind only the dominant race in the South, the whites. The statistics of crime here given will therefore relate only to the white population of both the North and South. Taking first the white convicts in peni-tentiaries and calculating their numerical proportion to the white population, elimi-nating the negroes, Indians and Chinese, we find that the ratio is: in the North Atlantic division, as one to 1294 of popu-lation; in the North Central division, one to 2366; in the Western, one to 800; in the South Atlantic, one to 4644; in the South Central one to 2285. Or, to make the comparison in another shape, to every 100,000 of population the number of con-victs is: in the North Atlantic division 77; in the North Central division 42; in the Western division 125; in the South Atlan-tic division 21; and in the South Central division 43. Taking the two divisions that comprise all the Southern States, and the three that make up all the rest of the coun-try, it is found that the proportion is: in the South one convict to every 2927 of population or 34 in every 100,000; and the rest of the country one to every 1607 or 62 in every 100,000. Thus it will be seen that the South as a whole has in proportion to population but little more than half as many convicts as the North; that the better of the two sections in the South, the South Atlantic division, has only half as many as the best section in the North, the North Central division; that in the section having in the South the greater number of convicts, the South Central division, the number is ap-proximately the same as in the Northern section that has the fewest; that in the Southern section having the larger ratio, the number is but a little more than one-third of the Northern section that has the the largest ratio, the Western division; that taking the whole South together, the number is more than one-third less than in the Northern division that has the smallest number. Considering the prisoners in county jails the comparison will be as follows : In the North Atlantic States the propor-tion is thirty-six to every 100,000 of popu-lation; in the North Central States 17; in the Western States 52; in the South Atlantic States 13; in the South Central States 23. Comparing the whole South with the three other divisions jointly the figures would be iS to every 100,000 in the South and 27 in the rest of the country, — that is, the South Atlantic division has fewer by one-fourth than the best Northern division; the South Central has one-third more than the best Northern division, but one-third less than the North Atlantic and 50 per cent, less than the Western division, and the South as a whole has fewer by one-third than the rest of the country. The statistics of pauperism are equally noteworthy. The paupers in almshouses as shown by the census are as follows: in the North Atlantic States, 178 in every 100,000; in the North Central States, 114; in the Western, 103; in the South Atlantic, 91; in South Central, 46. Comparing the South with the rest of the country, the figures would be, in the South 66 paupers to every 100,000 of population; in the rest of the country 139 to every 100,000. These figures include both white and colored races. They show that the South has less than half as many paupers in proportion to population as the rest of the country; that the ratio in the South, as a whole, is 40 per cent, less than that of the Western division, about 45 per cent, less than that of the North Central division, and about 65 per cent, less than that of the North Atlantic. Tabulating the foregoing facts we have the following, the figures given showing the number in every 100,000 of population: EDITORIAL. 533 White Convicts in Peniten-tiaries. White Prisoners in County Jails. Paupers in Alms-houses. North Atlantic Divis'n. North Central Divis'n. South Atlantic Divis'n. South Central Divis'n. 77 42 125 21 43 36 17 52 13 23 17S 114 103 91 46 The South 34 62 18 27 66 The remainder of the 139 These comparisons are made in no spirit of unfriendliness towards any part of our country. The purpose is simply a refu-tation of the constantly repeated charge that the South is less law-abiding than other sections. These figures, from a source authoritative and unquestioned, demonstrate beyond cavil that the South is by far the most peaceable and virtuous section of the Union, as it is the most pronouncedly American. Important and Promising. The immigration meeting held in New Orleans November 26 may have vast influ-ence for the good of Louisiana if plans outlined at the meeting shall be consum-mated. It was nominally a meeting of the State Board of Immigration, to which some other prominent workers in the cause of immigration had been invited. The meeting was a small one in point of numbers, but it contained almost every one with whom the material advancement of Louisiana in the great broad lines of capital and immigration is most closely and minutely identified. Many of them made addresses, and contributed their ideas and experience to the meeting as a guide for its lines of operation; hence it came that the meeting was an intensely practical one. It merely formulated what the con-duct and plans of these veteran operators had long ago proved a signal success. That is why it may be said to be promising. If these men could make the desert blos-som as the rose, it is a very simple thing to show how more flowers may be added to the garden they have constructed. The remarkable consensus of these men as to how immigration is brought about, and how it is to be broadened, was very nota-ble. Men not only have to know how to work, but they have to labor, and to wait, and to spend money. Immigration does not come like rain from heaven, and with-out human intervention. It has got to be worked for. And these practical workers gathered at New Orleans agreed that the first and most important work to be done by any community or section is to make a judicious and continuous distribution of advertising matter. Louisiana has drawn to itself in the last few years many thous-ands of well-to-do agriculturists from the West and Northwest, and it is because the State, through its railroads and some of its more enterprising citizens, has been widely and wisely advertised. The Augusta Chronicle and The Worcester Spy. The Augusta Chronicle, commenting on a recent editorial in the Worcester (Mass.) Spy, says : "For several months the Southern States magazine has been publishing letters from Northern men living in the South, giving their experience here, and in many cases urging their friends at the North to come South. A member of The Spy's staff recently visited Baltimore, and while there was instructed by the paper to call on the editors of the Southern States Magazine and see some of these letters to ascertain if they were genuine, or only fake communications. Being asked if he received manv such communications, the editor showed packages of letters, care-fully filed, to the number of more than a thousand." The Chronicle has queer notions about some things. Possibly if a stranger should walk into its office and coolly ask its editor if letters it had been publishing were "genuine or only fake communica-tions" the question would be considered a natural and proper one, but we don't know of any other newspaper office in 534 EDITORIAL. which an insult of this sort would be toler-ated. Nobody ever asked if any of the letters published by the Southern States are genuine, and no paper has ever in-structed any member of its staff to "see some of these letters and ascertain if they were genuine." The member of the Spy's staff referred to is a gentleman. Such an errand as the Chronicle imputes to him would be impossible with him. His state-ment of the matter in the Spy is misquoted by the Chronicle. As published in the editorial columns of the Spy it was as fol-lows: Recently a member of the Spy's staff spent a day in Baltimore and while there called upon the editor of the Southern States. This monthly magazine is engaged in the work of collecting and disseminating information about the soil, climate, agricultural capabilities and gen-eral resources and attractions of the South for the benefit of inquirers in other sections of the Union For a number of months it has given several pages to communications from Northern settlers in all the States from Virginia to Texas inclusive, all of which were written by men who professed to be more than pleased with their new homes and surroundings. Asked if he received many such communications, the editor showed packages of letters carefully riled, containing in all more than a thou-sand." Furthermore there could be no possible room for doubt as to the authenticity of any of these letters, for the reason that the names and addresses of the writers are given in full and they may be written to for verification of their published statements. The South the Center of the AngIo=Saxon It is a matter of the utmost significance and importance that the South is and has been these many years the seat and center of the Anglo-saxon race. It is a positive promise of the future that she will continue to be. Not only the increase in this popu-lation, through nativity, will sustain and perpetuate this ascendancy, but the char-acter of immigration to the South at pres-ent is, and in its future will be, broadly stamped with the numerical predominance of the English race. And, as the years roll on, this current will gain breadth and volume and velocity. It will bring ever-increasing assurance to the South of sta-bility, capacity for self-government, and perpetuity of civil liberty. The immigration to the South the last few years is most decidedly Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American. To go no further the close observer must have noticed what seems almost ^.penchant of English agricul-turists to settle in a certain section in Virginia, and the over-shadowing ascen-dancy of the Anglo-American farmer from the West in the immigration to the South-west in the last decade, an immigration almost as pronounced in this race-feature, in its peaceful and beneficent descent, as was the invasion of hostility and ravage of the same race in England in the earlier part of the Christian era. The theme is a broad one, and may well be emphasized hereafter in its many-sided-ness. Just now we wish to impress the South with the fact that it is destined on this continent to be the permanent seat of the Anglo-Saxon race, and its transcendent civilization with its innumerable blessings. The Way to Advertise. No State offering natural advantages to settlers can do too much judicious adver-tising, but it is doubtful if the practice now in vogue of printing and distributing a mass of heavy official statistics from State bureaus is conducive to a great amount of benefit in the way of inducing immigra-tion, and for the simple reason that only a small portion of such matter reaches the hands of those whom it would influence. — Times-Union, Jacksonville, Fla. Unquestionably the most effective and economical method by which to reach the notice of intending settlers and possible buyers of Southern property is the use of advertising space in the Southern States. Real-estate agents, immigration and colonization companies, land-owners and railroads advertising in it get the ben-efit of its entire circulation. It goes di-rectly to people who are looking for such EDITORIAL. 535 information as will enable them to decide where to settle in the South, or who have present or prospective business or invest-ment interests in the South. Advertisers who use it almost invariably find the re-turns far greater than had been expected. On the front cover page of this issue of the Southern States is published a letter recently received from Messrs. W. W. Duson & Bro., Crowley, La. The fol-lowing is taken from another letter written a week later: "We have a big lot of land seekers on hand and they are still coming in; and we are still receiving an immense number of letters, most of them referring to your valuable magazine." Mr. W. A. Butterworth, Asbury Park, N. J., writes: "The more I read the Southern States the better I like it and the better I think of the Southern States as a place to live in." The Southern States has probably more readers to the copy than any other periodical. Sometimes a single copy will go the rounds of an entire village. Recently Mr. D. Welty, Allegheny, Pa., having heard of the Southern States wrote for a sample copy. After he had received and examined it, he sent a money order to pay for a years' subscription and for several back numbers, adding at the close of his order: "The copy of the Southern States you sent me has been read by more than fifty persons." Immigration Notes. Immigration Society for Louisiana. The State of Louisiana has determined to make a systematic effort to secure set-tlers through an organization expressly for that purpose. Among those interested are Gov. Murphy J. Foster, Secretary Harry Allen, of the Young Men's Busi-ness League of New Orleans; F. B. Bowes and J. F. Merry, of the Illinois Central Railroad; J. M. Lee, Jr., of the Queen and Crescent route; F. M. Welsh, of Alex-andria; A. S. Graham, A P. A. of the Tex-as & Pacific Railway; Prof. W. C. Stubbs, S. L. Cary, J. G. Hawkes, M. B. Hillyard, F. A. Daniels, Wm. Garig, Uriah Millsaps, C. E. Cate, Robt. Bleakley, W. W. Duson, Lucien Soniat and S. Levy, Jr. The officers of the society are: Presi-dent, Harry Allen; vice-presidents, first district, John Dymond; second district, Lucien Soniat; third district, S. L. Carey; fourth district, S. Levy, Jr.; fifth district, Uriah Millsaps; sixth district, Wm. Garig; secretary and treasurer, George Moorman; executive committee, Hy. Allen, ex-officio chairman; J. M. Lee, Jr., W. W. Duson, F. A. Daniels, Robert Bleakley, F. B. Bowes, C. E. Cate, W. C. Stubbs This committee includes several well-known promoters of colonies, among them W. W. Duson, who has been remarkably success-ful in establishing towns in West Louisiana. He was actively interested in Crowley and Eunice, whose rapid development has already been referred to in recent issues of the Southern States.- The executive committee is to formulate plans for imme-diate work, and hold meetings whenever the exigencies may require. It will have full power to make publications, raise funds, employ agents, and do whatever may be necessary to induce immigration. It will solicit subscriptions from railroads and other corporations, from city councils, from parish police juries, boards of trade, chambers of commerce, business leagues and private individuals. The new organization will doubtless accomplish much good in stimulating im-migration to the State in addition to the movement already under way. A Texas Immigration Meeting. An important factor in the development of Texas will be the conference held in St. Louis on November 12. It was called for the purpose of combining the interests working for immigration, and was held in St. Louis in order to secure a representa-tion from trunk line railroads entering Texas, as well as immigration agents from the Northwest. The conference was at-tended by the passenger traffic managers of the Southwestern railway and steam-ship lines and by representatives of the business interests of Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, Waco, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Cleburne, Taylor, Comanche, Brownwood, Corsicana and Pecos Valley. A committee was selected to outline a plan for the inauguration of this work, composed of Hon. B. B. Paddock, mayor of Fort Worth, who originated the meet-ing and issued the call for it; John Sebas-tian, general passenger and ticket agent of the Rock Island railway system; John Byrne, of the Santa Fe; J. A. Kemp, of Wichita Falls; T. F. McEnnis, of Dallas; W. B. Slosson, of Houston; S. M. Smith, of Fort Worth; A. A. Heard, of the Mis-souri Pacific railway system, and Mr. A. E. Johnston. This committee has prepared a plan which involves the spending of $250,000 in advertising the State; $ 100,000 the first and second years, and $50,000 the third year. It is suggested that railroads doing business in the State contribute one-half of this sum, and that business concerns, cities, counties and the State make up the remainder. Represen-tatives of many of the railroads and promi-nent men throughout the State have expressed approval of the plan. A. E. Johnston, who forms one of the committee, is at the head of an immigration bureau in 536 IMMIGRATION NOTES. 537 New York, which has sent to the North-west many thousand immigrants from Europe. Governor Northen at Work. Hon. W. J. Northen, whose work in con-nection with immigration has been previ-ously referred to in the Southern States, has decided to live in Atlanta in future to give more attention to the work he has planned. He is preparing to send a repre-sentative through the West to tell the farmers out there what they can do in Georgia. He is also preparing to open an office in New York. Governor Northen has received a call from a Pennsylvania physician who repre-sents a colony of fifteen farmers, all of them desiring to come to Georgia. The doctor will practice his profession, while the families will give their attention to fruit raising. Mechanics Seeking the Country. Mr. F. W. Green, general agent of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad at St. Louis, says : "On a recent trip South our road carried 166 heads of families to the prairies of Mississippi and the fruit-growing region of Alabama. These men were largely farm-ers from the Northwest, who have grown disheartened over continual crop failures, their inability to pay off mortgages, and also to avoid the rigor of Northern win-ters. "But among those farmers was for the first time a sprinkling of mechanics, who propose to leave the crowded cities for the farm, upon which many of them were born. It is only a beginning, but the dis-appointed of the cities will seek the peace of the country more rapidly than is ex-pected. "The political and social conditions of the South are more inviting today than ever before to the Northern small farmer. Immigration is flowing there. This road's average of 300 families a month is rapidly increasing." Scandinavians Looking to the South. Prof. G. Jerstner, of Chamberlain, S. D., has been spending some time in Tennessee in the interest of a number of his country-men who want to move South. In conversation with a reporter he said when his people left their native countries, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, they located very largely in Minnesota and the Dakotas, where they formed about one-third of the population. They had worked hard and had taken no time to look about, and a great many of them had accumulated a competence. They now felt like finding a warmer country and were looking to the South. He had come to see for himself, and would put the result of his observations before the people he represented, publishing them in 119 newspapers published in the Scandi-navian language. These people wanted a hilly or mountainous country, and were tired of the flat and bleak prairies, so un-like their own homes. They were a home-loving people, and wanted a country that resembled their own. The first December land-seekers' excur-sion train of the Southern Railway Co. carried South 175 persons who went as far as Atlanta, and from there scattered over Georgia and adjacent States. E. H. Allen and F. Offenberg, Ohio farmers, are prospecting in the vicinity of Americus, Ga., with the view of buying fruit farms. Mr. Wm Bonthron, representing a Scotch colony, has located near Evergreen, Alabama, and will be followed by his friends in the next few months. They will engage in truck farming and fruit growing. An indication of the movement south-ward was noted at Nashville, Tenn., one day in November, when five farmers and their families from North Dakota reached the suburbs of that city. They started from their homes in wagons and drove 500 miles, but it became so cold that they were obliged to make the rest of the trip by rail. They are pleased with the soil and climate of Tennessee, and especially with Southern people. Their present in-tention is to settle in Middle Tennessee, probably near Nashville. The names of the men in the party are: T. Streeter, E. T. Van Dusen, E. A. Palmer, F. M. Foster, E. M. Berry. The Macon (Ga.) Advertising and Immi-gration Bureau has decided to hold a con-vention in that city probably in January, at which every county in Georgia shall be 533 IMMIGRATION NOTES. represented, to discuss the best system for securing settlers. A report from El Campo, Texas, states that five cars filled with settlers from the North have come to that vicinity to locate within a few weeks. Hon. J. Stoddard Johnston, superin-tendent of the recently organized Ken-tucky Immigration Bureau, has formulated a plan to create branches of the bureau in each of the counties of the State, and to have each contribute a sum proportionate to the amount of taxable property in the county to a fund to be used for advertising and other purposes. Mr. Macbeth Young, McBees's Land-ing, Arkansas, writes : "This Northwest Arkansas and Southern Missouri is being settled up fully by immigrants from the North, mostly from Nebraska and the Dakotas. Emigrant wagons passing every day. Thousands are settling in Arkansas." Peter Kleiver and Martin Leith, with their wives and eight children, started from Howard county, Neb., in Septem-ber in wagons to drive to White City, Fla. At the end of nine weeks they reached Memphis, Tenn., and went from there to Jacksonville by railroad. At Jacksonville they resumed their wagons for the rest of the trip. Messrs. Kennedy & Ballard, real estate and financial agents, Chicago, have been investigating the "fruit belt" of South Georgia, and are negotiating for the .pur-chase of lands on the Georgia Southern & Florida road, below Macon, for a coloniza-tion enterprise. Statements that have been published as to their purchase of 20,000 acres of land elsewhere are not correct. S. W. Rose, of Indianapolis, Ind., has undertaken to organize a "co-operative colony," to occupy lands adjacent to the town of Handsboro on the Gulf coast of Mississippi. Major W. L. Glessner, Commissioner of Immigration of the Georgia Southern & Florida railroad, took an excursion party of farmers and capitalists from the West down to South Georgia in November. A number of the visitors bought farms, and all of them were greatly pleased with the country. Major Glessner is now in the West making up another excursion. Ten families of Scandinavians have bought land together near Bartow, Fla. An immigrant party of seven families in wagons reached Florence, Ala., the latter part of November, having driven all the way from Muncie, Ind. They had with them good farm stock and farming implements. Another party of eight fami-lies from Dakota passed through Florence in wagons on their way to Walker county, Ala., where they had bought land. They stated that many others would follow. Several Northern families have recently bought homes in the neighborhood of Enterprise, Miss. Mr. E. E. Posey, general passenger agent of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, writes as follows: "The immigration move-ment is increasing. We have 200 land-seekers on our November excursion, and are greatly pleased with the large percent-age of those who purchase homes. If the signs indicate anything in this direction, it is that we shall have a very large number of Northern settlers during this coming season." A statement from Chicago, referring to the southward movement of discouraged settlers who are leaving the Northwest, says: "Passenger travel to the South is reported by the roads engaged in it to be unusually heavy at present. The regular winter tourist business has begun a month earlier than usual this year and is moving in large volume. A very considerable proportion of it is coming from North Dakota, Minnesota and Northern Wisco-sin. Settlers in these States, disheartened by the failure of their crops and the dis-astrous fires which swept away all their possessions last fall, are now going South with the intention of becoming permanent residents there." As an indication of the extent of the emigration from the Northwest, a member of a St. Louis wagon supply manufacturing company states that his company alone has recently shipped parts for 60,000 wagons to that section, the wagons having IMMIGRATION NOTES. 539 been ordered for farmers who want to move away. It is much cheaper, even counting the great length of time con-sumed, to transport their families and stock and household goods in wagons than by railroad. In parts of Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and elsewhere in the Southwest one may meet almost any day one or more of these emigrant wagons that have come from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa or the Dakotas, and have been from six to twelve weeks on the way. A report from Raleigh, N. C, is to the effect that a colony of Michigan people from near Kalamazoo, consisting of sixty families, will soon arrive and locate on a tract of land near the city. They are said to be professional growers of celery, to which they have applied themselves for many years, and will devote themselves to the same business there. Their purpose is to raise celery the year round in this climate and ship it to the large markets. They propose to put in 300 acres of celery at once. Persons at Americus, Ga., have re-ceived letters from English people inquir-ing about the climate, resources, etc., of Southwest Georgia. It is stated that the correspondents are desirous of obtaining about 3000 acres of land on which to locate a settlement of 200 English families. Real Estate Notes. Baltimore Real Estate Debenture Bonds. The Maryland Title Insurance & Trust Co. has initiated a plan for making mort-gage loans and issuing debenture bonds, secured by the mortgages, that will be of great benefit to all real estate interests in Baltimore and its vicinity. The company will make real estate mortgage loans for periods of five and ten years, repayable, both principal and interest, in monthly instalments, and further secured by policies of insurance on the lives of the borrowers. The monthly payments to be made by the mortgagors will be so adjusted that at the maturity of each mortgage the borrower will have returned to the company the amount of his loan with interest, and his monthly payments will likewise have maintained an insurance on his life for the company's benefit equal at all times to the amount of the loan still unpaid. In this manner, in the event of the borrower's death before the last monthly instalment of principal and interest has been paid, the mortgage is to be released and the unpaid balance of the mortgage debt is to be cancelled. The company also contemplates making mortgage loans repayable at the pleasure of the borrower within a fixed time. With these mortgages as security, the company will issue gold debenture bonds. The debentures are to be coupon gold bonds in series of not less than $50,000, and each series is to be independent of every other series. The Maryland Trust Co. is constituted trustee, and the trust agreement stipulates that first mortgages on Maryland real estate, the titles of which have been examined and insured by the Title Insurance Company, shall be trans-ferred by it to the trustee as security for the debentures. The mortgages held in trust for each series of bonds must always be at least 5 per cent, in excess of the debentures issued against them. The trustee is given power to release the mort-gages to the different mortgagors as they are paid. A sinking fund is established in the hands of the trustee, to which annual pay-ments are to be made by the Title Insur-ance Company in all cases where the security for the debentures is instalment mortgages, so that the trustee may at the maturity of each series of bonds have funds in hand to liquidate them. The agreement requires the Title Company to transfer to the trustee, as part of the mortgage secur-ity, all policies of insurance on the lives of borrowers as well as all the mortgage notes or other evidences of debt. The Title Company's mortgage loans will be made on a forty per cent, margin of security in real estate, and in addition to this security the debenture holders will have the security of the company's own capital. The first issue of bonds under this arrangement was made December 6 The amount was 150,000. The subscription list was opened at ten o'clock in the morn-ing, and when the books were closed in the afternoon the subscriptions aggregated $138,000. Moving Into Eastern North Carolina. Mr. J.J. Wolfenden, a real estate dealer of New Berne, N. C, has sold to Tomb. Johnson & Co., of Allegheny, Pa., a num-ber of tracts of land aggregating 50,000 acres in Craven county, N. C. It is stated that this land will be colonized by farmers, mechanics and others from the vicinity of Pittsburg and elsewhere. Saw mills and other woodworking shops will be started to utilize the timber on the property and furnish material for building houses for the colonists. It is expected that there will be a wide diversity of agricultural pursuits, some engaging in general farm-ing, others in stock-raising, truck farming. REAL ESTATE NOTES. 54i dairying, poultry breeding, fruit growing, etc. The farms will comprise from twenty-five to 200 acres each. Buying Lands in Virginia. Ohio people have recently shown their faith in Virginia by buying lands in that State. S. L. McKelvy and Abner L. Davis, of Findlay, O., were two of a party who visited Louisa, Dinwiddie, Goochland and Henrico counties. They purchased 550 acres near Richmond, 800 acres near Petersburg and 1000 near Norfolk. Florida has over a million and a quarter acres of land open to homestead entry. A recent transaction at St. Louis shows the growing tendency to invest in real estate near large cities. A syndicate paid l4oo,ooo for a tract of about 175 acres sev-eral miles from the centre of the city, reached only by steam railroad, the sched-ule time by train from the station on the property to the Union station in the city being twenty-five minutes. The pur-chasers will develop the property as a residence suburb, spending $100,000 or more in improvements before putting it on the market. D. L. Cramer, of Ewing, Neb.; T. S. West, of Benkieman; W. Saunders, j. H. and John Hair, of Unadilla, Neb , have decided to settle at Stuttgart, Ark., with their families and have bought property there. Dallas (Texas) real estate dealers say that the demand for dwellings in that city this season is greater than it has been for five years. Hanson City is the name of a new town which has been established about twelve miles from New Orleans and prac-tically in its suburbs. The Hanson City Co. is the corporation which developed the property, and on the first day that lots were adveriised for sale about $30,000 worth were disposed of. The land in its vicinity is specially adapted to growing garden vegetables, and it is expected that this will be occupied by many truck farmers. The Folsom Arms Co., of New Orleans, has purchased a site 100 by 150 feet for a cartridge factory which it intends building. A furniture factory is also pro-jected. Hanson City is to have electric lights, telephone and telegraph service, also a cold-storage plant and an ice factory. No house can be erected to cost less than $1000. Mr. Horace W. Sessions is general manager of the company. The Highlands stock farm, near Lexing-ton, Ky., has been sold to Col. Asher, of that State. The price was $75,000. A business block in Baltimore, near the centre of the city, has been sold for $52,500 to Mr. Edwin F. Abell, who has built or purchased some of the largest mercantile and manufacturing structures in the city. The Gazette, of Fort Worth, Texas, has been investigating general business condi-tions, and sums up the real-estate situa-tion as follows: "Real estate is holding up well, and there is and has been for some time past a large amount of trans-fers of property, indicating, not a boom, but a lively business. The real-estate men, as a rule, report business as good. Houses are in demand, and there are very few vacant buildings, either business houses or dwellings, in Fort Worth at this time. Building is constantly going on, and the observer has only to look about him and note the large number of hand-some public buildings, business blocks and dwellings scattered all over the city to feel assured that Fort Worth is at least holding her own, if not outstripping every/ other city in the State of Texas." The Security Storage & Trust Co., re-cently formed in Baltimore has bought property on North avenue near Charles street, on which it will erect a brick and stone building to cost between $125,000 and $150,000. The building will contain five rooms on the ground floor to be used for banking purposes, stores, &c. The other floors will be used for storing per-sonal property. The company will do a general banking business, and make a spec-ialty of securing valuable articles, papers, etc. Henry S. King, a prominent mer-chant, and John S. Gittings, of the banking house of that name, are interested. A piece of property in Atlanta 52 by 172 feet recently sold for $52,000 at auction. It was bought bv a mercantile firm. General Notes. Diversified Crops in the South. The New York Tribune publishes the following article by Richard H. Edmonds, editor of the Manufacturers' Record : In a discussion, in the Tribune of last Friday, of the low prices now prevailing for wheat and cotton, a very dismal picture of the condition of Southern planters was drawn. After stating that the prospect for cotton planters appears to be rather darker and more dismal than that of the wheat growers, it said : "Moreover, the cotton planter can't eat any of his cotton and can't feed it to ani-mals ; while the Western wheat grower can consume a part of the wheat which he produces and feed a part, at least, of it to hogs and other animals." The writer of the Tribune article is labor-ing under a misapprehension that seems to prevad very generally throughout the North. Apparently, he is of the opinion that the Southern farmer raises little but cotton, and as the price for that is low his financial condition is very distressing. I do not hesitate to say that the low price of cotton is a blessing to the South, although the cotton grower who is selling cotton at from five to six cents a pound may not see it just in that light; but there is no such condition of financial distress as the Tri-bune article would indicate. For some years the South has been learning to return to the condition of agriculture prevailing before the war and raise its own foodstuffs, with cotton as a surplus crop, as it did then to a large extent. Last year the South raised a large corn crop. The low price of cotton and the general financial stringency forced Southern farmers to produce their cotton on a very economical basis. Less money was borrowed on advanced mort-gages than in any vear since the war up to that time. With almost enough corn and bacon to carry them through last spring, with comparatively little money borrowed in advance on cotton, the South-ern farmer produced his 1894 crops at a lower cost and with less debt than in any year since i860. His cotton crop, in fact, was nearer to a surplus money crop than any since that date. The world has heard so much about Southern cotton that probably few people realize the fact that the corn crop of the South of 1S94 is worth more money than the cotton crop and that the total value of the South's cotton crop now annually averages less than one-third of the aggre-gate value of all Southern farm products. The fact is, the increased production of grain and other crops for 1894 fully coun-terbalances the decrease in cotton due to low prices. The Western farmer, when his wheat or his corn has failed him, or when prices are low, has but little to fall back upon ; but the Southern farmer has a diversity unequalled elsewhere. I know that this is contrary to the general under-standing of Southern agricultural condi-tions, but any careful investigation will prove its correctness. In 1S93 the fourteen Southern States produced 435,745,000 bushels of corn. The advance reports of the Agricultural Department show that the yield for 1894 was 483,422,000 bushels, although the actual facts of the case are that the output of Southern corn was larger this year than these statistics show. In other words the corn crop was so much better than usual that investigation convinces me that the Agricultural Department did not fully cover the increase. But even accepting these figures, here is a gain in the South of 48,000,000 bushels of corn, and as the average price in that section is over fifty-cents a bushel, here is an increase added to last year's corn crop of #24,000,000, without considering the increase in value of corn over the increase in value last year. The central cotton belt region shows an increase in production of corn of 3,000,000 bushels in North Carolina, 6,200,000 GENERAL NOTES. 543 bushels in South Carolina, or a gain in that State of fifty per cent ; 1,500,000 bush-els in Georgia, 6,000,000 bushels in Ala-bama and 10,000,000 bushels in Mississippi. Contrast this increase in grain production with the great decrease in the West, and the strength of the South's agricultural position is seen. In Iowa, the great corn-producing State, and. the State in which corn is so essential to prosperity, the aver-age yield for 1894 as given by the Novem-ber report of the Agricultural Department, was fifteen bushels per acre. In Kansas the average was 11. 2 bushels ; in Nebraska, six bushels ; in South Dakota, 4.2 bushels, while the average for the entire South from Maryland to Texas was 16.9 bushels per acre. In order to confirm the statement made that Southern agricultural prosperity does not depend upon cotton to the extent that is generally supposed, and that the value of the cotton crop is only about one-third or less of the value of Southern agricul-tural products, a few statistics bearing on these points may be of interest. The general output of farm products in the South in 1894 was greater than in 1893, all crops in that section, with rare excep-tions, having been very abundant ; but it is impossible as yet to get all the returns of this year's crops, and so the statistics for the crops of 1893 will answer. In that year the South produced 53,000,000 bushels of wheat, valued at $34,700,000; 85,800,000 bushels of oats, valued at $34,900,000 ; and added to the value of rye and barley, of which small amounts were produced, and the value of the corn crop, based on this year's yield, would give a total of over $320,000,000 as the value of the South's grain crops, which exceeds the value of the cotton crop. Of the total production in the entire country of tobacco in 1893 of 483,000,000 pounds worth $39,000,000, 376,- 799,000 pounds, valued at $28,356,000, were produced in the Southern States. Of pota-toes, the yield in the South was 19,385,000 bushels, valued at $12,237,000. The South is not generally credited with being a hay-producing country, and yet in 1893 its yield of hay was 5,418,000 tons, worth $61,767,000 ; but in this connection it should be stated that it is generally customary in the South for cattle to graze during much of the year, and consequently the hay is not cut and the value ascertained as closely as in the North. In reality, therefore, the value of the grass crop of the South was far beyond the $61,000,000 reported. Throughout the South there is a steady increase in diversified agriculture, an in-crease which is making the Southern farmer less and less dependent upon cot-ton, and is not only enriching the farmer, but is steadily furnishing a better founda-tion for all the business interests of the South that are dependent upon agricul-ture. The increase of rice cultivation is revolutionizing much of the State of Lou-isiana and bringing to the rice farmers of that State greater profits than are made by any other cereal growers of the country. Fruit growing and truck raising are mak-ing gigantic strides, and from South Geor-gia alone over 10,000 carloads of water-melons are annually shipped to the North and West. Within the last four or five years over 1,000,000 peach trees have been set out in South Georgia, while in parts of that State, in Carolina and elsewhere, grape growing is making great progress. The bulletin of the United States Census, giving the yield of fruit in the census year 1890, shows that of a total production of 36,- 367,000 bushels of peaches in the entire country, 27,793,000 bushels were produced in the South, 26,900,000 being south of Maryland. In that year the State of Geor-gia led with a production of 5,525,000 bushels of peaches, while Arkansas had 3,000,000 bushels and North Carolina 2,700,000 bushels. The total crop of apples for the country in 1890 was 143,100,000 bushels, and nearly one-third, or 46,947,000 bushels, were produced south of Mason and Dixon's line. Turning to the smaller things, it is found that in 1S80 the South had 27,400,000 barn-yard fowls, and in 1S90 89,585,000. The production of eggs rose from 100,474,000 dozen in 1880 to 184,344,000 dozen in 1890. In dairy products the increase was even more remarkable. In 1880 the South made 120,600,000 pounds of butter, and in 1890 211,000,000 pounds. The returns of milk production for the entire country in 1S80 were evidently deficient—every State re-porting but a comparatively small amount of milk. The South reported for that year 13,900,000 gallons ; in 1890 there was a tremendous gain reported throughout 544 GENERAL NO TES. the entire country, the reports of this year having been more complete than in 1880, but the actual gain in the South was some-thing remarkable, and the figures reported were 838,718,000 gallons. A study of these figures will show that the South is diversifying its farm interests. Cotton at five and six cents does not mean bankruptcy to Southern farmers; it simply means that cotton-raisers will have a little less money to spend than they would have had at higher prices. These low prices, however, will emphasize, just as the low prices of two years ago did , the necessity of Southern farmers giving more and more attention to raising diversified products and living at home instead of buying corn and bacon in the West as they had done for so many years. High prices for cotton would have caused a return to the all-cotton system, and in a year or two the Southern farmer would again have been giving his time almost wholly to cotton instead of to diversified agriculture. What the raising of home supplies means to Southern farmers, to the South at large and to Southern railroads in the matter of transportation, may be illustrated in the case of one small town in Georgia, which is but a sample of hundreds of others. Up to three years ago this little town of about 1000 inhabitants had annually handled an average of $100,000 of Western bacon and corn, sold by the merchants to local cot-ton- raisers. Two years ago there was a most noticeable decrease in the amount of Western produce brought in. Last year less than eight carloads were sold, and this year it is more than likely that that town will ship grain and bacon to other points. This changed condition has been going on all the way from Carolina to Texas. To that is due much of the de-crease seen during the last two years in the volume of Southern railroad freights, but while this decrease temporarily less-ened the earnings of Southern railroads, it means an enormous improvement in the financial condition of the people, which must from this time on steadily react in favor of the railroads. The condition of the Western farmer, as depicted in the Tribune, may be correct, and that section may have before it, as the writer of the article indicated, great depression, but the South is on solid ground. Its future is brighter than ever before. Texas Farmers. Mr. Gaston Meslier, general passenger agent of the Texas Pacific Railway, with headquarters at Dallas, Texas, says : "No State in the Union has produced finer crops this year than Texas. More cotton has been raised than can possibly be picked, and despite the abnormally low price of the staple, the planters have made lots of money. This ruinous system of crop mortgages obtains less in that State than anywheie else, and a farmer, however shiftless he may be, must de-pend solely on his own exertions to obtain money—for it can be had in no other way, save by the sale of his produce. No, the banks will not lend money to the planters. They refuse to do so for several reasons, the principal one of which is the exemp-tion law of Texas. This leaves free from attachment any homestead which cost originally $5000, no matter what its pres-ent value may be; all his agricultural instru-ments, several hundred dollars in cash, and a portion of his crop. This enact-ment, extreme as it is, has done much for the Texas planter, because it has ren-dered it impossible for him to get in debt for any embarrassing sum." When asked as to his idea of the proper means of inducing settlers to go to the big commonwealth, Mr. Meslier answered : "The best thing to be done just now is to spread the news far and wide that Texas is not only a great cotton State, but that it can produce almost anything grown in other sections of the land in far greater proportion to the acre than elsewhere. Let the farmer of the North and West learn that there is an unfailing crop down there every year of a variety of products, and he will come, because Texas has everything else in its favor. We raise twenty-five bushels of wheat, fifty bushels of corn, and 100 bushels of oats to the acre. These are facts that everybody should know." The Southern Farmer. Mr. G. Wilfred Pearce, of Brunswick, N. J., writes as follows in the New York Sun: "* * * One great trouble with South-ern farmers who have not traveled far from home is that they fancy their condi-tion far worse than it is, and believe that the farmers of the West and East are GENERAL NOTES. 545 better off in every respect. There could not be a greater mistake, for any traveler who has kept his eyes open when visiting the different sections of the country will have noticed the prosperous appearance of Southern farmers' homes and lands as compared with the squalid condition of the hard-working farmers of the far West or in parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Few well-informed men would not prefer an investment in a cotton plan-tation, even at the present low price of that staple, to an ownership in a potato farm in Maine or a hay farm in New Hamp-shire. Despite the hard times in the South the farmers keep their sons and daughters at home, where there is plenty to eat for all; but in the long-settled New England States most of the farmers' sons and daughters who stay at home during seed time and harvest must seek work in the stifling factories, and live in the vile hovels of the manufacturing towns, in order to earn enough to keep themselves from the alms-houses. Farming in the densely settled State of Massachusetts brings smaller returns upon the money in-vested than in the comparatively sparsely settled State of Arkansas. "* * * Let it not be forgotten that the industrious and intelligent farmers of the South have by dint
Object Description
Description
Title | Southern States. |
Date | 1894 |
Release Date | 1894 |
Subjects |
Agriculture--Southern States--Periodicals Industries--Southern States--Periodicals Southern States--Periodicals |
Place |
North Carolina, United States Georgia, United States South Carolina, United States Florida, United States Tennessee, United States Louisiana, United States Alabama, United States Mississippi, United States Texas, United States |
Time Period | (1876-1900) Gilded Age |
Description | An illustrated monthly magazine devoted to the South.; Apr. 1893 not issued. |
Publisher | Baltimore,Manufacturers' Record Pub. Co. |
Rights | Public Domain see http://digital.ncdcr.gov/u?/p249901coll22,63753 |
Physical Characteristics | 5 v. : ill., ports.; 25 cm. |
Collection | State Library of North Carolina |
Type | text |
Language | English |
Format | Periodicals |
Digital Characteristics-A | 4695 KB |
Digital Collection | General Collection |
Digital Format | application/pdf |
Title Replaced By | Southern States farm magazine |
Title Replaces | Manufacturers' record magazine |
Audience | All |
Pres File Name-M | gen_bm_serial_southernstates121894.pdf |
Full Text | THE Southern States. DECEMBER, 1894- TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. By S. P. Panton. To one who has for years confined his attention to the development of the Northwestern States, and then turned it to the South, the latter is a revelation that dissipates many erroneous ideas. During the last thirteen years the writer took an active part in advertising the attractions, resources and advantages of the Northern tier of States from Minnesota to the Pacific. That country was effectively advertised by all possible means, and emigration agents were kept at work in several of the European countries, as well as in the Eastern States and the Canadian provinces. It seemed quite natural that people of Northern latitudes should seek homes in a new country on similar latitudes, and the agents were quite conscientious in advising them to settle in Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, Oregon, and Wash-ington. There was a stretch of 2000 miles of new country, offering millions of acres of free lands that would produce the heaviest crops of the finest wheat ; there were fortunes to be made in growing live stock and wool, and bonanzas to be found in the mineral ranges of Montana, Idaho and Washington. All this was true ; the people flocked in by tens of thousands and found it so ; the appar-ently desirable lands were located and men who came from countries where the possession of land conferred distinction, were happy and proud in the ownership of their quarter and half section estates. For some time the agricultural and pas-toral industries were profitable, and many bonanzas were discovered in the mountains, though the discoverers rarely benefited thereby. But there were drawbacks. A few years of great crops and good prices in the blizzard belt of Minnesota and Dakota were followed by several seasons of early frosts that caught the wheat in the milk ; other years the rains set in at harvest time and poured so continuously that the wheat couldn't be thrashed, and sprouted in the shock. The settlers were housed up by blizzards all winter in their little box cabins ; their children were mowed down by the scourge of diptheria ; their lives were a dead, colorless monotony, varied by salt bacon three times a day when they had it, and the dreary aspect of treeless, blizzard-swept prairie proved the possession of land there to be any-thing but an unmixed blessing. When there were good crops the elevator charges and the freight charges for the long haul to tidewater left but little com-pensation for the hardships, the arduous toil and the generally depressed lives of the settlers in the blizzard belt. There was but one crop—wheat, there-fore but one pay-day in the year, and that uncertain. The climatic eccentrici-ties kept the crop in constant danger and the farmer in constant anxiety, and when bad seasons succeeded each other, the farm, the crops in the ground and even the implements were loaded with mortgages at such rates of interest that from that time forth the farmer was a slave to his creditors and the sooner he was sold out the better for him. A few yeirs in that climate made almost TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. 509 every settler long for something less Arctic and resolve to strike for the Pacific coast if he could ever raise the money for the migration. Montana is a much better country with a much better climate, and until recent years the demands of the mining camps exceeded the supply of agricul-tural products so that good prices were always obtainable. The western half of that State is an alternation of mountain ranges and beautiful, fertile valleys, and all conditions were much more favorable there than in the blizzard belt. Of late, however, the production of breadstuffs has exceeded the home demand so the and thence around the Horn to Eng-land, so the receipts generally hang about forty cents per bushel, and there is a mighty slim profit in that. Central Washington lies undeveloped because water for irrigation cannot be procured until capital can be induced to embark in the construction of very ex-pensive canals from the Columbia and Snake rivers. From the Cascade mountains to the coast the country is covered with a dense growth of gigantic timber that forbids the development of agriculture to any great extent. The beautiful valleys of Western Oregon have been settled so lon^ that all desira- A SOUTHWEST TEXAS HOME. wheat sells at Chicago prices less freights, or from 35 to 50 cents per bushel. Within the past few months the farmers, having concluded that the good old times are gone for good, have been agi-tating the reduction of wages to farm labor on the ground that it is impossible for them to continue the old rates. The arable portions of Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington are devoted chiefly to wheat, the crop of the Palouse country being so great that the farmers have been figuring on building an inde-pendent railroad to Puget Sound, 350 miles distant. The wheat goes by rail to Portland or the Puget Sound ports, ble lands are occupied and held at full values. To the new settler going into any part of the Northwest the prospects are not of the brightest. All good lands within reasonable distances from the railroads are owned and held at figures that would be considered extortionate in the South. Even at the greatest dis-tances from transportation the lands good for anything are owned by stock-growers, if not by farmers. A man can-not establish himself there now without some capital. He should have at least $5000 to buy and handle a good im-proved quarter section, and then he will TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. 511 find that he wants another, because the system of summer fallowing found ne-cessary in that country leaves only half of the land to be cropped in any one year, and eighty acres of grain will not pay a sufficient income. Of late years the prices of good improved lands in Montana, Idaho, and Washington, have been from $20 to $50 an acre in desir-able localities, ranging still higher close to the towns. It is pretty safe to say that very few farms in the Northwest will pay fair interest on $50 an acre, and the purchaser of farm land there cannot reasonablv expect much increase in eral bonanzas ten, fifteen and even twenty years ago, are still waiting for the railroads to open up their particular districts, and the capitalists to buy their prospects at the fabulous valuations they are still dreaming of. We have noticed of late years that capital and population have been attracted by simi-lar resources elsewhere, and through the South new cities have arisen and surpassed in growth our business cen-ters, situated in what we believed to be the richest mineral region in the repub-lic. A few of us have of late made some PASTURE SCENE. value over present prices. The boom has gone by. We of the Northwest have been laboring under the impression that it contained nearly all the attractions to immigrants that were left; that the field lor development was becoming so nar-rowed that each succeeding year would bring us a greater rush; that capital would be attracted by our great deposits of coal, iron and the more valuable metals; that our towns would rapidly become cities, and our prosperity would continue indefinitely, on an increasing ratio. But while there was and is development, it is much slower than we expected, and many of the men who discovered min-investigations, which convince us that there is a larger acreage of first-class land, lying undeveloped, to be bought at nominal figures, in the State of Texas alone, than there is in the whole Northwest. We have decided that much of the land in Southwest Texas may be made worth $500 an acre with much less expenditure of time, labor, and money than it would take to raise the Northwestern lands to $40 an acre, for the same reasons that have given im-proved California lands values of $500 to $2000. We are satisfied that a man with $1000. which would be just sufficient to put him under mortgage in the Northwest, can make a good, clean, in- TEXAS AS COMPARED WITH THE NORTHWEST. 513 dependent start in Aransas, San Patri-cio or adjacent counties with an absolute certainty of maintaining himself in inde-pendence, and in a few years enjoying a permanent income rarely equaled on any 320 acre farm in the Northwest. We are satisfied that while the North-west is rated a healthy country, this section of the coast is much more so ; it is absolutely free from malaria; pulmo-nary and catarrhal complaints are al-most unknown, and the children flourish in perfect immunity from those scourges of the North, scarlet fever and diphthe-ria. In no other part of the country have I found the people so unanimous-ly contented with the climate, which is of a nature to attract the people of the North to keep cool in summer and warm in winter. When I left the Yel-lowstone last summer the mercury registered 1 14 in the shade, and the sig-nal service station at Buffalo, Wyo., re-ported 1 1 5 . I came to Southwest Texas in August, and the highest tem-perature since my arrival was 92 , while it rarely reached 90 . The continual sea breeze makes it very pleasant all summer. Last winter (1893) I spent a week in a mountain town when the thermometers registered from 20 to 52 below zero. The coldest weather here, when a norther was blowing, was much the same as in a chinook, the warm winter wind of the Northwest. To one accustomed to the narrow range of products in the Northwest the possibilities here are bewildering. To say that almost all the products of the temperate zone will flourish here with all sub-tropic and some tropical growths, expresses a range far wider than our knowledge. But we find that the truck gardener can plant and mature vegeta-bles at any time of year and ship them North when there is such a dearth there that high profits are assured ; that the winter climate here favors the growth of the crisp and succulent vegetables grown at the North in summer, and the rest of the year can be devoted to products not grown North at any time. Having seen ripe tomatoes at Christmas, green peas in January and ripe strawberries in Feb-ruary, let us look at the subtropical products which include the orange, lemon, lime, pomelo, shaddock, pome-granate, fig, Japanese persimmon, and the grapes of the Mediterranean, the ginger, camphor, and cinamon trees, the cassava, from which tapioca is made, the great variety of valuable fibres, the canaigre, for tanning fine leathers for which there is a strong demand throughout the civilized world, and innumerable other plants of value. Almost any one of these products intelli-gently handled will pay several times the profit per acre of the best crops in the Northwest. This is, so far as known, the only part of the republic east of California where the finest European grapes attain the greatest perfection. As they ripen here from four to six weeks earlier than in Califor-nia, the viticulturists of this coast have the run of the markets when there is no competition, and their comparative prox-imity to the body of consumers gives them great advantages over the Califor-nians that are permanent. The supplv of vegetables and fruits is as yet so inadequate to the demands of Texas alone that the California fruits and vegetables cut the most prominent figure in Texan markets It will pay better to produce the whole supply here than to raise it 2000 miles away. It is safe to say that an industrious man who comes here with $1000, buys ten acres of land for $200, devotes half of it to vines and the rest to vegetables, will find himself the possessor of a reli-able income property in three years ; and if he keeps some poultry, a gun, and a fishing rod, he will have so little to buy for himself and family that his necessary cash outlay will hardly exceed the annual fuel bill of the Northern agriculturist. THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH. By George F. Milton. "The essence of a nation is that all the individuals must have many things in common, and also that all must have forgotten many things" — Ernest Kenan. The development of our polity, from a dependence on the State to the supremacy of the people collectively, has been slow in attainment. We little realize the struggle which has marked its progress. The historical, rather than the legal view of the character and intent of the Union has finally pre-vailed, and the evolutionary theory of constitional interpretation has been the result. The growth of this national tendency has been immensely hastened by three economic factors—foreign immigration, domestic migration to the West, and the development of manufacturing indus-tries. It is unnecessary to dwell on the non-participation in this movement of the slave holding States before the war. Although similarity of eco-nomic interest had embodied them into a homogeneous people long before the sparks of national fire had burst into a flame in the West, yet it was a unity of purpose bent on one object alone—the protection of an institution sectional in extent. Therefore, the true national idea was impossible. Slavery was abolished. It now be-comes an interesting question as to the effect of that great structural change on this people. It must be borne in mind in considering this that the first influ-ences the South faced on coming out of a war as exhaustive of resources as it was destructive of life, were retarding. The bitterness of defeat and the repug-nance to a union to which allegiance was compulsory, had to be removed by an application of mental and physical energy to a material development which . should wipe out the traces of the recent subjugation. The negro problem, social, civil and economic, had also to be set-tled before progress could be assured. But how trivial were these obstacles compared with the grand advantage given by the new idea as to labor! It was now noble to work, and toil was invested with a dignity before unknown. The "poor white" was thus enabled to enter the struggle against elimination unhampered by the prejudice of his race against labor, and his subsequent mental, moral and intellectual advance-ment has been the phenomenon of the age. Joined with the ennobling of labor, as a factor in the development of that economic progress, which leads to the full grasp of the national idea, was the discovery of the availability of the Appalachian mineral fields. These great mountain regions stretch-ing down through West Virginia, Vir-ginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ala-bama, furnished the wedge of economic force to split and dissipate the elements of the old structure by which the South was chained helpless to one condition. Here the people of the entire United States met, combined interests, frater-nized and commenced that advance which was to make the South glad the slave had been given freedom. The five or more billion dollars losses sustained by the war were soon to be but the product of a few years' activity of these industrial interests brought into being by the necessities of a people impoverished by that struggle. The figures for pig iron alone for the last decade will give some idea of the great growth of these interests, the per-centage of increase of output for the South being 408 per cent, against 153 per cent, for the entire country. How much greater this may be in the future, after a recovery from the present depression, can be imagined when it is stated by a special commissioner, appointed by the government, that with THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH. 5i5 the same wages the cost of production of a ton of pig iron is $3.18 less in the South than in the North. This region of industrial energy, stretching through the very heart of the South, gave impetus to commercial activity, and the result was the building of the railroad systems necessary as the arteries of distribution for the manu-factured and agricultural products. The people were thus enabled to mingle in closer relationship with the rest of the country and also a greater proportion began to live in cities. The presence of large bodies of people in close commu-nication with each other, personally or by means of the daily papers, causes a wider popular expansion of grasp as to the progress of the world and its inter-ests and politics than can possibly be effected in isolated communities. The desire of the South has been to attain that happy medium of moderately large, actively manufacturing and commercial towns, the centres of its rich farming and industrial sections. That this ideal is rapidly being reached is seen from the fact that the urban population grew from 1,616,095 in 18S0 to 2,567,053 in 1890, or 58.84 per cent, against an increase of the entire population of 20.07 per cent. These are the influences that have been most important in bringing about the changed purpose of the South's progress. The ennobling of labor, the development of mineral and manufac-turing industries, the increased means of communication, and the establishment of large centres of industrial, commer-cial and intellectual activity have pro-duced a South which no longer fears comparison. She has become a living factor in the life of the nation and has its diversity of interest and cosmopolitan life. It is well known that slave labor retarded the increase of population, tended to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few and restricted the diffusion of education ; let us see the effect of free labor in these three par-ticulars. The abolition of slavery has increased population proportionately. The gain of the South from 1870 to 1890 has been in step with the nation's for the first time since the Revolution. The increase was 61 per cent.; that of the entire country 60 per cent. The gain of the South was 14 per cent, greater than that of the New England States and 17 per cent, greater than that of the Middle States. Cotton is no longer the sole dependence. Great as has been the increase in the production of that staple from 4,700,000 bales in 1870, to 8,500,- 000 bales in 1890, other agricultural products have made even larger "gains. In 1890 this section raised 81,000,000 bushels of wheat, 641,000,000 bushels of corn, 100,000,000 bushels of oats, 128,000,000 pounds of rice and 11,000 tons of hemp. The tobacco yield is worth $35,000,000 annually, and the sugar refineries of Louisiana have doubled their product since 1870. The increase of cotton manuiactured has been 750 per cent, since 1870. In that year the North spun nine yards to the South's one. Now the proportion is reduced to three to one. Thus if thirty years after one of the most disas-trous wars known in modern times, we look at the land left helpless, what do we find? The total receipts from State taxation for 1890 for the farmer slave States were 28.49 per cent, of that of all the States. The internal revenue collected was 29.80 per cent. The value of their agricultural product was 35.90 per cent. The railroad mileage was 32 per cent. Their population was : entire, 35.51 per cent.; white, 28.50 per cent. The increase of taxable wealth for the decade was 41 per cent.; that of the population was 20.07 per cent. The South Central section alone containing the manufacturing belt gained 72.61 per cent, in wealth, being a greater proportionate increase than that of any other section. Even the direct trade, so much of which ot the entire country has been absorbed by New York city, has recently had a wonderful development, in the last three years the increase being in the South 33 per cent., against 20 per cent, for the nation. And more important still this progress is not the result of any sud-den inflation but, as is shown by the expe-rience during the recent panic, it is more 5i6 THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH. stable than that of any other section with the exception perhaps of the North Atlantic. There were less commercial and bank failures in the South and a smaller decrease in the- volume of busi-ness, as is shown by the exchanges, and the conditions point to a more rapid recovery there than elsewhere. Natu-rally this economic advance has not taken place without a tremendous revo-lution in the social and intellectual con-dition'. Especially has this been true of the education of the masses. The per-centage of attendance at the public schools shows a greater increase in the South than in any other section, the enrollment having advanced in the last decade Irom 32 per cent, to 59 per cent. in the South Atlantic, and from 38 per cent, to 60 per cent, in the South Cen-tral States, while the increase in the entire United States was from 62 per cent, to 68 per cent. The attendance at schools is thus nearly as great propor-tionately as in the other sections, the difference existing being due to the condition of the negro race who compose one-third the population, a large pro-portion of whom require the labor of their children during much of the school age. The efforts to educate the negro are fully as earnest as with the whites, and considering the relative economic conditions the percentages of enrollment, 52.08 per cent, and 67.83 per cent, re-spectively, are very close. These three great developments, of population, of wealth and diversified interests, and of diffused learning, have struck the death blow to sectionalism and prejudice. The influence of questions common with the rest of the nation has destroyed that unity of feeling which made a rela-tively weak people so hard to conquer. This is in verity the national idea. It need not invest the central government with monarchical powers or destroy the autonomy of the State, but it must, rather by a diversity of interests in all the sections, close communication between them, and widely diffused education, remove the traditional prejudices and render sectional feeling impossible. The only bar to further rapid progress is the negro. Although in industrial pursuits his advancement has been very encouraging, in the agricultural regions he hinders materially. The great need is an intelligent class of foreign small farmers. The negro thrown in close contact with these would probably learn the better methods and catch their pro-gressive spirit and be elevated in condi-tion as he has been under similar cir-cumstances, in the manufacturing and mineral regions. The South has grown beyond section-alism. The sole relics of it are those occasional ruins of the olden time — reminders of a past still revered but no longer regretted. The traveler may soon journey from one end of the United States to the other and observe no material difference in the character and life of the people, except such as may be the result of physical conditions. The school, the railroad, the printing press, and diversified industries are the factors which eliminate past divergencies and weld sections together with mutual interest and respect. The South is fast approaching the period when it will be, like the West, a mere geographical region. It is even now as little sec-tional as New England. This can be exemplified in its political representation. It must be remembered that as long as the negro votes actively as a unit there will be a "solid South" as far as party is concerned ; but even with that, in the Fifty-First Congress the percentage of republicans from the South was 20.64, while the percentage of demo-crats from New England was only n.54. But this majority in the South differs widely on great questions, as shown in the debate on the silver repeal bill last fall and later on the tariff question, while New- England's representation was practically united on both. AH this shows the absence of sectionalism, and it can be traced to the great economic develop-ment on a new basis of conditions. What cannot be predicted for the future? The South's progress is now on the same plane and equal to that of the nation. Its national idea is the pure product of a truly American develop-ment, and while it still retains those principles of restraint against changes of our institutions, which are our best protection against anarchy, in material THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE SOUTH 5i7 and intellectual structure it is essentially a "New South." Tradition of a past eminence in cer-tain respects is still cherished, but there is an even greater feeling of joy over present conditions. AS TO GERMAN IMMIGRATION OF A HIGHER GRADE. By C. M. Marshal!. When the Western railways were in course of construction they had at their command the land and credit of the nation. With one hand they offered cheap homesteads to the settler, with the other they paid liberal wages to the laborer, thus enabling the newcomer to pay his way while the home was build-ing and the farm getting under way, and the completion of the railroads added new value to their lands. These conditions do not now exist in the South. Cheap lands are for sale along our completed railroads, cheap especially in large tracts, but the pur-chaser must himself in most cases bring the means to improve his land, stock his farm and provide for his living at the start. But small holdings and capi-tal rarely go together. There is in England and Ger-many, among the well-to-do and best classes, the old Saxon love for agriculture and country life ; in spite of unremunerative prices of farm pro-duce and consequent depression of land values, there is in these countries a demand for land far in excess of the supply. Englishmen, as a rule, prefer their own colonies. Germans have no outlet but the United States, and the class referred to will prefer to go where they can acquire large estates, where abun-dant labor is obtainable and where capi-tal and labor will be safely invested. During the past decade agriculture in Prussia has been so unprofitable that even the privileged Gittsbesitzer, land-owner or planter can rarely start more than one son in the same business. Vet a sum quite insufficient to purchase a desirable farm in Prussia would be ample capital to buy and stock and re-establish in its old time fertility, order and beauty, one of the many charming plantations of the South. By birth, bringing up and surround-ings, these men are fitted for the planters' life. Tastes and habits would render them congenial neighbors and useful citizens. They would give work to our laborers, black and white, and by close attention and intelligent management prove that agriculture at present prices is the safest profitable investment in the South ; and thus encourage our own people to similar enterprise. At the present, this class in Germany knows little or nothing of our country. The professional emigration agent does not reach it. His concern is with the laborer—the steerage passenger. The commercial traveler, the merchant or casual visitor to this country does not often get beyond the large cities of the North and West, or the seaports in the South. The German planter himself rarely tra-vels beyond the confines of the "Father-land," and from his own press he learns nothing of the true state of this country, least of all the South. The prevalent in-formation about us consists in distorting the accidents of a young country and of a free government into dismal or grotesque shapes. CONDITION OF THE FARMERS OF THE SOUTH. By IV. L. Glessner. To fully understand and appreciate the present financial condition of the farmers of the cotton raising section of the South, it is necessary to go back some years and review the causes which have led to that condition. Previous to the war every cotton planter raised on his own plantation all supplies of pro-visions for himself and slaves, and pur-chased only his groceries and clotning. During those years cotton was at sever-al periods as low as it is now, but those low prices, while they diminished the cash income of the planter, caused no financial distress. At the close of the war cotton had so advanced in price that the planters devoted their entire at-tention and acreage to the raising of cotton, arguing that it was cheaper to buy provisions than raise them, and for some years this was measurably true. Cotton gradually declined in price until it would no longer pay all the expenses of the plantation and the planters ran behind and were forced to mortgage their crops for advances from the ware-housemen hoping each year that the price of their product would advance in price sufficient to pay them out. They seemed to have forgot that they could raise their own corn and meat, and bought these articles on credit at an enormous advance upon cash prices. In the meantime commercial fertilizers had been introduced, and in the hope of increasing his product of cotton, the planter bought them in large quan-tities, running in debt for them. For a number of years cotton re-mained at an average price of ten cents a pound and the planters managed to make ends meet by increas-ing their debt a little each year. When cotton fell below ten cents the planters saw ruin staring them in the face, and then there came an organization known as the "Farmer's Alliance," which taught them principles of economy, and the planters learned to buy less and combined to buy at less prices. They also began to raise their own corn and meat, and diversified their crops to the extent that they virtually "lived at home." Of course, this economy on the part of the farmers meant less busi-ness for the merchants, and their trade fell off. Many of the "supply" stores, which had been furnishing the farmers with their provisions on time at exorbi-tant prices, were closed up and their places were supplied by "cash" stores, which did less business at less profit. The fact that the South was buying less from Northern markets no doubt gave the impression to Northern dealers that the South was growing poorer ; but such was not the fact—it was growing richer, as was evidenced by the fact that the South was in a better condition to meet the recent financial depression, and did meet it better than the North. As a result of their enforced economy and diversification of crops, the farmers of Middle and South Georgia are in a better financial condition to-day, with cotton at five cents per pound, than they were some years ago with cotton at ten cents. Ten-cent cotton had to pay for all the provisions used upon the plantation, and these provisions being bought on credit it had to pay a fifty per cent, advance upon cash prices. I have known ten- cent cotton to have to pay $1.25 per bushel for corn, 20 cents per pound for meat, and $30 per ton for hay. Now these articles are all raised at home, and with the same labor and teams that produce the cotton crop. The farmers have not materially cut down their acreage of cotton, as crop reports will show, but have simply put out corn, peas, potatoes, cane, etc., in addition, and thereby have made it pos-sible to raise their own meat. The cot- 51s CONDITION OF THE FARMERS OF THE SOUTH 519 ton crop is now a cash crop—it no longer has to buy bread and meat—and while the price is low there is really more profit in it to the farmer than when the price was higher. The official records, the bank statements, and the reports of the loan companies, show that the farmers of the South are in a better financial condition today than they have been in years. There are fewer mortgages, their obligations are met more promptly, and they have been gradually paying off the loans which they made some years ago. A collector for a fertilizer factory told me a couple of weeks ago that his collections had never been better than they were this season ; that he collected over ninety per cent, of his contracts, and these contracts were all made with farmers last spring. The Northern farmer may possibly not understand how it is that the acre-age of cotton has not decreased and the acreage of other products increased, with the same labor, as such a condition would not be possible in his section. In the first place he must remember that there is not a month in the year in which work cannot be done on the farm in South Georgia. The farmer sows his oats, wheat and rye any time from the first of October to the middle of Dec-ember. He breaks his ground for corn and cotton in January and February. He plants his corn in March and his cot-ton in April. While his cotton is com-ing up he can cultivate his corn, and then go into his cotton, working the crops alternately. Between his rows of corn he plants cow peas and ground peas, which fatten his hogs. His corn is made by the first of July. The soil is easily cultivated and there are few days when it is too wet to put a plow in the field. A crop of voluntary grass springs up after oats and melons, which will make from one to two tons of hay per acre. The farmer is not forced to plant all his crops within two weeks, for he has no fear of early frosts in the fall, and as a consequence he can plant a larger acreage with the same force. I make these explanations to show why a Southern farmer can make a profit by diversification of crops even at a low price. Some of these advantages are becoming known to Northern farmers, and the re-sult is a movement of that class to the South. I have had within the past six months not only more inquiries regard-ing the resources of the section traversed by the Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad, but have located more settlers, and the outlook is good for a very large immigration within the coming year. All of our new settlers are from the Northern States—men who have become tired of the rigorous winters of the North, and the constant struggle of try-ing to raise enough in five months to support them the other seven. Those who have spent a year in South Geor-gia are well satisfied with the change and are urging their relations and friends to join them. I have not spoken of the profits of fruit-growing, for it is a comparatively new industry in the South, but it is as-suming large proportions and within the next three years will bring into our sec-tion millions of dollars, with a very small outaly. The fact that our people have be-come fully awakened to the importance of diversifying their industries, and have become grounded in the principles of economy, betokens a prosperous future for our section. I have heard but little growling about hard times in Georgia, except from drummers, who complain about small sales. It is true that our people are not spending as much money as they did years ago, for the reason that they have no need to do so, and in that fact lies their prosperity and contentment. THE GAME OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. By Frank A. Hevivood. The Dismal Swamp in Eastern Vir-ginia and North Carolina contains over 100,000 acres. It is for the most part covered with a dense growth of cypress, juniper, cedar, gum, beech and oak. Several small streams flow through it and Lake Drummond, a body of water containing about twenty square miles, is in the center. The Dismal Swamp is a paradise for the lover of sport. It contains number-less resorts for bear and deer. The enor-mous lake abounds with fish. The robbins and blackbirds of the North winter on the banks of the canals. The tempting clearings offer inducements to the partridge, woodcock, squirrel, rabbit, and other small game. The bear has a prominent place in the Dismal Swamp, from its greater abundance and the quality of its flesh. He is more easily found, too, than his brethren of other sections. The deer of the swamp afford a wider field for gen-uine sport than those of other localities. The opossum and coon afford attrac-tions for the lover of fun, and there are many people who can recapitulate vol-umes of exploits among the birds. Those whose ideas concerning bears are gained from works of fiction have no adequate idea of the lord of the Dismal Swamp. The bear is not brave. He is cowardly, weak, dirty, and a prey to an inordinate appetite for pig. At very few periods can he be honestly called courageous when in the presence of man, but his strength is enormous, and in speed he will oftentimes rival an Arabian horse. The swiftness and power with which he uses his claws while capturing a "cattle- beast," or pig, or while destroying a beehive is incred-ible. But as to real genuine bravery, when becoming tired of being hunted, he tries to infuse variety into the affair by hunting his hunter, the bear does not possess it. The bear usually confines himself to the dense growths of reeds by day, sallying forth by night to the farmers' beehives, or to the haunts of the "razor back." Occasionally a bear will spring on the back of a "cattle-beast" burying his teeth in the frightened animal's neck and using his claws to catch at the trees and brush through which his victim dashes. For bear hunting in the Dismal Swamp there are two requisites besides the bear—men with guns and a man on a horse. The first- named halt on the border of a jungle where a bear is supposed to be hid, while the other drives the inhabitants of the jungle towards them. The master of the hunt posts the sportsmen here and there in pairs, so that each hunter has an especial rival against whom he is pitted and whom he must, if possible, forestall in shooting the bear. When the hunters are posted the horseman advances into the jungle, and with loud shouts starts the game. A little later and the bear shambles out directly into the arms of his enemies. Another method of shooting the bear is to tie a pig by the leg to a tree in the "open" and in the evening the hunter takes a position near by, employing a negro boy to keep the pig awake. Four drachms of good powder, an ounce and a-half of buckshot and a little attention to business will usually settle the bear question. Lake Drummond is, and has been for years, a favorite spot for deer. They are only hunted with dogs, a still hunter being looked upon with aversion by the natives, and he is lucky if he escapes without having the tails of his shirt nailed to a tree as a warning to the next tenderfoot who imagines that still hunt-ing is the only way to shoot deer. The "cattle-beast" is the local name given to the sturdy wild cattle which THE GAME OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. 521 roam about through the fastnesses of the swa.np. They are small undersized animals and as shy as a deer. When the farmer wishes a fresh beef he takes his gun and his dogs and runs the ani-mal to a stand-still. The "cattle-beast" is favorite meat for bear, and oftentimes carries the marks of severe encounters. The coon and the opossum of the Dismal Swamp are universal favorites for the table. An opossum alter fatten-ing on milk is a perfect roll of butter and in point of flavor and delicacy can-not be surpassed. Both of the animals are rich in fighting qualities. A high spirited coon will lie on its back and whip almost any thing that comes along ; but in the branches of a persimmon tree the opossum is king. He is subject to no man. His throne is the branch from which he hangs by the tail, and from it he swings and reigns. For coon and opossum hunting the hunter is provided with plenty of colored boys and hunting dogs, and he enters the swamp immediately after dark. It will not be long before a coon or an opossum will be treed. Then comes the fun. The "bird" is in the tree, the dogs are at its foot. The Southern moon silvers the green branches. Muscular negroes attack the tree with gleaming steel or mount into its limbs. Torches of lightwood blaze brightly. The hunters gather about. The tree falls, or the "bird" is shaken from its limbs. In either case there is a conglomerate mass of negro, dog and game. Be the game coon or 'possum, the captor of the beast in the mad rush is the envy of all his companions. The light of the full moon, the flare of the pine knots shining upon the black countenances form pictures never to be forgotten. Before the war fox hunting was a popular sport for the planters who lived about the Dismal Swamp. In the ante-bellum days "anyone who was anyone" kept a pack of hounds. The Dismal Swamp is the scene of the revelries of the squirrel and the rabbit. It is the winter home of the blackbird and the robin. A blackbird pie stuffed with Lynnhaven oysters is a dish for the gods. Every section of tidewater Virginia and Eastern North Carolina affords good bird and squirrel shooting, but there is no section supe-rior to the Dismal Swamp. LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS, GIVING THEIR EXPERIENCE IN THE SOUTH—XV. [The letters published in this issue form the fifteenth instalment in the series. These communications are published in response to numerous inquiries from Northern people who desire to know more about agricultural conditions in the South, and what is being accomplished by settlers from other sections of the country. These letters were written for the most part by practical farmers and fruit-growers, chiefly Northern and Western people who have made their homes in the South. The actual experiences of these settlers, as set forth in these letters, are both interesting and instructive to those whose minds are turned Southward. — Editor.] A Dakota Farmer's Opinion of Texas. W. A. Ward, Beaumont, Texas.— I came to this place from South Dakota about three years ago ; have spent three summers and two winters here in the coast country of Southeast Texas. I left the drouth-stricken and blizzard-swept Northwest to try to find a place where the rainfall was ample and not accompanied by wind and hail to destroy crops and where the heat of summer was modified by gulf breezes. I was satis-fied before coming South that the coast country offered these advantages. I visited several points in the coast region. I found here in Jefferson county, Texas, a comparatively high, well- drained prairie dotted with groves and plenty of good water, a good soil on deep clay sub- soil and a splendid home demand for all farm products created by the immense lumber business adjoin-ing this fertile prairie. While prices of land had been "boomed" in some other localities, here the cattle men had up to that time occupied the land, but were wil-ling to "turn it loose" at low prices — $2.00 to $3.00 per acre. Since that time the acreage in rice has increased from a few acres planted as an experiment to 5000 acres in Jeffer-son county alone this year, and the industry is extending into Liberty and Chambers counties to our west. Texas has State school funds at the rate of $7.35 per annum for each child of school age, and this fund is increasing by the sale of public school lands from year to year. State funds are usu-ally sufficient for six to nine months school in country and towns. Some districts with only eight scholars have a school by adding to the State fund by subscription. Local taxation for school purposes is seldom necessary here. I bought land two years ago at $2.75 per acre, now worth $5.00. I have grown two fair crops of rice on the flat land and set the sandy ridges to fruit trees, cultivating other crops between the rows. This year, in my orchard, I matured good crops of Irish potatoes and corn in early summer, and now have a fine crop of sweet potatoes ready to dig from the same land. Oats make a fair yield here and hay is very profitable. Rice yields from about $22.00 per acre on an average for land not irrigated to about $40.00 per acre for the average of lands watered by pumping. It is seeded, harvested and thrashed like other small grains. The Oriental varieties of peaches, pears and plums do well here, and I am convinced that the satsuma orange can be successfully grown. The com-mon sweet orange is grown in a small way by most everybody, but is believed to be too hazardous for a money crop. Peach trees set in my orchards in March, 1893 (then one year old buds), fruited in 1894, some of the trees ma-turing as many as forty peaches of the finest quality. The same trees are now LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. 523 good bearing size and promise a yield of from one to two bushels each next season—June and July. I will plant several thousand peach, pear, plum and satsuma orange trees this winter. Beaumont, the county seat of Jeffer-son county, and the lumber metropolis of Southeast Texas, is in the north-east corner of the county on the Neches river, a deep navigable stream which furnishes water connection with Sabine Pass in the southeast corner of the county. Lumber and posts for improving farms are cheap, a bill of good long-leaf pine suitable for a house, including floor-ing, drop siding, ceiling and finishing can be bought here for $10.00 per thous-and. I paid $5.00 lor four hundred good white oak posts with only two miles to haul to my farm. The impression that formerly existed in the minds of Northern people that this was a low wet land still contending with the sea for supremacy was very erroneous. It is apparently as old a country, geologically speaking, as Illi-nois, Wisconsin, or other parts ofthe up-per Mississippi valley. Mosquitoes and snakes are no more plentiful on these prairies than on the Dakota plains in a wet season. I put up 100 tons of hay this season and saw but one small snake in my meadows. As to health, I never saw and am not looking-for a more healthy climate. My family was afflicted with catarrh, which disap-peared almost as soon as we came, and we have all enjoyed the best of health from the start. We came in the spring and have remained here all the time. This locality offers the advantages of both an old and new country ; old in manufacturing, with a good home mar-ket, good shipping facilities, cheap material, &c.,but new in agriculture and with good cheap lands. The negro population is confined to the towns (mostly employed in the mills) where they are industrious and orderly and have separate schools and churches. The farmers and farm laborers are white and mostly Northern people who are coming in rapidly. The acreage in cul-tivation is being more than doubled yearly. There is no petty thieving here. People sleep with their houses open and property unprotected. I never felt more safe in the protec-tion of life and property than I do here. The laws are wholesome and well enforced. The homestead and the rights of women and children are es-pecially well protected. We have good roads and iron bridges graded and built at county expense. The native people are generous, intelli-gent and honorable to a marked degree, and they co-operate freely with Northern men, who receive the most hearty wel-come and encouragement in their efforts to develop the country. "Most Charitable People He Ever Lived Among." J. Higgins, Newberry, S. C.—For farming there is no better section than this, not only for cotton, but for corn, wheat, oats, tobacco, &c. I have been with these people nearly two years, and I would not ask for better treatment. I certainly think they are the most charitable people I have ever lived among. I am a Northern man, from the city of Augusta, Maine, and can speak with more knowledge of cotton manufacturing than of farming. Any-one wishing to engage in any kind of manufacturing will find it to their ad-vantage to invest their money in the South, because labor and material of all kinds is much cheaper than in the North. This place for climate and healthy condition cannot be equaled by any State in New England, and I believe the time is not far distant when the South will control the manufactures of the country. "Never Was a Healthier Place." J. H. Morse, Warrenton, N. C.— I have been South nine years and have met with the greatest kindness from the Southern people. They are always ready and willing to do you a favor, and when you are sick or in trouble they never hesitate one moment in work or deed. There never was a healthier place than Warrenton, N. C. It is entirely free from malaria and mosquitoes. The soil is red and grey clay soil. Every- 5 24 LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. thing that you have a mind to plant will grow. If the people would give one-half the attention to their crops that the Northern farmer does they would soon be independent. The land is easily cultivated. Fruits grow to perfection. The finest grapes I ever saw were grown in this place. We have peaches in abundance and all other kinds of fruits do finely. Fine tobacco is raised in this county, and it brings fine prices, too. I came from Litchfield, Conn., nine years ago and my family have been in excellent health during that period. This town is especially noted for its fine drinking water, which is a very essential consideration. One thing that is hardly ever known in this section is fog, which makes the climate so much more desira-ble for people troubled with throat and lung diseases. The winters are very mild. Just the Place He Had Been Looking For. Kimball Plympton, Rogers, Ark. — Contemplating a trip South in pursuit of health and business, I was casting about for some information that would enable me to decide where to go. Acci-dentally I came upon an advertisement of Rogers, Ark. I read the article over and was very favorably impressed with the description of the country. I at once decided that Rogers was just the place I had been looking for, and I have not regretted that I came here. When I arrived, although a perfect stranger, I was received like an old acquaintance and shown every courtesy possible. The people here certainly deserve the name of the "warm-hearted Southerners." They cannot do enough for you and they take great pleasure in showing you around over the country and seem proud of their extensive crops and fruit orchards, and well they may, for one might travel the country over and not find a more fertile country where the soil is better adapted to fruit culture and farming. This locality can not be surpassed as a health resort, being located in the northwestern corner of the State in Benton county, at an elevation of 1500 feet, where malaria and those epidemics are not known, with water of crystal purity from the numerous mineral springs. This is a city of about 2000 population, all white. The city has all the advantages that an enterpris-ing people can make ; there are water works which abundantly supply the city with pure spring water, public schools, churches and several manufac-tories. Anyone desiring a mild climate in winter and cool breezes in summer will find all their wants supplied in this locality. Besides the raising of all kinds of fruits and berries, vegetables and grains, there are many other business pursuits and openings for an energetic business man to enter into with profit. A Dane who has Prospered in Alabama. O. L. Anthon, Carthage, Ala.— I notice that you are publishing letters from people who have moved South for the purpose of locating and farming. I am a native of Denmark, Europe. A good many years ago I moved to Ala-bama, and located on the high, level, fertile lands in Hale county, about one mile from Carthage—a station on the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, where I have now lived for twenty-three years, and never enjoyed better health. This is the most suitable country I have found since I have been in the United States, for farming and fruit raising pur-poses. I have a good farm, and a com-fortable home ; good water ; fine health, and enough to last me my lifetime. Our crops are fine, and markets conve-nient. We can raise from a bale to a bale and a half of cotton per acre on our land, without the expense of fertilizing, and from forty to fifty bushels of corn. Stock do well the entire year, by running on the ranges. I advise all seeking homes to settle in this section of Alabama. Northern People Will Be Received With Open Arms, and Can Do Well. E. R. Burr, Nameless, Campbell county, Va.—It is with much pleasure that I give my testimony as to my ex-perience and treatment, from a Northern man's standpoint, in settling in the South, if only in return for all the kind-ness and attention I have received from my neighbors. I came down here last spring broken down in health and bought a broken down farm about six miles from Lynchburg, which had not been worked since the war. I was very unwell and could not do much work at LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. 525 first, but notwithstanding that, I made a fairly good crop and sold off a large quantity of bark and wood, and made more than I would have done at home. There is a ready and good market for all you can raise and prices are good. The people are glad to see you and aid you in every way in their power. There are good schools and Sunday-schools and churches, and I have never received more attention or been better entertained than I have been by some of the old rebels 1 fought against in the late war. My health is good and I feel like a new man, and would not sell my place at 25 per cent, advance, and I can say that if Northern people come down here and attend to their business they will be received with open arms and can do well. Makes More Than a Good Living Every Year. G. B. R. Smith, Howe, Grayson county, Texas.—I came to Texas about seven years ago ; have lived here continuously since then, engaged all the time in farming ; have experienced about all the kinds of seasons that ever come this way, and have never failed to make more than a good living any year. From my experience I conclude that any industrious, economical farmer with fair muscle and brain can do well in this country, and in a few years will own a good, well-stocked and improved farm that will not require any fertilizers to make a crop. We sometimes have to haul a little water for a month or two, about once in five years, perhaps, but then we have the pleasure of hauling lots of stuff from our farms to market. A careful study of the situation leads me to the conclusion that the renter in this country is ahead of the average land owner in the old States. Rents are cheaper here than fertilizers there, the land much easier cultivated (even though it does stick to the ploughs) and the yields much better as a rule. Of course we have our growlers, and there are many here who are 'not doing well, and never will, but I repeat—the man who can and will work judiciously is sure to win in this country. Climate Unsurpassed. Ebenezer Conklin, Cronly, Colum-bus county, N. C.—The climate here is unsurpassed, and the soil under proper cultivation will make excellent- corn, potatoes, rice, oats, wheat and all small grains. Fruit growing is a specialty. Tobacco does well here. Manufacturing opportunities are good. I have been a resident of this State twenty-nine years and I have never been treated better by any people than I have by those of the South, notwithstanding I fought against them in the war between the States. I am a native of Williamstown, Mass. "Don't Know What Hard Times Are." B. R. Garland, Crowley, La.— I came from Rockville, Ind., to Crowley, La., about three years ago, and have been growing rice successfully and profitably. The people of this section do not know what hard times are. Because there comes a year occasionally when they do not realize three or four times the cost of their lands they call, it hard times, but they know absolutely nothing of such want and suffering as are: experienced in some sections. In the first place, lands are cheap and sold on easy terms at a low rate of interest, and if a man has not a home of his own it is his own fault. Cheap lands, cheap fuel, cheap building ma-terial, cheap clothing and cheap food — all this in a land that will produce sugar, rice, cotton, corn, oats, sweet and Irish potatoes, fruits of all kinds and every manner and variety of vegetables. I know of many men who came here two and three years ago with from $200 to $500, and today have a quarter section of land with good buildings well stocked, their year's feed and seed and free from debt. How many countries can do this for a man ? I defy anyone to point out any section of the United States today that has done more for the industrious poor man or more for the health of the invalid or more for the capitalist in the way of steady rise in values and large returns in invest-ments than this section of Louisiana during the past five years. The people of this State have always performed their labor by the hardest 526 LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. and most expensive means, and now that new and improved machinery is being introduced it is cheapening the cost of production, and it is safe to say that rice is raised at a cost of $1.00 per barrel less than it was five years ago, with many possibilities of still further reductions. Much Easier to Make a Living Than in the North. C. A. Barnes, Delhi, La.—I came to Delhi, La., in the fall of 1892, and after looking around a little was so well pleased with the country and people that I wrote my family to come at once and they are equally as well pleased as I am. I settled on an old plantation of 460 acres, about one mile from town. The farm was without drainage or fences, and covered to a more or less extent with Bermuda grass. The land readily responded to improved drainage, and after considerable hard work I finally got rid of the Bermuda grass, which bothered me considerably at first. There is no trouble about a man doing well here if he will work. The soil is a reddish clay on the hills and will raise corn, oats, rye, sweet and Irish potatoes, vegetables of all kinds and different kinds of fruit. Land is easily cleared here. You can buy unimproved land at from $2.00 to $10.00 per acre ; improved at $10.00 to $20.00, according to locality and improvement. Our climate is delightful. Outdoor work can be carried on the year round. The forest trees are usually loaded with nuts and acorns, on which the pigs can fatten in the fall. Stock of all kinds do well, and can graze the year round. Flowers are abundant and can be grown the year round in the gardens. Fish and game are plentiful. People suffering from catarrhal and pulmonary troubles are usually much benefited in this climate. In the summer the days are warm, but the nights are generally cool and pleasant. Several crops may be pro-duced on the same ground the same year. We raise two crops of Irish potatoes every year. This town is situated on the Macon ridge, in Northeastern Louisiana, and is on the line of the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad, a division of the Queen and Crescent system of roads. We are nineteen miles from the Missis-sippi river, and our nearest market cen-tres are Vicksburg, Mississippi, Monroe, and New Orleans, Louisiana. It is much easier to make a living here than in the North on farms, and I would much rather live here. The peo-welcome Northerners, and are very kind and hospitable. In Southern Texas. G. W. Magill, Beeville, Bee county, Texas.—Having lived for a number of years in Kansas and Missouri, I came to Bee county, Texas, about three years ago. The change in the climate and conditions of the two sections of country is a very radical one. Our summers here are very long and hot, but we have the constant cooling and refreshing sea breeze right oft the Gulf of Mexico, some fifty miles from Beeville. Our winter climate is simply delightful : so mild and so pleas-ant. Roses bloom in the open yards all winter in great profusion, if given proper care and attention. Snow is unknown, and ice very rare. Our finest vegetables are winter grown. In fact, we have a land of almost perpetual summer and sunshine. Our only drawback is dry weather. While we do not have dis-tressing droughts like they have on the Western plains, being too far east and too near the coast for that, we have long dry spells sometimes that cut corn crops and grasses short. To insure fruits and vegetables to be a grand success in this country, one has only to secure a well and wind mill and irrigate, at a very nominal expense. Then failure is im-possible. The great field crop of this country is cotton. The fleecy staple is the lead-ing and sure crop here, the same as corn in Iowa. If a Northern farmer will come here and work and manage and save like Illinois farmers he will soon get rich. After having lived in several States, I am fully convinced that the best new and undeveloped country left is the LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. 527 coast country of Southern Texas, say from Houston to the Nueces river, the Western portion being the dryest. While it is a semi-tropical climate, it is all swept by the gulf breezes and is a healthy and pleasant climate. Little is known of it as yet. Until the last few years it was all big pastures, and is yet to a great extent. It is mostly an open prairie country, more brush than in the Western portions, with very fine rich, black, heavy soil, some black waxy, but mostly sandy, and some light sandy soil. Small grains and apples do not do so well, but almost everything else does. Grapes and pears are lead-ing fruit crops and get into market con-siderably ahead of California. Crops are forward with us here in Bee county this year. We had plenty of ripe watermelons and roasting ears out of the fields in May, and we had ripe grapes the first of June. This is a good country for anyone looking for a mild climate, a good new country, cheap lands for farming, or large tracts to colonize. Interested parties should come and investigate this region and judge for themselves. "The Country for Beginners." J. W. Davis, Llano, Texas.—After an experience and residence here for forty-two years, formerly from Kentucky, I find the lands here as rich and pro-ductive as those of Kentucky. In forty-two years we have had four or five drouthy years, which is not more than an average of the old States. While our climate is not so favorable for corn, which on an average is about thirty bushels an acre, there are no better wheat, cotton, sugar and rice lands in the world. Our society will compare favorably with any State in the Union. Christianity is represented by all de-nominations. We have excellent schools. Good lands range from $2 to $10 per acre ; the most of our country is well watered. This is the country for begin-ners. An Iowa Farmer in Louisiana. S. L. Cary, President Iowa Colony, Jennings, La.—The products of South-west Louisiana are more varied than further North, and also more valuable mainly on account of its semi-tropical climate. Sugar-cane and rice which grow to perfection here are more valu-able than wheat, oats and corn crops North, and Northern crops grown here mature so much earlier in the season as to bring much higher prices. Truck farming is very remunerative, as we can grow hardy vegetables all the year and tender varieties months earlier and later than North of us. The great-est amelioration of climate is only felt on the Gulf Coast line for less than one hundred miles inland. Sugar cane often gives a profit of $40 to $50 per acre ; rice, $25 to $50 ; with an average profit for sugar of $30, and rice of $10 to $25. Stock growing with improved breeds is paying well. Southern climate and Southern-grown feed stuffs put the Southern feeder and breeder at the head. Fruit growing is in its infancy. There are many obstacles to overcome, but not as many as where Jack Frost cuts both ends of the crops. We must find the fruits best adapted to our conditions. Nearly all varieties have been tried and enough have been found to stand the trial to make this a good fruit country, best in flavor, in size, color and keeping. It is an excellent corn country. Oats do fairly well. Sweet and Irish pota-toes of superior quality are easily grown. Grass is king here as else-where. This is emphatically a grass country. Textile fibre plants too nu-merous to mention grow in easy luxu-riance. Half A Century In Texas. J. H. Arnspiger, Van Alstyne, Grayson county, Texas.—I have lived in Grayson county, Texas, for fortv-nine years. We have never failed to raise anything we want to eat or sell, — corn, cotton, wheat, oats, barley, rye, in fact, everything that we have tried to raise. Fruit does well ; watermelons do exceedingly well. I have seen them grow to sixty and seventy-five pounds each. Sugar cane does well ; tobacco, vegetables, berries of all kinds also do well; in fact, we have the gar-den spot of the world for farming of all 5 2S LETTERS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN FARMERS. kinds. Land is cheap. Land that brings ioo bushels of oats per acre can be bought at for $30 to $35 per acre. I have raised 100 bushels of corn per acre and over one bale of cotton per acre. We have good schools, good churches of all kinds. There is a ready sale for every kind of produce raised, and always a good market for stock. Now is the time for home-seekers to come to Texas, as the country is settling up very rapidly. Improving farms is now all the go, and land is gradually increasing in value, never to diminish. You can buy land here, and not have to advance but a very small amount, and then pay as you would your rent, in other words, you can pay four or five dollars a year per acre until it is paid out. Texas has plenty of good water of all kinds, lime, sulphur, freestone, and all others as good as you can find. It is, I believe, as healthy a country as you will find anywhere. The people are friendly and sociable and society is as good as the very best. Everything-is cheap that you have to buy, with plenty of good wood to burn. ITEMS ABOUT FARMS AND FARMERS. A Prosperous Florida Farmer. Mr. M. H. Johnson of Leon county, Florida, has on his plantation a steam creamery in successful operation, He is using the milk from fifty- four Jersey cows, and his plant has a capacity for ten times that number of milkers. The milk from every cow is tested by a Bab-cock tester. As at present managed the revenue from the creamery is $4680 a year, but as the milk that produces thirty cents worth of butter will yield 38 cents worth of full cream cheese, Mr. Johnson will reduce his butter output and manufacture cheese. This will in-crease the income from this industry to nearly $6000 a year, more than one-third of which will be clear profit. He is now making over 300 pounds of but-ter a week, most of which is shipped to different points in the state, and nets thirty cents a pouud. Mr. Johnson raises his own stock iood, such as corn, oats, hay, peas, tur-nips, sweet potatoes, etc., and is pre-paring to grow clover. He will make seventy-five barrels of syrup from six acres of cane, and his mill is now turn-ing out seven barrels per day. This season he has harvested twenty-five bushels of oats and ten bushels of peas per acre from the same land, and then pastured his cows on it for several weeks, with an increased yield of milk. He cuts three tons of hay to the acre. He has orange and lemon trees in full bearing. Mr. Johnson buys no stock feed ; on the contrary he has an abundance to sell. This is his last year for cotton growing. He will have no tenants in the future. He will hereafter hire labor and devote all his farming operations to raising food crops. The South's Corn Crop. The following comparative statement of the production of corn in the Southern States in 1893 and 1894 *s compiled from reports of the Agricultural Depart-ment: Maryland 15,078,221 14,268,234 Virginia 31,234,046 32.195.S55 North Carolina 29,954,313 32,959,485 South Carolina 12,501,035 18,728,822 Georgia 33.678,277 35.143-737 Florida 4919,364 5,214,04s Alabama 28,328,514 34,760,317 Mississippi 25,817,179 35,931,206 Louisiana 15.216,266 17,880,183 Texas 61,170,965 69. 338,678 Arkansas 32,110,814 38,437,833 Tennessee 63.6j9.66 1 68,060313 West Virginia 14,089051 j 12,611,972 Kentucky 68,008,060 j 67892,301 Total 435,745,766 I 483,422,984 Yield 1S93. Bushels. Yield 1894. Bushels. This shows an increase of 48,000,000 bushels, divided according to States as follows: A gain of 1,000,000 bushels in Virginia, 3,000,000 in North Carolina, 6,200,000 in South Carolina, 1,500,000 ITEMS ABOUT FARMS AND FARMERS. 529 in Georgia, 6,000,000 in Alabama, 10,- 000,000 in Mississippi, 2,600,000 in Louisiana, 8,000,000 in Texas, 6,000,000 in Arkansas and 4,400,000 in Tennessee, with a decrease in West Virginia and a slight decrease in Maryland and Ken-tucky. Why Cotton Doesn't Bother Him. With one mule Mr. V. A. Hoffman, near Holly Springs, Miss., made the following crops this year : Three hundred and thirty bushels of- sweet potatoes, sixty-five bushels of Irish potatoes, spring crop, and forty bushels fall crop, three bales of cotton, one hundred bushels of cotton seed, two thousand bundles of fodder, twenty bushels of peas, five bushels of peanuts, three tons of hay, four hundred and forty-five bushels of corn. Four-cent cotton doesn't bother Mr. Hoffman. Mr. T. M. Adams, of Oak Hill, Florida, speaking of his success with bees, said to a correspondent of the Jacksonville Citizen that when he first went to Florida, about fifteen years ago, he purchased in Jacksonville on his way South a barrel of Florida syrup. On arriving at his destination some of the natives came to visit him, and finding that he had plenty of syrup, suggested a trade for some honey. Mr. Adams accepted the proposition, and liked the honey so well that he determined to have some bees of his own. After some trouble he became possessed of a small number. Since that time he has never been without them, but has never con-sidered it a business, simply spending two hours once a week looking them over, except in the season of extracting honey. This year he started with a spring count of seventy colonies, and began extracting on May 1, continuing until July 20, in which time he took from sixty colonies 23,850 pounds of honey and 150 pounds of wax, and increased his stock from seventy to 120 colonies. At the low prevailing price he sold the honey for something over $1200 and the wax for $36. During the extracting season Mr. Adams, assisted by his wife, spent two hours each day at the work. Mr. James M. Thornton, of Aus-tin, Texas, said recently to a Dallas News reporter : "I have traveled all over Texas and have experienced an agreeable surprise at the discovery that our farmers are taking to raising hogs, so that two years from now Texas will have all the bacon and pork necessary for home consumption and a surplus for shipment. The swine display at the Texas State fair this year was the finest I have ever seen in any State, and yet it is only a sample of what the farmers of Texas are doing." Mr. James A. Westbrook, of Mt. Olive, N. C, is one of the most success-ful truck farmers in North Carolina. He has made a fortune in the last few years raising strawberries. Last season he had thirty acres in strawberries, for which he received, after deducting freight and commissions, over $14,000. The cost of cultivating, picking, hand-ling, &c, was something over $3000, leaving nearly $11,000 clear profit on the thirty acres, an average of about $350 an acre. He experimented with a tract of an acre and a-quarter to see if the most careful and elaborate and ex-pensive cultivation that could reasona-bly be given it would produce results sufficiently great to justify the extra care and cost. From this acre and a-quarter he sold strawberries to the value of more than $1000, after deducting freight and commissions. The total cost of cultivating and handling was about $200, leaving a net clear gain of $800, or at the rate of $600 an acre. Mr. V. V. Montgomery, of Ed-wards, owner of the celebrated acre of land that netted $400 profits on its suc-cessive crops in 1893, was m town Wednesday. The acre was not quite so profitable this year, owing to its third crop—one of cabbages—being unusually late, but has paid him the greater moiety of that sum. Persons who doubt whether farming pays will be convinced after seeing Mr. Montgomery's acre, that he makes it pay him. He has ninety-six fat hogs to sell this season and plenty of corn and other forage. He reports that the Hinns county corn 53° ITEMS ABOUT FARMS AND FARMERS. crop, an excellent one—as is the case indeed all over the State—is bringing half a dollar cash a bushel, much to the delight of the farmers, who figure out a handsome profit for themselves at this price, although it is about fifteen cents under the rate at which Western corn can be sold.—The Commercial Herald, Vicksburg, Miss. Mr. E. A. Murray of Chattanooga, Tenn., has leased from the North Highlands Land and Improvement Company ioo acres of land just above Columbus, Ga., and also seventy-five acres of the Bussey farm, which is adjoining. A greater portion of this he will plant in sweet potatoes, the rest be-ing devoted to raising food products and other vegetables. Mr. Murray is an expert sweet potato grower, and last spring experimented on a tract of land near Fort Valley, Ga. His success there has doubtless induced him to work on a larger scale at Columbus. A number of farmers in Hale county, Alabama, have organized the "Farmers and Merchants' Co-operative Associa-tion," the object of which is to encour-age and promote the raising at home, as far as possible, of all needed supplies. E. W. Pabor, of Pabor Lake, De Soto county, Florida, said recently: "I think that pineapples will be the coming crop of this State. I set out 70,000 the past summer and expect to set out more soon. I have about 200,000 out now. I think they will net $350 per acre easily enough. They should net to the grower on an average 4^ cents each. I shall push this industry, as I have great con-fidence in it. "Then, too, I am working on bananas. I think that the dwarf variety can be made to pay. I am experimenting on several patches, so as to see the effects of different kinds of lands and cultiva-tion. I have about 700 or 800 plants now." Mr. W. L. Elzev, a prosperous farmer of Northampton county, Va., had sixty acres of his farm in cultiva-tion this year, the yield from which was 2700 barrels of sweet potatoes, 250 bar-rels of Irish potatoes, eighty barrels of corn, twenty tons of scarlet clover hay, eight tons of red clover hay and a variety of other products. Of the 2700 barrels of sweet potatoes he has shipped 1300 barrels, with net returns from same of $1610, the balance of the crop being stored for the winter markets. THE SOUTHERN STATES. THE Southern States. Published by fne Manufacturers' Record Publishing Co. Manufacturers' Record Building, BALTIMORE, MD. SUBSCRIPTION, = = = $1.50 a Year. WILLIAM H. EDMONDS, Editcr and Manasrer. BALTIMORE, DECEMBER, 1894. The SOUTHERN STATES is an exponent of the Immigration and Real Estate Interests and general advancement of the South, and a journal of accurate and comprehensive information about Southern resources and progress. Its purpose is to set forth accurately and conservatively from month to month the reasons why the South is, for the farmer, the settler, the home seeker, the investor, incomparably the most attractive section of this country. Observance of Law in the South. A study of the statistics of crime and pauperism in the United States will reveal some striking facts. The South has been so clamorously and so persistently maligned as a lawless section that it has come to be almost universally assumed to be true that the laws are more frequently violated in that section than in other parts of the country. Even the Southern people themselves, in a large part, having heard so much, and such continuous outcry against Southern lawlessness, and so much vaunting of alleged relative freedom from crime of other parts of the country, have grown to accept it as a fact that the South is less regardful of law and peace and order than the rest of the country. The Southern States asserted recently that there is less disorder, less violation of law, less crime in the South than in the rest of the country in proportion to popu-lation. An analysis of prison reports of the eleventh census will amply support this statement. The statisticians of the census classify the States of the union in five divisions: the North Atlantic, compris-ing Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania ; the North Central, comprising Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Da-kota, Nebraska, Kansas; the Western, comprising Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California; the South Atlantic, comprising Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida; the South Central, comprising Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas. The South Atlantic and South Central divisions include all the fourteen South-ern States, with the addition of Delaware, District of Columbia and Oklahoma. The aggregate population of these three is so small, (being less than 500,000), that it does not materially affect the results of this inquiry favorably or otherwise, and the classification of the Census Department will therefore not be disturbed. The charge of lawlessness in the South is made with reference to the white popu- 532 EDITORIAL. lation. People who talk about the South as a law-breaking section have in mind only the dominant race in the South, the whites. The statistics of crime here given will therefore relate only to the white population of both the North and South. Taking first the white convicts in peni-tentiaries and calculating their numerical proportion to the white population, elimi-nating the negroes, Indians and Chinese, we find that the ratio is: in the North Atlantic division, as one to 1294 of popu-lation; in the North Central division, one to 2366; in the Western, one to 800; in the South Atlantic, one to 4644; in the South Central one to 2285. Or, to make the comparison in another shape, to every 100,000 of population the number of con-victs is: in the North Atlantic division 77; in the North Central division 42; in the Western division 125; in the South Atlan-tic division 21; and in the South Central division 43. Taking the two divisions that comprise all the Southern States, and the three that make up all the rest of the coun-try, it is found that the proportion is: in the South one convict to every 2927 of population or 34 in every 100,000; and the rest of the country one to every 1607 or 62 in every 100,000. Thus it will be seen that the South as a whole has in proportion to population but little more than half as many convicts as the North; that the better of the two sections in the South, the South Atlantic division, has only half as many as the best section in the North, the North Central division; that in the section having in the South the greater number of convicts, the South Central division, the number is ap-proximately the same as in the Northern section that has the fewest; that in the Southern section having the larger ratio, the number is but a little more than one-third of the Northern section that has the the largest ratio, the Western division; that taking the whole South together, the number is more than one-third less than in the Northern division that has the smallest number. Considering the prisoners in county jails the comparison will be as follows : In the North Atlantic States the propor-tion is thirty-six to every 100,000 of popu-lation; in the North Central States 17; in the Western States 52; in the South Atlantic States 13; in the South Central States 23. Comparing the whole South with the three other divisions jointly the figures would be iS to every 100,000 in the South and 27 in the rest of the country, — that is, the South Atlantic division has fewer by one-fourth than the best Northern division; the South Central has one-third more than the best Northern division, but one-third less than the North Atlantic and 50 per cent, less than the Western division, and the South as a whole has fewer by one-third than the rest of the country. The statistics of pauperism are equally noteworthy. The paupers in almshouses as shown by the census are as follows: in the North Atlantic States, 178 in every 100,000; in the North Central States, 114; in the Western, 103; in the South Atlantic, 91; in South Central, 46. Comparing the South with the rest of the country, the figures would be, in the South 66 paupers to every 100,000 of population; in the rest of the country 139 to every 100,000. These figures include both white and colored races. They show that the South has less than half as many paupers in proportion to population as the rest of the country; that the ratio in the South, as a whole, is 40 per cent, less than that of the Western division, about 45 per cent, less than that of the North Central division, and about 65 per cent, less than that of the North Atlantic. Tabulating the foregoing facts we have the following, the figures given showing the number in every 100,000 of population: EDITORIAL. 533 White Convicts in Peniten-tiaries. White Prisoners in County Jails. Paupers in Alms-houses. North Atlantic Divis'n. North Central Divis'n. South Atlantic Divis'n. South Central Divis'n. 77 42 125 21 43 36 17 52 13 23 17S 114 103 91 46 The South 34 62 18 27 66 The remainder of the 139 These comparisons are made in no spirit of unfriendliness towards any part of our country. The purpose is simply a refu-tation of the constantly repeated charge that the South is less law-abiding than other sections. These figures, from a source authoritative and unquestioned, demonstrate beyond cavil that the South is by far the most peaceable and virtuous section of the Union, as it is the most pronouncedly American. Important and Promising. The immigration meeting held in New Orleans November 26 may have vast influ-ence for the good of Louisiana if plans outlined at the meeting shall be consum-mated. It was nominally a meeting of the State Board of Immigration, to which some other prominent workers in the cause of immigration had been invited. The meeting was a small one in point of numbers, but it contained almost every one with whom the material advancement of Louisiana in the great broad lines of capital and immigration is most closely and minutely identified. Many of them made addresses, and contributed their ideas and experience to the meeting as a guide for its lines of operation; hence it came that the meeting was an intensely practical one. It merely formulated what the con-duct and plans of these veteran operators had long ago proved a signal success. That is why it may be said to be promising. If these men could make the desert blos-som as the rose, it is a very simple thing to show how more flowers may be added to the garden they have constructed. The remarkable consensus of these men as to how immigration is brought about, and how it is to be broadened, was very nota-ble. Men not only have to know how to work, but they have to labor, and to wait, and to spend money. Immigration does not come like rain from heaven, and with-out human intervention. It has got to be worked for. And these practical workers gathered at New Orleans agreed that the first and most important work to be done by any community or section is to make a judicious and continuous distribution of advertising matter. Louisiana has drawn to itself in the last few years many thous-ands of well-to-do agriculturists from the West and Northwest, and it is because the State, through its railroads and some of its more enterprising citizens, has been widely and wisely advertised. The Augusta Chronicle and The Worcester Spy. The Augusta Chronicle, commenting on a recent editorial in the Worcester (Mass.) Spy, says : "For several months the Southern States magazine has been publishing letters from Northern men living in the South, giving their experience here, and in many cases urging their friends at the North to come South. A member of The Spy's staff recently visited Baltimore, and while there was instructed by the paper to call on the editors of the Southern States Magazine and see some of these letters to ascertain if they were genuine, or only fake communications. Being asked if he received manv such communications, the editor showed packages of letters, care-fully filed, to the number of more than a thousand." The Chronicle has queer notions about some things. Possibly if a stranger should walk into its office and coolly ask its editor if letters it had been publishing were "genuine or only fake communica-tions" the question would be considered a natural and proper one, but we don't know of any other newspaper office in 534 EDITORIAL. which an insult of this sort would be toler-ated. Nobody ever asked if any of the letters published by the Southern States are genuine, and no paper has ever in-structed any member of its staff to "see some of these letters and ascertain if they were genuine." The member of the Spy's staff referred to is a gentleman. Such an errand as the Chronicle imputes to him would be impossible with him. His state-ment of the matter in the Spy is misquoted by the Chronicle. As published in the editorial columns of the Spy it was as fol-lows: Recently a member of the Spy's staff spent a day in Baltimore and while there called upon the editor of the Southern States. This monthly magazine is engaged in the work of collecting and disseminating information about the soil, climate, agricultural capabilities and gen-eral resources and attractions of the South for the benefit of inquirers in other sections of the Union For a number of months it has given several pages to communications from Northern settlers in all the States from Virginia to Texas inclusive, all of which were written by men who professed to be more than pleased with their new homes and surroundings. Asked if he received many such communications, the editor showed packages of letters carefully riled, containing in all more than a thou-sand." Furthermore there could be no possible room for doubt as to the authenticity of any of these letters, for the reason that the names and addresses of the writers are given in full and they may be written to for verification of their published statements. The South the Center of the AngIo=Saxon It is a matter of the utmost significance and importance that the South is and has been these many years the seat and center of the Anglo-saxon race. It is a positive promise of the future that she will continue to be. Not only the increase in this popu-lation, through nativity, will sustain and perpetuate this ascendancy, but the char-acter of immigration to the South at pres-ent is, and in its future will be, broadly stamped with the numerical predominance of the English race. And, as the years roll on, this current will gain breadth and volume and velocity. It will bring ever-increasing assurance to the South of sta-bility, capacity for self-government, and perpetuity of civil liberty. The immigration to the South the last few years is most decidedly Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American. To go no further the close observer must have noticed what seems almost ^.penchant of English agricul-turists to settle in a certain section in Virginia, and the over-shadowing ascen-dancy of the Anglo-American farmer from the West in the immigration to the South-west in the last decade, an immigration almost as pronounced in this race-feature, in its peaceful and beneficent descent, as was the invasion of hostility and ravage of the same race in England in the earlier part of the Christian era. The theme is a broad one, and may well be emphasized hereafter in its many-sided-ness. Just now we wish to impress the South with the fact that it is destined on this continent to be the permanent seat of the Anglo-Saxon race, and its transcendent civilization with its innumerable blessings. The Way to Advertise. No State offering natural advantages to settlers can do too much judicious adver-tising, but it is doubtful if the practice now in vogue of printing and distributing a mass of heavy official statistics from State bureaus is conducive to a great amount of benefit in the way of inducing immigra-tion, and for the simple reason that only a small portion of such matter reaches the hands of those whom it would influence. — Times-Union, Jacksonville, Fla. Unquestionably the most effective and economical method by which to reach the notice of intending settlers and possible buyers of Southern property is the use of advertising space in the Southern States. Real-estate agents, immigration and colonization companies, land-owners and railroads advertising in it get the ben-efit of its entire circulation. It goes di-rectly to people who are looking for such EDITORIAL. 535 information as will enable them to decide where to settle in the South, or who have present or prospective business or invest-ment interests in the South. Advertisers who use it almost invariably find the re-turns far greater than had been expected. On the front cover page of this issue of the Southern States is published a letter recently received from Messrs. W. W. Duson & Bro., Crowley, La. The fol-lowing is taken from another letter written a week later: "We have a big lot of land seekers on hand and they are still coming in; and we are still receiving an immense number of letters, most of them referring to your valuable magazine." Mr. W. A. Butterworth, Asbury Park, N. J., writes: "The more I read the Southern States the better I like it and the better I think of the Southern States as a place to live in." The Southern States has probably more readers to the copy than any other periodical. Sometimes a single copy will go the rounds of an entire village. Recently Mr. D. Welty, Allegheny, Pa., having heard of the Southern States wrote for a sample copy. After he had received and examined it, he sent a money order to pay for a years' subscription and for several back numbers, adding at the close of his order: "The copy of the Southern States you sent me has been read by more than fifty persons." Immigration Notes. Immigration Society for Louisiana. The State of Louisiana has determined to make a systematic effort to secure set-tlers through an organization expressly for that purpose. Among those interested are Gov. Murphy J. Foster, Secretary Harry Allen, of the Young Men's Busi-ness League of New Orleans; F. B. Bowes and J. F. Merry, of the Illinois Central Railroad; J. M. Lee, Jr., of the Queen and Crescent route; F. M. Welsh, of Alex-andria; A. S. Graham, A P. A. of the Tex-as & Pacific Railway; Prof. W. C. Stubbs, S. L. Cary, J. G. Hawkes, M. B. Hillyard, F. A. Daniels, Wm. Garig, Uriah Millsaps, C. E. Cate, Robt. Bleakley, W. W. Duson, Lucien Soniat and S. Levy, Jr. The officers of the society are: Presi-dent, Harry Allen; vice-presidents, first district, John Dymond; second district, Lucien Soniat; third district, S. L. Carey; fourth district, S. Levy, Jr.; fifth district, Uriah Millsaps; sixth district, Wm. Garig; secretary and treasurer, George Moorman; executive committee, Hy. Allen, ex-officio chairman; J. M. Lee, Jr., W. W. Duson, F. A. Daniels, Robert Bleakley, F. B. Bowes, C. E. Cate, W. C. Stubbs This committee includes several well-known promoters of colonies, among them W. W. Duson, who has been remarkably success-ful in establishing towns in West Louisiana. He was actively interested in Crowley and Eunice, whose rapid development has already been referred to in recent issues of the Southern States.- The executive committee is to formulate plans for imme-diate work, and hold meetings whenever the exigencies may require. It will have full power to make publications, raise funds, employ agents, and do whatever may be necessary to induce immigration. It will solicit subscriptions from railroads and other corporations, from city councils, from parish police juries, boards of trade, chambers of commerce, business leagues and private individuals. The new organization will doubtless accomplish much good in stimulating im-migration to the State in addition to the movement already under way. A Texas Immigration Meeting. An important factor in the development of Texas will be the conference held in St. Louis on November 12. It was called for the purpose of combining the interests working for immigration, and was held in St. Louis in order to secure a representa-tion from trunk line railroads entering Texas, as well as immigration agents from the Northwest. The conference was at-tended by the passenger traffic managers of the Southwestern railway and steam-ship lines and by representatives of the business interests of Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, Waco, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Cleburne, Taylor, Comanche, Brownwood, Corsicana and Pecos Valley. A committee was selected to outline a plan for the inauguration of this work, composed of Hon. B. B. Paddock, mayor of Fort Worth, who originated the meet-ing and issued the call for it; John Sebas-tian, general passenger and ticket agent of the Rock Island railway system; John Byrne, of the Santa Fe; J. A. Kemp, of Wichita Falls; T. F. McEnnis, of Dallas; W. B. Slosson, of Houston; S. M. Smith, of Fort Worth; A. A. Heard, of the Mis-souri Pacific railway system, and Mr. A. E. Johnston. This committee has prepared a plan which involves the spending of $250,000 in advertising the State; $ 100,000 the first and second years, and $50,000 the third year. It is suggested that railroads doing business in the State contribute one-half of this sum, and that business concerns, cities, counties and the State make up the remainder. Represen-tatives of many of the railroads and promi-nent men throughout the State have expressed approval of the plan. A. E. Johnston, who forms one of the committee, is at the head of an immigration bureau in 536 IMMIGRATION NOTES. 537 New York, which has sent to the North-west many thousand immigrants from Europe. Governor Northen at Work. Hon. W. J. Northen, whose work in con-nection with immigration has been previ-ously referred to in the Southern States, has decided to live in Atlanta in future to give more attention to the work he has planned. He is preparing to send a repre-sentative through the West to tell the farmers out there what they can do in Georgia. He is also preparing to open an office in New York. Governor Northen has received a call from a Pennsylvania physician who repre-sents a colony of fifteen farmers, all of them desiring to come to Georgia. The doctor will practice his profession, while the families will give their attention to fruit raising. Mechanics Seeking the Country. Mr. F. W. Green, general agent of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad at St. Louis, says : "On a recent trip South our road carried 166 heads of families to the prairies of Mississippi and the fruit-growing region of Alabama. These men were largely farm-ers from the Northwest, who have grown disheartened over continual crop failures, their inability to pay off mortgages, and also to avoid the rigor of Northern win-ters. "But among those farmers was for the first time a sprinkling of mechanics, who propose to leave the crowded cities for the farm, upon which many of them were born. It is only a beginning, but the dis-appointed of the cities will seek the peace of the country more rapidly than is ex-pected. "The political and social conditions of the South are more inviting today than ever before to the Northern small farmer. Immigration is flowing there. This road's average of 300 families a month is rapidly increasing." Scandinavians Looking to the South. Prof. G. Jerstner, of Chamberlain, S. D., has been spending some time in Tennessee in the interest of a number of his country-men who want to move South. In conversation with a reporter he said when his people left their native countries, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, they located very largely in Minnesota and the Dakotas, where they formed about one-third of the population. They had worked hard and had taken no time to look about, and a great many of them had accumulated a competence. They now felt like finding a warmer country and were looking to the South. He had come to see for himself, and would put the result of his observations before the people he represented, publishing them in 119 newspapers published in the Scandi-navian language. These people wanted a hilly or mountainous country, and were tired of the flat and bleak prairies, so un-like their own homes. They were a home-loving people, and wanted a country that resembled their own. The first December land-seekers' excur-sion train of the Southern Railway Co. carried South 175 persons who went as far as Atlanta, and from there scattered over Georgia and adjacent States. E. H. Allen and F. Offenberg, Ohio farmers, are prospecting in the vicinity of Americus, Ga., with the view of buying fruit farms. Mr. Wm Bonthron, representing a Scotch colony, has located near Evergreen, Alabama, and will be followed by his friends in the next few months. They will engage in truck farming and fruit growing. An indication of the movement south-ward was noted at Nashville, Tenn., one day in November, when five farmers and their families from North Dakota reached the suburbs of that city. They started from their homes in wagons and drove 500 miles, but it became so cold that they were obliged to make the rest of the trip by rail. They are pleased with the soil and climate of Tennessee, and especially with Southern people. Their present in-tention is to settle in Middle Tennessee, probably near Nashville. The names of the men in the party are: T. Streeter, E. T. Van Dusen, E. A. Palmer, F. M. Foster, E. M. Berry. The Macon (Ga.) Advertising and Immi-gration Bureau has decided to hold a con-vention in that city probably in January, at which every county in Georgia shall be 533 IMMIGRATION NOTES. represented, to discuss the best system for securing settlers. A report from El Campo, Texas, states that five cars filled with settlers from the North have come to that vicinity to locate within a few weeks. Hon. J. Stoddard Johnston, superin-tendent of the recently organized Ken-tucky Immigration Bureau, has formulated a plan to create branches of the bureau in each of the counties of the State, and to have each contribute a sum proportionate to the amount of taxable property in the county to a fund to be used for advertising and other purposes. Mr. Macbeth Young, McBees's Land-ing, Arkansas, writes : "This Northwest Arkansas and Southern Missouri is being settled up fully by immigrants from the North, mostly from Nebraska and the Dakotas. Emigrant wagons passing every day. Thousands are settling in Arkansas." Peter Kleiver and Martin Leith, with their wives and eight children, started from Howard county, Neb., in Septem-ber in wagons to drive to White City, Fla. At the end of nine weeks they reached Memphis, Tenn., and went from there to Jacksonville by railroad. At Jacksonville they resumed their wagons for the rest of the trip. Messrs. Kennedy & Ballard, real estate and financial agents, Chicago, have been investigating the "fruit belt" of South Georgia, and are negotiating for the .pur-chase of lands on the Georgia Southern & Florida road, below Macon, for a coloniza-tion enterprise. Statements that have been published as to their purchase of 20,000 acres of land elsewhere are not correct. S. W. Rose, of Indianapolis, Ind., has undertaken to organize a "co-operative colony," to occupy lands adjacent to the town of Handsboro on the Gulf coast of Mississippi. Major W. L. Glessner, Commissioner of Immigration of the Georgia Southern & Florida railroad, took an excursion party of farmers and capitalists from the West down to South Georgia in November. A number of the visitors bought farms, and all of them were greatly pleased with the country. Major Glessner is now in the West making up another excursion. Ten families of Scandinavians have bought land together near Bartow, Fla. An immigrant party of seven families in wagons reached Florence, Ala., the latter part of November, having driven all the way from Muncie, Ind. They had with them good farm stock and farming implements. Another party of eight fami-lies from Dakota passed through Florence in wagons on their way to Walker county, Ala., where they had bought land. They stated that many others would follow. Several Northern families have recently bought homes in the neighborhood of Enterprise, Miss. Mr. E. E. Posey, general passenger agent of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, writes as follows: "The immigration move-ment is increasing. We have 200 land-seekers on our November excursion, and are greatly pleased with the large percent-age of those who purchase homes. If the signs indicate anything in this direction, it is that we shall have a very large number of Northern settlers during this coming season." A statement from Chicago, referring to the southward movement of discouraged settlers who are leaving the Northwest, says: "Passenger travel to the South is reported by the roads engaged in it to be unusually heavy at present. The regular winter tourist business has begun a month earlier than usual this year and is moving in large volume. A very considerable proportion of it is coming from North Dakota, Minnesota and Northern Wisco-sin. Settlers in these States, disheartened by the failure of their crops and the dis-astrous fires which swept away all their possessions last fall, are now going South with the intention of becoming permanent residents there." As an indication of the extent of the emigration from the Northwest, a member of a St. Louis wagon supply manufacturing company states that his company alone has recently shipped parts for 60,000 wagons to that section, the wagons having IMMIGRATION NOTES. 539 been ordered for farmers who want to move away. It is much cheaper, even counting the great length of time con-sumed, to transport their families and stock and household goods in wagons than by railroad. In parts of Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and elsewhere in the Southwest one may meet almost any day one or more of these emigrant wagons that have come from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa or the Dakotas, and have been from six to twelve weeks on the way. A report from Raleigh, N. C, is to the effect that a colony of Michigan people from near Kalamazoo, consisting of sixty families, will soon arrive and locate on a tract of land near the city. They are said to be professional growers of celery, to which they have applied themselves for many years, and will devote themselves to the same business there. Their purpose is to raise celery the year round in this climate and ship it to the large markets. They propose to put in 300 acres of celery at once. Persons at Americus, Ga., have re-ceived letters from English people inquir-ing about the climate, resources, etc., of Southwest Georgia. It is stated that the correspondents are desirous of obtaining about 3000 acres of land on which to locate a settlement of 200 English families. Real Estate Notes. Baltimore Real Estate Debenture Bonds. The Maryland Title Insurance & Trust Co. has initiated a plan for making mort-gage loans and issuing debenture bonds, secured by the mortgages, that will be of great benefit to all real estate interests in Baltimore and its vicinity. The company will make real estate mortgage loans for periods of five and ten years, repayable, both principal and interest, in monthly instalments, and further secured by policies of insurance on the lives of the borrowers. The monthly payments to be made by the mortgagors will be so adjusted that at the maturity of each mortgage the borrower will have returned to the company the amount of his loan with interest, and his monthly payments will likewise have maintained an insurance on his life for the company's benefit equal at all times to the amount of the loan still unpaid. In this manner, in the event of the borrower's death before the last monthly instalment of principal and interest has been paid, the mortgage is to be released and the unpaid balance of the mortgage debt is to be cancelled. The company also contemplates making mortgage loans repayable at the pleasure of the borrower within a fixed time. With these mortgages as security, the company will issue gold debenture bonds. The debentures are to be coupon gold bonds in series of not less than $50,000, and each series is to be independent of every other series. The Maryland Trust Co. is constituted trustee, and the trust agreement stipulates that first mortgages on Maryland real estate, the titles of which have been examined and insured by the Title Insurance Company, shall be trans-ferred by it to the trustee as security for the debentures. The mortgages held in trust for each series of bonds must always be at least 5 per cent, in excess of the debentures issued against them. The trustee is given power to release the mort-gages to the different mortgagors as they are paid. A sinking fund is established in the hands of the trustee, to which annual pay-ments are to be made by the Title Insur-ance Company in all cases where the security for the debentures is instalment mortgages, so that the trustee may at the maturity of each series of bonds have funds in hand to liquidate them. The agreement requires the Title Company to transfer to the trustee, as part of the mortgage secur-ity, all policies of insurance on the lives of borrowers as well as all the mortgage notes or other evidences of debt. The Title Company's mortgage loans will be made on a forty per cent, margin of security in real estate, and in addition to this security the debenture holders will have the security of the company's own capital. The first issue of bonds under this arrangement was made December 6 The amount was 150,000. The subscription list was opened at ten o'clock in the morn-ing, and when the books were closed in the afternoon the subscriptions aggregated $138,000. Moving Into Eastern North Carolina. Mr. J.J. Wolfenden, a real estate dealer of New Berne, N. C, has sold to Tomb. Johnson & Co., of Allegheny, Pa., a num-ber of tracts of land aggregating 50,000 acres in Craven county, N. C. It is stated that this land will be colonized by farmers, mechanics and others from the vicinity of Pittsburg and elsewhere. Saw mills and other woodworking shops will be started to utilize the timber on the property and furnish material for building houses for the colonists. It is expected that there will be a wide diversity of agricultural pursuits, some engaging in general farm-ing, others in stock-raising, truck farming. REAL ESTATE NOTES. 54i dairying, poultry breeding, fruit growing, etc. The farms will comprise from twenty-five to 200 acres each. Buying Lands in Virginia. Ohio people have recently shown their faith in Virginia by buying lands in that State. S. L. McKelvy and Abner L. Davis, of Findlay, O., were two of a party who visited Louisa, Dinwiddie, Goochland and Henrico counties. They purchased 550 acres near Richmond, 800 acres near Petersburg and 1000 near Norfolk. Florida has over a million and a quarter acres of land open to homestead entry. A recent transaction at St. Louis shows the growing tendency to invest in real estate near large cities. A syndicate paid l4oo,ooo for a tract of about 175 acres sev-eral miles from the centre of the city, reached only by steam railroad, the sched-ule time by train from the station on the property to the Union station in the city being twenty-five minutes. The pur-chasers will develop the property as a residence suburb, spending $100,000 or more in improvements before putting it on the market. D. L. Cramer, of Ewing, Neb.; T. S. West, of Benkieman; W. Saunders, j. H. and John Hair, of Unadilla, Neb , have decided to settle at Stuttgart, Ark., with their families and have bought property there. Dallas (Texas) real estate dealers say that the demand for dwellings in that city this season is greater than it has been for five years. Hanson City is the name of a new town which has been established about twelve miles from New Orleans and prac-tically in its suburbs. The Hanson City Co. is the corporation which developed the property, and on the first day that lots were adveriised for sale about $30,000 worth were disposed of. The land in its vicinity is specially adapted to growing garden vegetables, and it is expected that this will be occupied by many truck farmers. The Folsom Arms Co., of New Orleans, has purchased a site 100 by 150 feet for a cartridge factory which it intends building. A furniture factory is also pro-jected. Hanson City is to have electric lights, telephone and telegraph service, also a cold-storage plant and an ice factory. No house can be erected to cost less than $1000. Mr. Horace W. Sessions is general manager of the company. The Highlands stock farm, near Lexing-ton, Ky., has been sold to Col. Asher, of that State. The price was $75,000. A business block in Baltimore, near the centre of the city, has been sold for $52,500 to Mr. Edwin F. Abell, who has built or purchased some of the largest mercantile and manufacturing structures in the city. The Gazette, of Fort Worth, Texas, has been investigating general business condi-tions, and sums up the real-estate situa-tion as follows: "Real estate is holding up well, and there is and has been for some time past a large amount of trans-fers of property, indicating, not a boom, but a lively business. The real-estate men, as a rule, report business as good. Houses are in demand, and there are very few vacant buildings, either business houses or dwellings, in Fort Worth at this time. Building is constantly going on, and the observer has only to look about him and note the large number of hand-some public buildings, business blocks and dwellings scattered all over the city to feel assured that Fort Worth is at least holding her own, if not outstripping every/ other city in the State of Texas." The Security Storage & Trust Co., re-cently formed in Baltimore has bought property on North avenue near Charles street, on which it will erect a brick and stone building to cost between $125,000 and $150,000. The building will contain five rooms on the ground floor to be used for banking purposes, stores, &c. The other floors will be used for storing per-sonal property. The company will do a general banking business, and make a spec-ialty of securing valuable articles, papers, etc. Henry S. King, a prominent mer-chant, and John S. Gittings, of the banking house of that name, are interested. A piece of property in Atlanta 52 by 172 feet recently sold for $52,000 at auction. It was bought bv a mercantile firm. General Notes. Diversified Crops in the South. The New York Tribune publishes the following article by Richard H. Edmonds, editor of the Manufacturers' Record : In a discussion, in the Tribune of last Friday, of the low prices now prevailing for wheat and cotton, a very dismal picture of the condition of Southern planters was drawn. After stating that the prospect for cotton planters appears to be rather darker and more dismal than that of the wheat growers, it said : "Moreover, the cotton planter can't eat any of his cotton and can't feed it to ani-mals ; while the Western wheat grower can consume a part of the wheat which he produces and feed a part, at least, of it to hogs and other animals." The writer of the Tribune article is labor-ing under a misapprehension that seems to prevad very generally throughout the North. Apparently, he is of the opinion that the Southern farmer raises little but cotton, and as the price for that is low his financial condition is very distressing. I do not hesitate to say that the low price of cotton is a blessing to the South, although the cotton grower who is selling cotton at from five to six cents a pound may not see it just in that light; but there is no such condition of financial distress as the Tri-bune article would indicate. For some years the South has been learning to return to the condition of agriculture prevailing before the war and raise its own foodstuffs, with cotton as a surplus crop, as it did then to a large extent. Last year the South raised a large corn crop. The low price of cotton and the general financial stringency forced Southern farmers to produce their cotton on a very economical basis. Less money was borrowed on advanced mort-gages than in any vear since the war up to that time. With almost enough corn and bacon to carry them through last spring, with comparatively little money borrowed in advance on cotton, the South-ern farmer produced his 1894 crops at a lower cost and with less debt than in any year since i860. His cotton crop, in fact, was nearer to a surplus money crop than any since that date. The world has heard so much about Southern cotton that probably few people realize the fact that the corn crop of the South of 1S94 is worth more money than the cotton crop and that the total value of the South's cotton crop now annually averages less than one-third of the aggre-gate value of all Southern farm products. The fact is, the increased production of grain and other crops for 1894 fully coun-terbalances the decrease in cotton due to low prices. The Western farmer, when his wheat or his corn has failed him, or when prices are low, has but little to fall back upon ; but the Southern farmer has a diversity unequalled elsewhere. I know that this is contrary to the general under-standing of Southern agricultural condi-tions, but any careful investigation will prove its correctness. In 1S93 the fourteen Southern States produced 435,745,000 bushels of corn. The advance reports of the Agricultural Department show that the yield for 1894 was 483,422,000 bushels, although the actual facts of the case are that the output of Southern corn was larger this year than these statistics show. In other words the corn crop was so much better than usual that investigation convinces me that the Agricultural Department did not fully cover the increase. But even accepting these figures, here is a gain in the South of 48,000,000 bushels of corn, and as the average price in that section is over fifty-cents a bushel, here is an increase added to last year's corn crop of #24,000,000, without considering the increase in value of corn over the increase in value last year. The central cotton belt region shows an increase in production of corn of 3,000,000 bushels in North Carolina, 6,200,000 GENERAL NOTES. 543 bushels in South Carolina, or a gain in that State of fifty per cent ; 1,500,000 bush-els in Georgia, 6,000,000 bushels in Ala-bama and 10,000,000 bushels in Mississippi. Contrast this increase in grain production with the great decrease in the West, and the strength of the South's agricultural position is seen. In Iowa, the great corn-producing State, and. the State in which corn is so essential to prosperity, the aver-age yield for 1894 as given by the Novem-ber report of the Agricultural Department, was fifteen bushels per acre. In Kansas the average was 11. 2 bushels ; in Nebraska, six bushels ; in South Dakota, 4.2 bushels, while the average for the entire South from Maryland to Texas was 16.9 bushels per acre. In order to confirm the statement made that Southern agricultural prosperity does not depend upon cotton to the extent that is generally supposed, and that the value of the cotton crop is only about one-third or less of the value of Southern agricul-tural products, a few statistics bearing on these points may be of interest. The general output of farm products in the South in 1894 was greater than in 1893, all crops in that section, with rare excep-tions, having been very abundant ; but it is impossible as yet to get all the returns of this year's crops, and so the statistics for the crops of 1893 will answer. In that year the South produced 53,000,000 bushels of wheat, valued at $34,700,000; 85,800,000 bushels of oats, valued at $34,900,000 ; and added to the value of rye and barley, of which small amounts were produced, and the value of the corn crop, based on this year's yield, would give a total of over $320,000,000 as the value of the South's grain crops, which exceeds the value of the cotton crop. Of the total production in the entire country of tobacco in 1893 of 483,000,000 pounds worth $39,000,000, 376,- 799,000 pounds, valued at $28,356,000, were produced in the Southern States. Of pota-toes, the yield in the South was 19,385,000 bushels, valued at $12,237,000. The South is not generally credited with being a hay-producing country, and yet in 1893 its yield of hay was 5,418,000 tons, worth $61,767,000 ; but in this connection it should be stated that it is generally customary in the South for cattle to graze during much of the year, and consequently the hay is not cut and the value ascertained as closely as in the North. In reality, therefore, the value of the grass crop of the South was far beyond the $61,000,000 reported. Throughout the South there is a steady increase in diversified agriculture, an in-crease which is making the Southern farmer less and less dependent upon cot-ton, and is not only enriching the farmer, but is steadily furnishing a better founda-tion for all the business interests of the South that are dependent upon agricul-ture. The increase of rice cultivation is revolutionizing much of the State of Lou-isiana and bringing to the rice farmers of that State greater profits than are made by any other cereal growers of the country. Fruit growing and truck raising are mak-ing gigantic strides, and from South Geor-gia alone over 10,000 carloads of water-melons are annually shipped to the North and West. Within the last four or five years over 1,000,000 peach trees have been set out in South Georgia, while in parts of that State, in Carolina and elsewhere, grape growing is making great progress. The bulletin of the United States Census, giving the yield of fruit in the census year 1890, shows that of a total production of 36,- 367,000 bushels of peaches in the entire country, 27,793,000 bushels were produced in the South, 26,900,000 being south of Maryland. In that year the State of Geor-gia led with a production of 5,525,000 bushels of peaches, while Arkansas had 3,000,000 bushels and North Carolina 2,700,000 bushels. The total crop of apples for the country in 1890 was 143,100,000 bushels, and nearly one-third, or 46,947,000 bushels, were produced south of Mason and Dixon's line. Turning to the smaller things, it is found that in 1S80 the South had 27,400,000 barn-yard fowls, and in 1S90 89,585,000. The production of eggs rose from 100,474,000 dozen in 1880 to 184,344,000 dozen in 1890. In dairy products the increase was even more remarkable. In 1880 the South made 120,600,000 pounds of butter, and in 1890 211,000,000 pounds. The returns of milk production for the entire country in 1S80 were evidently deficient—every State re-porting but a comparatively small amount of milk. The South reported for that year 13,900,000 gallons ; in 1890 there was a tremendous gain reported throughout 544 GENERAL NO TES. the entire country, the reports of this year having been more complete than in 1880, but the actual gain in the South was some-thing remarkable, and the figures reported were 838,718,000 gallons. A study of these figures will show that the South is diversifying its farm interests. Cotton at five and six cents does not mean bankruptcy to Southern farmers; it simply means that cotton-raisers will have a little less money to spend than they would have had at higher prices. These low prices, however, will emphasize, just as the low prices of two years ago did , the necessity of Southern farmers giving more and more attention to raising diversified products and living at home instead of buying corn and bacon in the West as they had done for so many years. High prices for cotton would have caused a return to the all-cotton system, and in a year or two the Southern farmer would again have been giving his time almost wholly to cotton instead of to diversified agriculture. What the raising of home supplies means to Southern farmers, to the South at large and to Southern railroads in the matter of transportation, may be illustrated in the case of one small town in Georgia, which is but a sample of hundreds of others. Up to three years ago this little town of about 1000 inhabitants had annually handled an average of $100,000 of Western bacon and corn, sold by the merchants to local cot-ton- raisers. Two years ago there was a most noticeable decrease in the amount of Western produce brought in. Last year less than eight carloads were sold, and this year it is more than likely that that town will ship grain and bacon to other points. This changed condition has been going on all the way from Carolina to Texas. To that is due much of the de-crease seen during the last two years in the volume of Southern railroad freights, but while this decrease temporarily less-ened the earnings of Southern railroads, it means an enormous improvement in the financial condition of the people, which must from this time on steadily react in favor of the railroads. The condition of the Western farmer, as depicted in the Tribune, may be correct, and that section may have before it, as the writer of the article indicated, great depression, but the South is on solid ground. Its future is brighter than ever before. Texas Farmers. Mr. Gaston Meslier, general passenger agent of the Texas Pacific Railway, with headquarters at Dallas, Texas, says : "No State in the Union has produced finer crops this year than Texas. More cotton has been raised than can possibly be picked, and despite the abnormally low price of the staple, the planters have made lots of money. This ruinous system of crop mortgages obtains less in that State than anywheie else, and a farmer, however shiftless he may be, must de-pend solely on his own exertions to obtain money—for it can be had in no other way, save by the sale of his produce. No, the banks will not lend money to the planters. They refuse to do so for several reasons, the principal one of which is the exemp-tion law of Texas. This leaves free from attachment any homestead which cost originally $5000, no matter what its pres-ent value may be; all his agricultural instru-ments, several hundred dollars in cash, and a portion of his crop. This enact-ment, extreme as it is, has done much for the Texas planter, because it has ren-dered it impossible for him to get in debt for any embarrassing sum." When asked as to his idea of the proper means of inducing settlers to go to the big commonwealth, Mr. Meslier answered : "The best thing to be done just now is to spread the news far and wide that Texas is not only a great cotton State, but that it can produce almost anything grown in other sections of the land in far greater proportion to the acre than elsewhere. Let the farmer of the North and West learn that there is an unfailing crop down there every year of a variety of products, and he will come, because Texas has everything else in its favor. We raise twenty-five bushels of wheat, fifty bushels of corn, and 100 bushels of oats to the acre. These are facts that everybody should know." The Southern Farmer. Mr. G. Wilfred Pearce, of Brunswick, N. J., writes as follows in the New York Sun: "* * * One great trouble with South-ern farmers who have not traveled far from home is that they fancy their condi-tion far worse than it is, and believe that the farmers of the West and East are GENERAL NOTES. 545 better off in every respect. There could not be a greater mistake, for any traveler who has kept his eyes open when visiting the different sections of the country will have noticed the prosperous appearance of Southern farmers' homes and lands as compared with the squalid condition of the hard-working farmers of the far West or in parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Few well-informed men would not prefer an investment in a cotton plan-tation, even at the present low price of that staple, to an ownership in a potato farm in Maine or a hay farm in New Hamp-shire. Despite the hard times in the South the farmers keep their sons and daughters at home, where there is plenty to eat for all; but in the long-settled New England States most of the farmers' sons and daughters who stay at home during seed time and harvest must seek work in the stifling factories, and live in the vile hovels of the manufacturing towns, in order to earn enough to keep themselves from the alms-houses. Farming in the densely settled State of Massachusetts brings smaller returns upon the money in-vested than in the comparatively sparsely settled State of Arkansas. "* * * Let it not be forgotten that the industrious and intelligent farmers of the South have by dint |
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