Various

“ Perhaps you who visit Western North Carolina find instinct within you some of the fiery blood of Orion or Nimrod or Buffalo Bill, and wish to exercise it in the slaughter of beasts and birds. Well, with your improved weapon, with all modern lethal devices, in dear old clothes that are already creased in the seams and baggy at the knees, you may, with the rugged father of Esmeralda, or one of her tough, nimble brothers, follow the black bear to his cave or track partridges, grouse or squirrels to their leafy haunts, and make them acquainted with death or anguish. ”

“ These settlers in South Alabama, on the contrary, are well satisfied with the institutions of the country to which they have come in search of homes, appreciate the safety and security that are caused by the supremacy of law and order, and look forward to prosperous and happy lives in a land where war is unknown, where the balance of power does not trouble the souls of statesmen, and where no immense armaments are maintained by imposing heavy and grievous burdens on the people. ”

“ We salute the mountains as loyal friends, and they, after a vogue of their own, appear to reciprocate our salute. They, too, appear renovated with the dews of night, and their variegated vestments glitter with adornment. The fascinating curves of the French Broad river cleave the landscape, and the swift, clear tide laves the feet of the giant peaks, whose fertile valleys, smiling it may be with agricultural abundance, betoken that this is a fertile as well as a grand and attractive region. ”

“ They dress as the average American citizen dresses and the only vendettas that they swear are against those birds and animals that injure their crops. Their hope is soon to sit under their own vine and fig-tree in a land truly flowing with milk and honey, and to make their lives bright with the light-hearted gaiety and peaceful content that made existence pleasant even amidst the exactions and privations of sunny, but overtaxed and overcrowded Italy. ”

“ You will, when you see them and their wives and their progeny, wonder how such a country can produce such specimens of humanity, but it is easily understood when explanation is at hand. In that region are reared the best of cattle, sheep, poultry and fruits, but the moonshiner disdains them. He prefers, or habit and poverty compel him to prefer, soggy, hot biscuit, excessive coffee, cadaverous, greasy bacon, assassinated in a frying pan. He drinks too much of his own fiery decoction and too little of the salubrious water that leaps, gushes and sparkles on every hand. ”

“ In the overwhelming sense of powerful forces put in play, we do not ask if life be worth living, but thank God that we are alive and filled with the alchemy of Sky Land. When these agencies react and demand the unbent bow, we lounge, it may be on the porches of the grand hotel, with eyes restful upon Pisgah and the enormous petrifaction of the rat that never budges from its lair. ”

“ The Age-Herald, Birmingham, Ala., says: “The disposition among Northern and Northwestern farmers to come South is every day becoming more apparent. They long for the salubrious climate and fertile soil of the South. When the South is covered by small farms owned by industrious white farmers, then it will blossom as the rose. The negro shows a disposition to get away from the farm. He is a social creature and loves the society and excitement of the town. He flocks to the furnaces and mills around the city. He can stand heat and enjoys the hot work of the furnaces. ”

“ In the space of a year a locality that was in effect nothing more than farm property has been transformed during a period of unprecedented financial and business stagnation into a beautiful and rapidly growing residence suburb, with all the comforts and conveniences and appurtenances of life in the thickly built up part of the city. ”

“ In its millions of acres of cheap lands the South has the advantage of an entirely new and undeveloped country, and has with this all the advantages and comforts and attractions of an established and advanced civilization. The South is in the main more healthful than any other part of the United States, its range of farm and garden products is greater, it offers better opportunities for profitable agriculture, and it is in all respects a section where life can be lived in greater comfort than at the North. ”

“ The ignorance of the world concerning all things Southern is astonishing, and is fostered and increased by immigration agents and land companies by wilful and absurd misrepresentation concerning its people, its climate, its methods and everything connected with it viewed as a home for prospective settlers. Until recently the South has had no champion against this maligning. ”

“ In a rollicking mood you may venture to pay a pop-call on Bill Nye, who, though he pokes perfunctory, periodical fun at the Sky Land, clings to it, when he can, like a fellow does to his skin, and, in serious interludes, loves even its occasionally disreputable roads, which are, at any rate, picturesque and informal. ”

“ The newspaper utterances all over the South, the statements of public men, the personal letters to the newspapers from farmers and merchants, the actions of commercial bodies, indicate not only a welcome to the Northern settler, but a keen appreciation of the value to the South of immigration from the North, and a most eager desire for this immigration. No Northern man, who is respectable enough to have standing in his own community at home, need have any fear but that he will find in the South the utmost consideration and good will. ”

“ As the mystic dusk robes the familiar scenery with a pall, we hear the insect world, if it be the proper season, conversing in a thousand tongues, startled anon by the shrill cry of a night bird, and possibly we wonder if the momentary shadow on the orb of the moon was the vagrant pinion of Minerva’s bird, or the flashing stroke of the eagle, put to flight from his eyry slumber. ”

“ The South heartily welcomes the investment of outside capital and the immigration of all good people, regardless of their political predilections, but it insists that it shall receive from the world the measure of credit to which it is entitled for the accomplishments of its own people. In the rehabilitation of the South after the war Southern men led the way. Out of the darkness that enveloped this section until 1876 they blazed the path to prosperity. ”

“ The air grows cold as if in the clutch of some Siberian intruder, and feathery flakes pour down their “snow storm of stars,” and the mighty monsters of the mountain world yield placidly to their chill, pallid cerements, but we feel that this is one of our enchanter’s displays of infinite variety, and that our spirits are held in thrall for another transformation. ”

“ The Southern States of the Union have received only a small proportion of the tide of immigration that has flowed into this country during the last half century, and especially during the last twenty-five years, swelling the population of new commonwealths, causing towns to spring up, like Aladdin’s palace, in a night, and giving to cities a growth phenomenal and marvelous. It is not the purpose of this article to inquire why this has been the case; it is sufficient to state a fact that is indisputable. ”

“ From the car window you get rapid but incessantly changing views of the French Broad, which, crossed and recrossed and paralleled, is never out of sight. It is mild and clear flowing; it is turbulent, swift and vocal; it is free from impediment; it is vexed with rapids and frustrated with boulders as if a battle of Titans had been contested to stormy demolition; it is always charming. ”

“ The greatest blessing that industrial activity has brought to the South is that it is daily creating new work for thousands of hitherto idle hands, and creating a home market wherever a furnace or a factory is started for the diversified products of the farm. The latent energy of the people has been stimulated into activity, and the whole South is at work. ”

“ You who are practical farmers know there is no money in raising cotton at seven or eight cents a pound, and that our only hope of success is in producing every possible article of necessity at home. Fortunately, we are not dependent on the cotton crop, for in variety and diversity of products, and in soil and climate, Georgia produces unequalled advantages, and these advantages are being recognized and utilized more and more every year. ”

“ The Southern States is a journal of information about the South. It is engaged in the work of making known the resources in soil, climate and agricultural capabilities, of the Southern States. And such is the desire for accurate and comprehensive information about this section that although the magazine has been in existence only a year it goes into [34] every part of New England, the Middle States, the West and the Northwest, and is read by thousands of farmers and business men who are seeking to inform themselves as to the most attractive localities in the South. ”

“ To induce immigration to the Southern States. The South as it really is can stand on its own merits, and is good enough for anybody, no matter what class—capitalists, cotton kings, iron masters, coal owners, farmers, or earnest, industrious artizans. The South can supply every requisite for all, from the raw material to the finished [61] product. These are a few of the facts that people here in England are ignorant of and should be informed about, whilst many of your own people in the North and Northwest are not much better informed on many points. ”

“ From the dark canopy of the great giant of the Smoky range leaps the live lightning, and a thunder roll bellows or crackles or mutters in a myriad strange defiles, but we know that behind this lowering front, hinting of God’s smile behind the tempest, our winsome Lady of the Sky is laughing still, with the spring in her brilliant eyes, and the wild flowers, smitten by sunshine in her golden hair. ”

“ The organization of land companies for the purpose of inducing immigration to West Tennessee is most commendable, especially when these companies are conducted upon the plan of that one which proposes to open up the territory along the line of the Paducah, Tennessee & Alabama railroad. The capital of the company is very small, and there is little profit in the enterprise for those who have formed the company. They intend merely to direct the attention of immigrants to the advantages which this heaven-blest region holds for the thrifty and hard-working farmer. ”

“ The farmers in my county were never better off. They have plenty of corn, wheat, meat and other produce, and many of them have a bale or so of cotton stored away. There is no necessity for the cry of hard times among the farmers of Rowan. True, they have little money, but they do not need it, they have all at home that they can consume. Why, many of the farmers are raising everything they need on the farm. I know of men who now have plenty of meat who a few years ago did not raise a hog, so you see they are growing wiser and are prospering as all good farmers should. ”

“ It seems strange that farmers of the North will purchase land for farming purposes at $100 or more per acre when in the South there is an abundance of land at from $5 to $25 an acre, from which, acre for acre, a larger revenue can be derived. Because of the variety of products raised in the North no farm of less than forty acres is regarded as sufficiently large to maintain a family.
The tendency in the North is towards larger farms, and many farmers are not satisfied with a farm of less than 160 acres. ”

“ Contrasted with the average Southern farm of fifteen years ago, the average Southern farm of today presents a striking object lesson of the New South’s progress. Plows, hoes and other agricultural implements are no longer left in the fields, or without shelter in the barnyards, overnight, or for weeks at a time, according to the whim of the user. Wagons and carts are not left standing, covered with mud, at the most convenient place to drop them. ”

“ It has moods of tremendous energy, and to make returning mildness more alluring, as the cunning master of music intersperses rude chords in his glorious melody, it veils the comely perfection of its face in a storm of frowns, but only such as triumphant beauty can assume betimes. ”

“ The present depressed state of financial affairs is not against such an immigration now. Your splendid railways should give especial facilities in reduced freights to actual settlers. Austin Corbin, one of our greatest railroad workers, transports free over his railways every pound of material an actual settler puts on his land in improvements. I would advocate free transportation of the household goods of every actual Northern settler by your great railway lines. ”

“ In Florida, instead of large areas of land in cultivation, there are the native growths only dotted here and there with openings, and planted to fruits and vegetables. It requires but little stock to cultivate them and but few hands, comparatively speaking, to do the work. The crop raised on one acre of Florida soil on an average is equal to that of fifteen to twenty acres in cotton regions, and every dollar is for export, the grower receiving the cash for his crop, and then he reinvests it for the necessaries of his household and farm. ”

“ There is more land open to settlement in Arkansas than there was in the Cherokee Strip. The Little Rock Democrat wisely says: “Counting all kinds of our public lands in Arkansas, government, State and railroad, we have nearly 7,000,000 acres. If we could divide these lands into homestead tracts, advertise them extensively and donate them at stated periods to actual settlers, what an impetus would be given to the State. What the State needs is not money for her lands, but active and enterprising home builders, who would become wealth producers and tax builders. ”

“ At last you reach a spot that the poet Moore would have raved about in undying song, for it is worthy of any singer, who, however tuneful, might well despair of bringing justice to the realm of so much beauty. The dwelling there is not a palace, but evidently the abode of taste and wealth. The garden is what you have dreamed about, when young and addicted to Lalla Rookh. ”

“ Indeed, with $1500 or $2000 a farm of 150 or 200 acres can be purchased in a productive region. The Northern farmer who comes South and sticks to his diversified crop plan will keep out of debt and make money from the start. He will find, too, that he will enjoy here the same conveniences, facilities, institutions and society that he has always been accustomed to at home. He will suffer none of the drawbacks of moving to a new country among strangers. Our people are native Americans—98 per cent. ”

“ There is no other just such site for perfect habitation, for it is at the meeting of the waters, which glisten far below. Here the impetuous French Broad rushes to the embrace of the gentle Swannanoa, and here their mingled tides laughingly and pellucidly hasten to kiss the awaiting and absorbing sea. ”

“ At least one-half of the whole population was without employment, for the war had destroyed nearly all the manufacturing interests that had been in existence; agriculture was almost the only source of work for the masses. With no consumers for [11] diversified farm products it would have been folly to raise them. Cotton and cotton alone was the only crop for which a ready market could be found, and it was also the only crop which could be mortgaged in advance of raising for the money needed for its cultivation. ”

“ The prosperity of a railroad depends upon the population of the country through which it runs, and the more rapidly the country is built up the sooner will the stockholders realize upon their investment. The public has a profound interest in such enterprises. The Appeal-Avalanche has no support to give to purely speculative and boom schemes, but it is in favor of all enterprises the object of which is to put forward the advantages of soil, climate and distributing facilities which Tennessee and other Southern States enjoy to such an exceptional degree.—Memphis Appeal-Avalanche. ”

“ Living is very cheap and work not hard, if cotton is let alone, as there is more time all-the-year-round to work than in colder regions. Roads are moderate and railroads numerous, obviating the distances to be traveled out West to and from one’s station and postoffice. As a place of residence for comfort, absence of great atmospheric changes, cheapness of living and land, and other things necessary to the comfort of a farmer, I consider the South has many and varied advantages over the North and West. ”

“ With all the desirable qualities of Nebraska, and there is no Northern State that can excel or even equal it, there are some disadvantages that render it more than a hundred per cent. inferior to this country.
In the first place, there are no minerals, no timber, and, consequently, no manufacturing to supply a home market for produce. All surplus grain must go to a foreign market, and the distance and freight are so great, as to leave but very little for the farmer. Corn more frequently sells for less than twenty-five cents a bushel than it does for more than that, or even that figure. ”

“ The people of the South have so long been accustomed to buying their meat from Northern and Western markets that the suggestion of packing-houses in the Southern cities is full of novelty and surprise. ”

“ He raises fruits and vegetables and engages in dairying and kindred enterprises because he has a home market for these things. The Southern farmer had none and could not create one. He might deplore his enforced idleness when he saw his family in want, but that would not bring him buyers for his eggs or chickens or fruit when there was no one in his section to consume them. The almost unlimited amount of work for the mechanics and day laborers generally at the North enabled every man to find something to do. In the South there was almost an entire absence of work of this character. ”