By Clark Bell.

I am asked to contribute a paper to the Southern States, giving my impressions of my first trip South. I will reply as I have done to my friend Mr. Clark Howell, of Atlanta, Ga., for the columns of his paper, from the stand-point of a business man and farmer, and not in my relation to the party who recently visited the seaboard States, composed in the main of medical editors, their wives and friends.

Too much praise cannot be awarded Dr. W. C. Wile, of Danbury, Conn., for promoting and organizing the party of Northern medical editors and their friends, thus bringing to their attention the unusual advantages of the Piedmont section of the Southern seaboard States to Northern emigration.

These distinguished gentlemen will shortly communicate their views through their respective journals, but what I shall say now will be quite free from all professional considerations.

Either North Carolina or Georgia must be regarded as the paradise of the fruit grower. I have had a large experience in vine growing and wine making in Western New York, having planted one of the first vineyards on the shores of Lake Keuka, and being one of the promoters of the Urbana Wine Co., and I am familiar in a practical way with that most remunerative culture of the black raspberry, in Yates county, New York, which furnishes the evaporated dried fruit so much now in demand, and may fairly be classed as one qualified to speak, in a practical way, as to the general features of fruit growing. The wine-growing industry, yet in its infancy in North Carolina, has gone far enough to demonstrate an assured success in a lucrative way, to those who carry on its productions on business methods. The experiments made at Southern Pines, N. C., have gone far enough to leave no manner of doubt of splendid results in the near future.

The difficulty with which the Northern grower has to contend are the high price of land and labor and the early frost. Labor in both Georgia and North Carolina is abundant and cheap. Eight dollars per month will cover the wages of men with rations, which can be computed at $2.50 per month. Frost is quite out of the question. The cost of land in desirable locations is as low as $3 to $10 per acre, and if unimproved land is taken a net of $10 would be ample to put good land ready to plant the vine. The plow can run in both the States every month in the year.

By way of Norfolk, the markets of New York and Philadelphia are as accessible to the fruit growers of these States as to Western New York, in both time and rate. North Carolina seems to have been chary of the immigration of foreigners. Of that great flood of European blood that has for the past twenty-five years poured into the ports of New York, neither North Carolina nor Georgia has received anything worth naming. It has swept like an enormous wave over the West, but not on the South Atlantic seaboard. You would secure those who are desirable and by proper work could do so.

The citizens of Northern States do not correctly understand your section. They should visit and carefully look into the capacities of your States. Nothing dispels illusions like contact and personal examination. The North is full of active, energetic, industrious men inured to labor, who do not know what advantages you offer or they would flood into and buy up your unoccupied lands and form a splendid factor in the New South now forming. Would the Northern settlers be hospitably received? At the North this would be a controlling question. General Manager Winder, of the Seaboard Air Line, assures me that in his State the Northern settler would be most welcome. Ex-Governor Jarvis, of North Carolina, in a recent conversation, assured me that the Southern welcome would be whole-souled, full and free from the slightest danger of interference. I have equally high authority in Georgia of a similar state of public sentiment. Northern settlers would, strange as it may sound to you, need to be assured in these respects.

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.

I do not dare to state what I think of the future of North Carolina and Georgia within the next fifty years. Yes, twenty-five years. No Georgian or Carolinian would believe as much as I see coming in the next generation. With a climate that not only rivals, but excels that of Italy, I say to Georgians and North Carolinians if you will yourselves open to Northern eyes the enormous advantages of your grand States, you will witness a spectacle within the next thirty years as marvelous as that we saw in Atlanta, where a magnificent city has arisen, phoenix-like, from the ashes made by Sherman’s army. And the new States of Georgia and North Carolina will come into a new and grander life, which will be as much a wonder to the next generation as Atlanta is to this.

An Opportunity for Capital.

In the general discussion of the various agencies to be depended on to bring about an enlarged and accelerated Southern immigration movement, there seems to have been little thought given to private enterprises as one of them.

A great deal has been said about the duty and self interest of railroads in the matter, and much has been spoken and written in advocacy of aggressive measures on the part of the States. It is quite true that the railroads should pursue the most liberal policy in fostering and developing immigration. Every farmer who settles in the territory of any road becomes a permanent producer of traffic for that road, and whether the railroad company be the owner of lands or not, the most profitable expenditures it can make are such as will help to populate and build up the country tributary to its lines. It is also true that every Southern State should have an immigration department or bureau, conducted not by small politicians, but by the most capable men to be had, and not supported by niggardly appropriations, but amply supplied with sufficient money to make possible the most progressive and comprehensive methods.

But, unfortunately, the ideal is not going to be reached as to either the railroads or the States. Both will in the aggregate come very far short of what ought to be done, and this will be more pronouncedly and lamentably true of the State governments.

Outside of these agencies, then, how is the cause of immigration to be advanced? The question and the conditions giving rise to it suggest an opportunity for capital and enterprise. In almost any part of the South very large areas of land may be gotten together at very low prices. With money enough to buy and properly develop farm lands, and with judicious management, there is hardly any limit to the profitable business that could be done by immigration or colonization companies. For example, a company that could buy say 10,000 to 20,000 or more acres of land in a body, or make up this acreage by consolidating a number of farms bought from different owners, and then divide this up into small farms of twenty, forty, eighty or more acres, construct roads throughout the entire area, drain the whole of it, put it all in the best shape for the most advanced farming or gardening operations, building houses, &c., and then direct themselves to the work of colonizing it or selling to individual settlers, such a company, with sufficient capital and properly managed, could quickly settle up almost any area of land and make enormous profits for its stockholders. Besides the tracts sold as small farms, there would necessarily be one or more centrally located village sites which would become immediately valuable as town property. There is nothing easier than getting Northern farmers to go South. The conditions of farming and of life at the South are so incomparably superior to those at the North that they need only to be pressed upon the attention of Northern farmers to be availed of. 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. Convinced of these facts, hundreds of thousands of substantial and well-to-do farmers in other parts of the country would quickly move to the South. In fact, there is even now, all over the North and Northwest a disposition to go South. As was stated in a letter published in the January number of the Southern States, “there are thousands who would move South if somebody would start the ball rolling.” These are the conditions. Properly utilized, they can be made to furnish a wide and rich field for some of the millions now lying idle and non-productive in the financial centres.

The Virginia Legislature and Immigration.

The legislature of Virginia, in its very proper and commendable desire to promote immigration to the State, is discussing the enactment of some extraordinary legislation. A bill now before the senate provides for the appointment of a commissioner of immigration, who shall keep on file in his office a description of any lands submitted to him by any owner or real-estate agent, and shall receive a commission of not more than 5 per cent. upon the sale of any such lands in lieu of salary. Evidently, to the mind of the author of this bill, the benefits of an increase in the population of the State terminate with the sale of lands, and are confined to owners of such lands. The narrowness of a measure that would impose upon any one class of people the expense of an immigration department is manifest. The innumerable and widely ramifying benefits resulting from judicious immigration effort are shared by everybody, and the expense should be borne by everybody.

Aside from this inequity, there are many objections to the plan of giving the proposed commissioner an interest in the sale of lands. As an officer of the State he should be free from any possibility of bias as to any part of the State or any specific properties.

Let a commissioner of immigration be appointed by all means, and let an adequate fund be set apart for the expenses of his department, but let this come out of the receipts from taxes, and thus be equitably apportioned among all classes.

Florida’s Obligation to Mr. Disston.

To say that no other State owes as much to any one man as Florida owes to Hamilton Disston, of Philadelphia, is a comprehensive statement, but it is probably true. About fifteen years ago some Northern capitalists were induced to consider the idea of building railroads in Florida. It was found on investigation that the State could not grant any of its lands to railroad companies, since all the lands of the State were covered by a general mortgage which had been made to secure the State bonds. Without this inducement nobody was willing to put a dollar into railroad building in Florida, for the reason that the early returns from traffic could not be expected to be such as would justify it. In this emergency Mr. Disston came to the rescue of the State. He bought 4,000,000 acres of Florida land, paying for it enough to discharge the entire State debt, thereby releasing the lands owned by the State, and placing it in a position to make grants to railroads. Immediately following this, contracts were made with New York capitalists, and Florida entered upon an era of railroad building and general development.

Of course it is beyond question that the enormous resources and capabilities of Florida would in time have brought railroads, with the development that accompanies them, but it is also true that but for this timely intervention and help from Mr. Disston, the beginning of this period of growth and prosperity would have been delayed, possibly many years.

Following this timely succor, Mr. Disston has now put the State under further obligation to him for one of the most stupendous and one of the most successful works of general improvement ever undertaken in this country. As was briefly told in the February number of the Southern States, he has reclaimed for the State many millions of acres of land that but for his enterprise would have been permanently a waste. True, he has himself reaped large rewards, as it is proper that he should have done, but this does not lessen the benefits the State receives, and moreover, the risk has been all his own, since the only return the State was to make to him for the millions of dollars spent in his drainage works was a share of the lands reclaimed from overflow.

The value of the services that Mr. Disston has rendered Florida are beyond estimate.

How to Do It.

The News, of Birmingham, Ala., very correctly maintains that reduced railroad rates will not accomplish much in the way of inducing immigration, unless the measure be accompanied by liberal advertising. The News says:

The Southern States is the channel through which to reach the attention of the North and Northwest. It is the only Southern immigration journal; the only publication that can be looked to for information about the soil, climate, agricultural capabilities, etc., of the whole South. It is alone in this field. There has never been a time when there was such eagerness for facts about the South. From New England, the Middle States, the West, and notably from the Northwest, requests for sample copies and letters of inquiry about the South are pouring in upon us.

Advertisements in the Southern States will be read every month by many thousands of people all over the North and Northwest, who are eagerly seeking such information as will enable them to determine what part of the South is most likely to suit them.

No Such Danger.

The Boston Herald, in an editorial on the work of the Southern States, says: “The reports are extremely favorable in regard to richness and variety of crops, and the chief danger seems to be that the speculators in Southern lands, as well as many of the railroads, hold their lands at such prices as to dissuade the poorer but industrious class of immigrants from taking them up.” The danger apprehended by the Herald does not at all exist. There are many millions of acres of the best land in the South that can be had for prices that are merely nominal. The trouble is not that there is any fault to be found with the land, but there are not people enough in the South to cultivate more than a small part of the land, and the surplus is, therefore, in a sense valueless, no matter how rich and productive it may be. There are a good many millions of acres of railroad land, and in some of the States State land, that can be had for such prices and upon such terms as nobody can find fault with. And as to the private holdings of individuals, there is too much land in every part of the South unused, and therefore too many owners anxious to sell a part of what they own, to make possible any speculative putting up of prices.

How to Reach Prospective Immigrants.

The Gazette is right. Many thousands of dollars are wasted in printing books and pamphlets that nobody ever reads. There is a way, however, to reach the class it is desired to influence. It can be done through the Southern States. 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 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.

The Southern States furnishes a channel through which to reach effectively the class of possible immigrants needed in the South.

Work of Southern Railroads in Promoting Immigration.

In the general and very proper demand for railroad aid to the cause of Southern immigration, it should not be forgotten that many of the Southern roads have been for years giving conspicuous and liberal attention to this work. Through the efforts of such roads, for example, as the Mobile & Ohio, the Illinois Central, the Baltimore & Ohio, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the St. Louis Southwestern and others, hundreds of thousands of substantial farmers, artisans and business men have been induced to move to the South, and all of those roads are constantly enlarging their immigration work. A notable instance of broad and progressive management in furtherance of immigration is furnished by the Georgia Southern & Florida road, whose methods were made the subject of an article published in the January number of the Southern States.

Other Southern roads are becoming roused on this subject. The Seaboard Air Line system, which has a management as progressive and liberal as any road in the country, is preparing to inaugurate a comprehensive immigration policy, and the Richmond & Danville road is also adopting measures to induce Northern farmers to settle along its lines. The Louisville & Nashville and the Central Railroad of Georgia systems are also taking advanced steps in the same direction.

The introduction of artesian water in some of the Southern towns, notably Albany and Brunswick, Ga., has revolutionized the health of those places; the two localities named, which were formerly noted for the prevalence of malarial and other disorders, being now equally noted as health resorts. The last Georgia town to enter the artesian well procession is Quitman, Ga. The April number of the Southern States will contain an exhaustive article by Mr. James R. Randall, on drinking water. Mr. Randall has for many years been making investigations on this subject, and his article will be a revelation, not only to the general public, but to most physicians and hygienists as well.

The Augusta Chronicle, quoting the sage remark of a man who had amassed much wealth, who when asked how he had made his money, said that he always bought when everybody wanted to sell, and sold when everybody wanted to buy, urges that the present is the time for people with money to make investments. Prices of every sort have reached a minimum, and in view of the assured early reaction and the inevitable rebound to very high prices that will follow the long term of depression, this would seem to be as the Chronicle suggests, the time to buy things.

No sooner is Atlanta well under way with its great International Exposition project for 1895 than Macon comes to the front with an exposition enterprise of its own. A movement has been started to hold an exposition in the fall of 1894. These Georgia towns are great hustlers.

In Mr. Clark Bell’s article, published elsewhere, there is this statement:

“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.”