Sentinel of the valley. [volume] (Woodstock, Va) 1841-1848, 1844-12-12

| ty and ignorance, or Immediate emil
grafton. Such circumstance as this
might indeed be borne upon small
scale without any serious loss, but II
cannot be risked upon the territory and
population of those immense districts,
without risking, at the same time, and
| to fatal extent, the prosperity and
Ipower of the State itself The por-
| lions of the State which are most des-
titute at present, of commercial high
ways, and most dependant upon them,
comprehend, together with small parts
Of the Valley, the whole trans-Alle-
ghany country, which does not border
upon and enjoy the trade of the Ohio,
and form a united whole which is grea-
ter in territory than that of half Of the
States; greater in fertility of soil than
any equal area Of our own State; rich
in minerals, water-power, and health,
in every physical element of wealth
which human industry can use, and
wanting nothing to render it prosper
Gus and happy, except facilities of in
tercourse and trade. But in this vital
and comprehensive want, itself the pa
rent of so many others, it wants al
most everything else.
Throughout the whole extent of this
country, from Harper's Ferry to the
State of Tennessee, a distance of more
than four hundred miles upon the Ale
ghany, it is penetrated by few earth
en- turnpikes only, at wide intervals
from one another; and of these few,
one is uninished-one just finished,
and the oldest of them all has been
scarcely twenty years in use. Percep-
tibly and advantageously, however, as
these turnpikes have aided the pnr-
poses of settlement and social inter-
course, they have been so inadequate
ly supported, if supported at all, by
means of lateral and tributary connex-
ions with the vast tracts of country in
tervening between them, that except
at their Eastern and Western ends,
they have never been used, or used but
little, for the transportation of agrlcul-
tural products. The agriculture of that
whole region, therefore, instead Of be-
ing diversified as they might be, con-
tinues to depend, as it has always de-
pended, upon one solitary source-that
of grazing alone for all of its profits.
In spite, however, of every disad
vantage, and in spite even of the dis
heartening difficultirs which have been
entailed for generations upon the titles
of it's landed estates, under the opera
ton of our own laws, such have been
the irepressible energies Of both coun-
try and people, thatthey have gone on,
steadily increasing in numbers and re-
sources. In twenty years, the trans.
Allegheny district Exceeding some
what the country here spoken of has
added hundred thousand to its num-
bers, and has thereby changed its pop
ulation from one seventh to one-ffth o.
the whole population Of the State
Ten years ago it paid about thirty six
thousand dollars only into the treasu-
ry, which at that time was not more
than the eleventh or Twelfth part of the
wholerevenue. Itnowpays upwards of
i hundred and ten thousand dollars, which
is about the sixth part of that revenue.
In 1919, the assessed value of lands
lots and buildings in this same dis.
trict, amounted to but sixteen millions
of dollars, the land itself being assess.
ed at an average value to the acre O.
no more than ninety-two cents. &c
years afterwards, the lands, lots ano
buildings Of this same district were as.
sessed at thirty-nine and quarter mil
! lions, and the average value of an acre
had risen to one dollar and forty cents
Twenty years ago, the whole assessed
value of the other three districts Of The
! State amounted to a hundred and nine
ty-one millions of dollars; it is now {
hundred and seventy millions. TIE
average was Their eight dollars; it is
six dollars and sixty-six cents now
being loss upon each particular acre
of almost as much as the whole of the
trans-Alleghany acre was estimated tt
be worth. Thus it seems generally
that in the last twenty years this dis
trict has added largely to its number.
has more than doubled the value o
| its permanent property, and that i
now supplies to the treasury more than
three dollars for every one which il sup
piled even ten years ago.
/ This progression, which is so strik-
ingly contrasted with the situation o
| things in the other part of the State
and which has been effected under null
tiplied discouragements to population
and labor, is the clear proof Of an in