American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1851, 1851-05-07
POPULATION AND LABOR.

means into this country is attracting much at
tention, and is the subject of frequent comments
by the press.
In our paper of Monday we published an
article in which the augmented wealth from
their labors was estimated, and the national
advantages in this point of view set forth. This
is not our standard of national prosperity, nor
our measure of human happiness; nor does the
dollar calculation exhibit the most satisfactory
results to be produced. Freedom, health, and
moral elevation are blessings to accrue to the
immigrants; while the forests, mountains, and
valleys of our country are to be peopled, and
the pursuits of commerce, agriculture, and me-
chanic arts promoted.
Occasional evils will arise. The wicked and
depraved will often come with the good even
the best win, at times, bring with them asperi-
ties and prejudices which are incompatible with
good citizenship in our country. Still, as it
ever has been, the good will prevail, and the
home by adoption will be loved none the less
because tender and sorrowful remembrance
shall live of the lands from which they come
The duty Of the American people, in con-
nexion with this subject is very plain. Their
first effort should be to subdue in themselves
every feeling of national prejudice, and to be
always prepared to excuse, in men born under
the surveillance of a government they do not
love, the absence of those qualities that can
only terminate where the curses of an aristoc-
racy, and especially of powerful and priv
legged hierarchy, are unknown. We must sub
due our indignation at the idleness, the i'm
providence, and the immortality of the thou
sands who loiter in our great Cities at least un-
til our best efforts shall have been used to direct
them to better way of life
When our duty and our interest shall be un-
derstood in this matter, our own conduct will
improve. There are thousands and tens of
thousands, annually, of poor immigrants in our
larger cities, who require but good counsels
and the smallest aid to become the important
means Of promoting the wealth and prosperity
Of our country.
Within thirty miles Of the place in which we
are writing, the lands of large part of coun-
ty in Virginia have, during the past eight
years, been doubled, trebled, or quadrupled
and by what means? Simply by the introduce
ton of interested laborers upon them. The bar
rem wastes of Fairfax county were proverbial but
few years ago, and no idea was associated
with them but of poverty and wretchedness
They are now beautiful in their prolific yields
success has crowned the labors bestowed upon |
them; and our Washington markets are enriched |
by their supplies.
Whence is all this? Simply from the ingress
OF laborers, not from Europe, it is true, but from
fha alxy tal 81
New England. Like results are witnessed from |
such labors in many sections of our country, |
and in the Old Dominion the possessors Of the |
most fertile and lovely lands the sun ever shone
upon are yearning for the ingress of the peo-
pie, both of New England and the Old World, to
inhabit and improve the soil that is unoccupied
and unimproved-to make roads and canals, to
build manufactures, villages, and cities, and to
launch steamboats, upon each navigable stream.
writer to the Genesee Farmer, dating at
Proctor's Creek, Chester county, Va, says:
81 am anxious for company of Northern
farmers, say one hundred to hundred and
fifty, to purchase tract of from twenty to forty
thousand acres, within twenty or thirty miles of
the principal cities and tide water on or near a
railroad and water navigation. 1t will be but
Il M,
and forty-eight hours by steamer Some of
these lands are well improved and have fair
buildings; and their average price may be $4
per acre. The climate is salubrious and admi-
rably adapted to fruit culture The following
prices are common for the crops named Wheat,
81 and $1.65 a bushel corn, 20 to 75 cents
rye, 60 to 20 cents; buckwheat, 81 to 81. rs;
hay, $40 to S25 ton; oats, so to "a cents
butter, 20 cents pound, always; cheese, none
1a. Tie I'll
to $3.50; beans, Sl.30; cotton, II cents, nit-
tie raised, but might be.) Nothing is farther
from the truth than the common belief, at the
North, that it is disgraceful here for white
man to labor"
Forty thousand acres of such land, and SO
situated! Why, one thousand families, of ten |
persons each, with but little means, could To- |
cate themselves upon this land, live in comfort
and happiness and be richer in ten years than
they could if laboring in California, even with
out privation, and unmolested by either In
dian or white savages yes, infinitely richer.
Their lands their cattle, their houses, their
stores, their workshops, their manufactures,
would form an incredible aggregate Of wealth
We are informed that in that beautiful region
of southwestern Virginia through which the
great railroad is to pass, near the junction of
the four States of Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee and Kentucky, at Jeffersonville, in
Tazewen county-where the soil, the mineral
wealth, the contguity of q navigable stream,
and every desired advantage, are all presented
a company of French people, skilled in manu-
features and agriculture, are soon to be estab-
hshed, and under such auspices as will insure to
them permanent prosperity in their underta-
kings We learn further, that in the immediate
vicinity of that settlement large tract Of most
eligible land is soon to be brought into market
upon such terms as cannot fail to awaken the |