The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1854-11-04
Rich Men Unawares.


There are thousands Of rich men in the
world, who think themselves poor. They
lament their hard fate while Fortune has
filled their laps. Such are the dwellers by
the side of new railroads, through countries
that do not enjoy easy access to market
1t is amusing to go along line of country
where railroad has just opened and listen
to the doleful tales that are unfailingly told :;
how the road ran right throgh Mr.. AS farm,
and put him to the Inconvenience of look
ing out for the locomotive" every time
his team went to and from the hay-field :;
and how Mr.. BIS " "intervale, the finest
pasture ground in all the country,-was cut
into narrow strips from one end to the 9th
er, to his ncalculable detriment; how Mr..
C.'s garden, that had been manured to the
highest pitch of fertility, was traversed by
the track and Mr.. DIS finest grated pear
tree, that had borne choice fruit for half a
century, was cut down by the vandal engi-
neers, as if it had been worthless poplar or
Il Balm of Gilead how Mr.. E. had lost two
promising spring calves already, and Mr. F..
had lost colt, that in three years would
have sold for every cent of two hundred
dollars This is the universal experience,
and everywhere that railroad goes, it is an
umitgated curse in the eyes of the people
for the first years of its operation. But a
locomotive along the track soon burns out
such old prejudices. 1t is not many years
before the farmer sees that he gets for the pro-
duce that used 10 rot in his granary, or never
was deemed profitable enough TO raise, a
price that astonishes him. The surplus OF
every crop he turns into cash. The garden
bed that yields peck of vegetables beyond
the demands of his kitchen, he converts di-
Tectly into money. The stock that he can
not winter he exchanges without the trouble
of riding to the nearest town, into hard sill
yer. The tree that shaded his corn field
which had not been cut down simply be-
cause there was no earthly use to make OF
it, he measures into cord-wood and trans
mutes into luxuries or comforts as he
chooses. He discovers atlast that railroad
does something for place more than by
building wooden depot-house, and furnish
ing TO a crippled peanut vender employ
ment for his time. Before he stops his
growing at the cussed railroad it has
quadrupled the value of his farm, larded al
his lean acres, given price to what hac
no sort of value before, and marked upor
every product that can be turned out on his
premises definite value. We have con
versed with scores of such mwittingly
wealthy men during a ramble Of a week or two
past. There were men whose farms were
hardly worth receiving before as gifts, tha
now tell their worth to thousands every day
of the year There were those who owneC
large tracts of timber, still growing because
locomotives sometimes set woods on fire
who have treasures in their forest that the.
DO not dream of. 1t is a "day of roads,
and it would not do any harm for some o
our secular preachers to thunder it in thei
ears, lest they die thinking themselves poor
while the heirs will take the fat legacies from
their death clenched hands.