Arkansas true Democrat., 1858-09-29
THE STATE OF ARKANSAS.


 trbuted, including the semi annual distribution made on the first day of July, 1858, is S476,- PTS 05. The only condition upon which this fund was given to the counties, was, that it should be applied to purposes of internal im- provements. Some counties have united with those adjoining in improving the navigation of rivers, and in some such cases have judicionsly expended their money. Others, putting moro liberal construction on the purpose of the grant, have used it for opening new county roads'-- Others. again, have investeS 1t Tn stock of the different projected railroads. Others, still, have loaned the money and increased the fund. In few counties, we are advised, the want of care in securing the loans, or neglect of the county courts in requiring the officers having charge of the fund to make exhibits and settle ments, has resulted in loss so that the real amount due, or who from, cannot be ascertain ed. Consequently, while some counties can show quite large amount on hand, others have nothing.
 Our State is miserably deficient in regard to good roads, There are two or three reasons for this. As we before had occasion to remark, the principal roads of the State are made through the poorest portions. As matter of course, the bulk of the settlements were made on the good lands, at some distance from these roads, and there were not sufficient persons living on the line of the road to keep it in repair In new county, thinly people, it is unreasonable to look for good roads as we would in densely populated old one. Still another reason is found in the manner of working the roads. Instead of beginning at some point and making mile or two of good turnpike road, the overseer and his hands work only atthe bad places;" throw ing little brush and dirt here, or building log bridge there and passing over five or ten miles of road in day. The road tax, whether paid in labor or in cash, is the heaviest tax paid in the State and very little is accomplished by it, for too large portion goes in the way of fees to officers.
 In some of the counties a road tax is levied and large sums of money raised, yet complaints are made that the roads are no better now than under the old system. In this, (PulaskD coun- ty, the road-tax, last year was S7,111 43, a sum sufficiently large, one would think, to give Us good roads, especially when that or larger sum, is yearly expended on them. The people who pay these taxes should look to this and in- sst upon judicious expenditure of their money.
 In comparing our State with others and con ( ! ! improvements with those existing or in progress ill our sister States due allowance should be made for two or three important facts. In the old States the land is owned by their ctizens- Here, the greater part of it, until within few years, was owned by the general government, and to-day, there are over fourteen million of acres of United States lands within our limits There, the surplus capital seeks investment in railroads, factories, or other things Here, it is invested in land. There, the money invested in such en- terprises remains in the commonwealth. Here, when paid to the receiver of public moneys, it is carried off and goes to build light houses on some point in Maine or elsewhere. There is a continual drain on the State, in her, so to speak, buying herself. In other States when farmer makes hundred dollars from his farm. he na. turally seeks to invest it. h Arkansas, the farmer takes his hundred dollars to buy tract of land adjoining him. People at the north who talk of fine farm of ten or twenty acres, and who look upon the owner of a hundred acres as something of nabob would be astonished to find thousands of men in Arkansas owning from one hundred and sixty to thousand acres, who call themselves poor. If the public lands were all taken up, it is obvious that this money now poured into the cofers of the general govern ment, would remain n our midst and be invest ed in other enterprises.
 It may suprse some of the croakers and villi- fers of Arkansas who are so fond of citing the fact that we have, as yet, no railroad or other great work of internal improvement completed, to tell them, that, within the past few years no State in the Union has made more internal im- provements, according to population than our own. We repeat it. and can prove it, that more improvement, more work and more progress 1
 
 years, than among any other 3O0OO0 feople.- | We look at the report of hundred miles of | railroad being built as an evidence of the labor and enterprise of people. As an offset to this. | let us make calculation of the number of acres of land cleared and fenced in Arkansas in a | year. Would 100000 acres in a year begin to cover the true estimate? At five dollars an 1 acre, this would be one million of dollars worth | of improvements in one yearl Add to this the | fencing, the buildings erected by new settlers and it swells up to several millions. A few | years ago, the taxable property of the State Was under fifty millions of dollars-now it is over a hundred millions. The value of taxable pro- perty has doubled in five years. It is apparent to every man that with the few acres in culti- vation then, our citizens have been enabled to make enough to buy as much more land, that when the land is all bought and in cultivation | there will be vast surplus capital Hereto fore, our people have been clearing the forests. driving the wolf, bear and panther before them, pioneering the way, and struggling for living. Those who come after us will find the forests felled, the fields enclosed and will have only to SOW in order to reap.
 There is still another reason, to be found in | the habits of frontier people. It is the want of home attachment. Thousands would emi- | srate if they could sell their farms, not because the land is not good or the climate healthy, | but from that disposition to migrate that seems inherent in them. In several instances hun dreds of families went to Texas and majority | of them came back. Hundreds move from one | county to another exchange places and other wise show desire to be always on new farm. The genuine frontersman considers himself | crowded if he finds two or three families within | five miles of his cabin. Such people care noth- ing for good roads nor do they identify them selves with the interests of their county or