The New era. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1865-1871, 1865-10-26
WEST VIRGINIA.
BY j. R. DODGE.


The organization of West Virginia as
II free State will give great impetus to
enterprise when industry resumes its
wonted channels. The salt and iron,
and coal, and coal oil, which exist in al
most fabulous abundance, will occupy
the ready capital and willing labor of
tens of thousands of thriving citizens {;
and manufactures will flourish, and agri-
culture advance, and the wilderness of
the past, full of floral beauty and lavish
with wild profusion as it has been, will
blossom with a sweeter fragrance and a
richer magnificence under the magic
touches of the hand of free and intelli-
gent labor.
With coal at forty-fve cents per ton,
iron in almost equal cheapness, the best
of timber for the cutting and hauling,
coal oil defying facilities for cooperage,
abundant harvests from fertile soils, and
magnificent river to float the products
of industry to a market-what region
in which to manufacture the sugar mills
and reapers and other implements of
western agriculture.
The Department of Agriculture, which
has been interested in " itnessing and
fostering the spirit Of improvement now
springing into activity in this valley,
has received gratifying assurances of
promised success in sorghum and in cot
ton and other prominent products of in
dustry. 1t is a soil and climate peculiar
ly favorablet to those products which now
claim especial prominence.
A letter received at the department
from correspondent in this valley re-
ports prevalent absorbing interest in
the development of its resources. He is
interested in manufacturing, and says
that nowhere in the United States can
steam power be so economically obtain
ed. So abundant is the coal, in such
proximity to the factory, that it can be
run into the engine-house at a cost of
fort.y.fre centsperton. fthis coal there
are "four seams above water level, with
in Il vertical distance of 240 feet, giving
an aggregate thickness of II feet, or 3d.
900 tons of coal to the acre, consisting of
gray splint, rich bituminous, block splint,
birdSeye camel steam and smiths coal.o
This is within ten miles of Charleston, ON
navigation.
With such mines of undeveloped
wealth, above and below the soil, and in
water power, and in facilities for high
~ developed agriculture, what shall
hinder the progress in population and
wealth of this southern section of the
now free and regenerated West Nir-
ginia:?
Greenbrier county has been settled for
eighty-three years, 1t occupies depres-
sion OF the Allegheny range, the noun
tain SUBMITS scarcely more than two
thousand feet high, and the mean ele-
walton of the arabic lands of the county
fifteen hundred. The soil is, much Of
it, strongly impregnated with lime, and
consists mainly of a rich, black, friable
loan. Such soils, in the southern slopes
of hills and in the valley of the Green
brier, produce abundant crops of maize,
ordinarily from thirty to fifty bushels
per acre, with careless culture, and sew
enty-tiye to one hundred bushels on the
bestlocations, with skillful management.
The soil and climate peculiarly adapt
this region to the purposes Of the grazier.
IT a ray of sunlight can reach a spot in
the densest forest, that surface soon be-
comes green with the blue grass sod
Thousands of cattle yearly depasture
those mountain plains and slopes.
In Greenbrier are the famous "White
sulphur Springs" among the most re-
nowned of all the fashionable watering
places Of the continent. Their waters
are impregnated with carbonic and nj
trogenous gases, sulphates of lime, and
magnesia, and carbonates of lime, iron,
iodine, and phosphorus. This whole re-
gion is interspersed with fountains OF
high medicinal virtues. The "Blue Sui
phur" is also in Greenbrier. In the adj
joining county, Monroe, are found the