Daily Richmond Whig. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1865-1869, 1866-01-25
RICHMOND WHIG.
THURSDAY MORNING G.....JAN. 25, 1866.
Inducements to Immigrate to Virginia.

southern latitude might eneryate its popula
ton and latitude further north, owing to the
shortness of the seasons, would not produce the
cereal and vegetable crops in as great per-
tection.
The staple crops in the counties towards the
Atlantic coast are Indian corn, oats and wheat.
Sweet potatoes, and peas or beans, are culti-
waited as field crops, and grow in great per-
fection. Vegetable farms, convenient to ship
ping, are very profitable, and their products,
not only of vegetables, but of early fruit, are
sent to the more northern markets. The soil
is sandy, and the crop best suited to it is In
dian corn-grown largely for export. The
lands are level, soft and easily cultivated. In
many counties oysters, fish and wild fowl
abound. The oyster trade is extensive and
profitable.
Middle Virginia, particularly the Piedmont
region, has soil that was originally very fer
tile, and is now susceptible of the highest i'm
provement. The soil itself has sufficient mine
raj ingredients to render it permanently pro-
ductive, with the occasional aid of vegetable
manures. The subsoil is very retentive of ma
nure, and all improvement is lasting. Tobac-
co, wheat and Indian corn are the great sta
pies Good farmers, in the days Of slavery.
would raise one hundred bushels of wheat and
fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco to each la
borcr; and such cropping was considered as
profitable as the cotton crop further south. The
soil is well suited to oats, rye, peas and beans,
aud they arc grown as field crops. This Pied
mont country is admirably adapted to the
growth ofthe vine but tobacco cultivation has
been so profitable that little attention has been
paid to the grape, except for table use. The
few experiments made of wine vineyards have
been decidedly successful. The profits from
agriculture in Virginia, before the war, were
very great, as the exports made will show but
still her agricultural resources were not one
tenth developed.
The highlands of Piedmont Virginia, owing
to long summers, are rather dry for the fine
rrasSes-Such as redtop and timothy; but they
produce red clover in great perfection. The
Hat lands are admirably adapted to the growth
of the meadow grasses, including those above
named.
This Piedmont region is well suited to sheep
raising, and raising of horned cattle; but they
flourish still better on the mountain slopes and
in the Valley, beyond the Blue Ridge. The
Valley of Virginia is extremely fertile, and is
almost unsurpassed in its capacity to raise
wheat and clover. 1t grows prolifcly all ce-
real and leguminous crops.
Nearly every part of Virginia is adapted to
fruit culture, and the counties bordering on
the Blue Ridge produce the apple, especially,
in great perfection.
MINERAL RESOURCES.
Virginia is inexhauStible in her mineral
wealth. Coal is found at short intervals from
tide-water to the mountains, and thence to her
western border; and, from geological indica-
every town that may hereafter spring up and
need it. Iron is scarcely less extensive. 1t is
mined with large profit. 1t is found in
abundance in some of the more elevated
parts of the State, and the ore of the
best quality. Plaster, lime, lead, &C., all
abound in Western Virginia. A great
broad belt of gold crosses the State from
border to border. The mineral wealth of the
State is comparatively unexplored. DR.. GRANT,
acting as State GeologSt, has made the decla-
ration that, with one or two exceedingly rare
exceptions, there is no known mineral or metal
that does not exist in this State in working
quantities and that, while Virginia has all
minerals and metals, she has each in as great
abundance as any other State.
HER POLITICAL AND MORAL STATUS.
One of the greatest inducements to imm-
crate to Virginia, is the moral and conservative
tone of her society and institutions. The laws
of her municipal government have always been
entirely free and equal, and the theory and
practice of the government are, that all politi-
cal power resides in the majority of the people,
to be exercised under the limitations and ac-
cording to the requirements of the constitution
and laws. She has, in reference to her inter
nal government, enjoyed liberty security and
order 4 rational religion and high-tOned mo-
rality have ditfuSed themselves her social and
politicalorganism, and aidedthe sanctions OF law
in preserving regard for order and security.
Her late difficulties with the general Govern
ment afford no evidence of any want of stabil-
ity in her social or political system, viewed
as a State or municipal community. There
was no element of discord, no strife between
capital and labor, no prevailing intidelity, and
none OF those eXtrayagant 'iSmS" which are the
offspring of ignorance, fanaticism and scepti-
cism. The war with the United States did not
spring from want of conservatism among the
3 people. 1t grew out of an idea-whether true
or ialSe-that the Federal Government had no
rightful power to coerce States, and was, on her
part, purely defensive. The result of the wal
has settled these questions, and has left the
population of the State with the same devotion
to law and order-the same veneration for re-
ligiOn and liberty, as before.
We do not think that the present relation OF
, the Southern States to the General Govern
, ment is any serious objection to immigration to
, Virginia. 1t is impossible for such an attitude
to last long. Fanaticism is a stream that will
foam off in its own good time. The idea Of a
great republican government, protesting to be
, the beacon-hght of liberty in the world, hold
ing millions of freemen as subiugated pro-
yinces, Is too absurd to last long-and that, too,
under an organic agreement declaring that all
Just government depends on the consent of the
governed, and asserting it to be the right and
duty of every people to shake off oppression
when it becomesintolerable When, therefore
a returning sense of justice on the part of the
, dominant party of the North shall have recon
4 struetsd the Union on the basis of political
equality, sectional feeling will gradually die
away, and Virginia will enter upan new career
e. Of prosperity and greatness.
EFFECT OF EMANCIPATION on PRICE OF LANDS
:. Sudden emancipation of the slaves, added tC
e perfect exhaustion of the money capital OF
a ;he country in support of the war, have re-
duced the price of lands in many sections ol
: the State from twenty to thirty per cent Fins
e tracts of land that would not perhaps have been
thrown into market for centuries may be bought