The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1866-05-29
TUESDAY EVENING, MAY %, 1866.
BY Rail from Tarboro' to the Roanoke

The application of steam as motive power,
to the commercial marine and to land trans
portation, has rendered many natural advan
tages, which, before this, were of great impor
lance, comparatively of little account.
Places which were once indebted to favora-
BILE location for opulence, now find that
steam, with its penetrating power, seeks very
often interior centres of trade, which before
were inaccessible, or nearly so, to sailing YES
sells; and natural advantages require, more
than ever, to be developed. This applies with
peculiar force to Norfolk. We enjoy here
certain great and peculiar environments,
which, properly used, must. ultimately give
us much, if not all, the trade and wealth of
which we have talked so long. Many of
these natural advantages may be sacrificed,
however, and the penetrating power of steam,
combined with local energy, can force inland
centres far beyond seaboard cities, if the lat
ter remain apathetic. Interior marts, linked
by rail with manufacturing, or mining, or
agricultural districts, are able to sustain large
trade; and hence natural advantages, without
enterprise and energy, count for very little
in the competition Nay, for that matter,
they may often become positive disadvanta-
ges, by inspiring false security. We have
one advantage, however, in our geographical
position, which nature herself has placed al
most beyond ability to sacrifice, though we
may leave it undeveloped
The physical conformation of the coast of
North Carolina, has established a natural al
lance between the Eastern counties of that
State and this town. The great sand-spit,
which runs along the eastern face of the "Old
North State" makes a vast break-water,
within which the shallow and treachereus
sounds lie as watery barriers across the out
lets of many of her noble rivers
The navigation of these great estuaries
must, by force of natural laws, always re-
main as dangerous and uncertain as it is to-
day. This restriction falls upon race re-
markable for quiet energy and transformations
courage The first of these qualities has been
shown in her manufacturing enterprises and ac-
cumulated wealth, of which the public at large
had but faint conception. The last named
virtue shone on every field from Bethel to
Bentonsville; from Manassas to Appomattox
Court House She is our natural ally in COM
mercial. advancement as she was in arms.
The fields OF peace call us to united effort as
loudly as those. of war; and our geographical
relations, not to speak of mutual esteem, COM
pei US to cooperation.
Now, more than ever, do the people of
Eastern North Carolina feel the disadvantages
Of their shallow and dangerous sounds, and
still more hazardous inlets. They have gone
to work with resolute endeavor to rebuild
their fallen fortunes. They have turned their
spears, which once shone in the fore front of
the battle, into plow-shares, and they are
determined to have them four-horse plows at
that They have converted their swords,
which once waved where the carnage was
thickest into pruning hooks, and feel am
bilious to enlarge them to reaping machines
The fiat lands along the rivers which, since
the days of the historian and traveller, Law
SON, have been famed for their fertility, are
in the hands of men determined to retrieve
their fortunes
We have private advices from high autho-
rity which assure us of this but we do not
need this information. We did not require
to be told of the energy of our neighbors of
their hopes Or their ambitions We had
sufficient knowledge Of them, and the re-
sources of the magnificent country which ma
ture has knit into alliance with us, to under
stand that they would work with energy and
intelligence. But had we required this in
formation, the movement now on foot to con-
meet Tarboro with the Roanoke by rail would
have been sufficient to proclaim at once the
enterprise and the necessities of the people
among whom it originated Edgecombe and
other opulent counties are looking hitherward
for transportation abroad for their cotton 1t
is estimated that two counties tributary to the
contemplated road will produce this year
some 10000 bales of cotton and though this
yield may, and probably will, fall short of
expectations, from defective seed and bad
seasons, still the work spoken of is not for to-
day alone, but for the future AS an evidence,
for example, of the energy with which Edge
eombe has gone to work, we need only state
the fact, which we do on competent authori
ty, that the production of cotton this year, if
not cut down by unforeseen causes, will only
fall short of that in 1861 by some 5000 bags.
This agricultural energy speaks volumes for
the capacity and energy of the people of that
region. 1t speaks to US with peculiar force,
for we see it striving to find its way to the
poanoLa r;yor in ordor +o saak tbis market