The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1867-12-31
The North Carolina Railroad
From the Hllsbore Recorder.
HILLsBoRo, Dec. LIST,

M. Editor AS you were not among the
Editors who lately waged such fierce war upon
the President of the n. G. r. R., eor even, in
the language of the iron clad, gave laid, counte-
nance or encouragement" by copying in your
paper the assaults of others, desire the use of
your columns, not to defend from old nor to pro-
woke to renewed assaults, but to call the atten-
ton of the public to the new tariff and new
policy lately inaugurated. 1t will answer no
good purpose at this late date to pick up one or
any of the gloves thrown by your brethren with
such defiance at my feet 1t is good generalship
to avoid fght with women or editors, for they
are sure to have the last word. When [ came to
my present business and place [ was ready to
sign a treaty of amity and friendship with most
of the editors and treaty of silence with ALL
My first purpose was to make speedy and es~
sentia1 change in the desi gins and operations of
the Road, and if could work out dividend for
stockholders, and at the same time some good to
the mining mineral, manufacturing and agricul-
tural interest of the State, great purpose would
be accomplished.
Our road has more than once been run ia debt
in order to catch the through travel, which we
never did and [ fear never will command. The
little we do command pays us two cents and a
mill mile. When we were running for it the
monthly receipts from through travel was little
less than 500 per month. The expense of run
ming the train for it was $500 month.
The Superintendent thought it best to quit
the chase for through travel, diminish the speed
and attach freight cars to through travel
train.
This experiment of freight cars attached to
the through travel train brought into the Treas
ury $4,000 per month for freight alone, to say
nothing of the travel We may, in fact we did
lose portion of our through travel, but we could
afford to do it on such terms.
Last year ran at lightning speed for through
travel, and We ran 500, 900 more out of the
Treasury than we were able to run into it,
The effort and policy Of the road has ever been
to make the travel and not the freight pay. The
policy has been against the labor and industry of
the State. [ might add, such has been the policy
of most Southern roads. A few illustrations will
better explain what [ mean than pages of reason
or argument.
a barrel of -four could be sent from Boston or
New York over our road to Charlotte cheaper
than you could send the same barrel from Char
lotte to Goldsboro; and SO with almost any arti-
Gle you could name Every facility was given
to our people to buy cheap from others; but
given them to sell. In fact, diff
culties i'll the way of high tariffs forbid their sell
ing in foreign markets at all.
u ScullculaH III halclSn DOUSnC Il DdTrel OF
potatoes in Morganton. He afterwards learned
that he could buy potatoes in Raleigh from New
Y ork or Boston, at what the freight from Nor
canton had cost him. AS Mr. Rufus Tucker is a
director on the road know he will pardon me
if tell of practical joke played on him last
summer. He bought wheat bran in Charlotte at
sixty cents bushel, and paid 30 cents bushel
to get it to Raleigh-ninety cents for wheat bran
which he could buy for forty at home Lest
this statement should inj ure my friend Tucker
as business man and fnancier [ must state he
did not know the price of the bran or the freight
until it was delivered
People do not grow rich by what they buy,
but by what they sell. You may buy as cheap
from the North you please: but you will soon
buy yourselves poor if you do not sell them some
thing in return.
Under our new tariff we take butter and lard
from Charlotte to Goldsboro, at one cent pound
distance 223 miles. Chickens and ducks half
a cent each; six cents for turkey; bacon, beef
and pork tour-ffths of a cent per pound; apples
and potatoes fifteen cents bushel; hay thirty
cents per hundred.
Nhlle L write, some enterprising man is pass
ing with 1000 chickens for the Baltimore market
They cackle and crow, as if they were glad to
die for forty and fifty cents apiece instead of ten
illu thtlfc ana d lldll oacH
L have written to Charleston, Wilmington and
Newbern, to learn what amount Of hay is brought
into each of these ports annually from New Eng
land; it is immense With three cents tax on
cotton, forty cents tobacco, and two dollars Oh
"hlskey: our people should turn their attention
to clover and hay. There is now more money in
it than in the great Southern staples, cotton and
tobacco.
The sea shore counties of North and South
Carolina furnish a market for New England hay
1T dollar and fifty cents per hundred. l say.
lut your cotton and tobacco, and cultivate grass
for hay. The wet seasons foc three years past
have been most prGpitious to the growth of this
Great untaxed New England staple.
One advantage too, it has over all other pro-
tucts. 1t can't be taxed. Hay, being the spon-
aneous production of the earth and little or no
ploughing or hoeing being necessary to produce
It, could bear tax better than cotton or tobacco
1t could do so without being called disloyal,
would suggest to Congress a modification of the
nay in place of partial confscation.
Congress has not set its face more strongly
against Southern Agriculture than have the |
Southern Railroads by their false policy of high |
ariffs on the outgoing products Of the soil
nope both will learn, before it is too late, that
here is much truth in the saying of the great
English farmer, statesman and philosopher
Il hat for government to experiment on the farmer
most perlous thing, for his is very poor trade,
subject to great risks and losses; it is the most
orecarious in its advantages, the most liable to
osscs; and the least profitable of any that is car
led on. It requires ten times more of labor, of
vigilance, of attention, of skill and let me add |
II for+u aalSn 70