The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-07-03

North. Carolina and Virginia, on the home
ward trip, Isaw something of the South.
Tnow know from observation and inter
course, something of its people, and ! 90
but soy to you, what ! said to each OF my
audience, large or small, public or private, In
school room. or from the public platform,
that the whole people will soon regard the
terrible war through which we have just
passed, us the throes and agony of the birth
Of new, higher, holier, and more blessed
nation than the world has yet known. Great
applause)
/ eaw during my trip country upon which
the Almighty has with most lavish hand
bestowed His richest material gifts. 1t is
uorpcd with every mineral have scarcely
been In State that does not abound in coal,
iron. copper and lead, and have travelled for
DAYS over u region of country US richly I'M
tlerlaid with collaborating quartz as the
mountains Of Colorado or California. Let
me speak specially of North Carolina, be-
cause, rs it is equally true of Virginia, pow
erty has driven hundreds of thousands OF her
native citizens into exile. My friends, North
Carolina is the most beautiful and richest
portion Of Gods earth upon which my VS.
ion or feet have ever rested. You know that
she produces cotton, rice, indigo, tar, pitch,
turpentine and superior timber. You know
that her soil and climate are adapted to the
cereals, wheat, corn, rye, buckwheat and oats
But you probably do not know what that
State long known as the Rip Van Wrinkle of
the Union, from which more than fifty thou
sand free white people have fled to the two
States of Indiana and Illinois, is the land OF
wine and honey, the apple and peach, OF
the fig and pomegranate, all Of which saw
prospecting in open field and under the most
artless culture. Its native vines made the
fortune of Longworth, who carried cuttings
thence. The wine producing vineyards of
Western Pennsylvania, around the base and
on the Islands Of Lake Erie, and scattered
through Missouri, are from the cuttings
taken from the native vines OF North-C Caro-
lima. Dr.
The Catawba, the Lincoln, the Isabella,
and richer than all the Scuppernong, OF
which as it has not yet been successfully,
transplanted, eastern North Carolina has the
monopoly. There it grows spontaneously
as weed. l
The woods and hill sides TEEN with the
richest honey-bearing flowers, and the bees
invite you to put up but rude box, that
they may reward your kindness with the
sweetest treasure. There is not vegetable
we produce that will not thrive in North
Carolina, and under these Astounding stores
of agricultural wealth, a belt, ranging from
forty to one hundred miles wide across the
entire State, is so richly underlaid with gold,
that person with common fryingpan,
may wash the sands of many of the rivulets,
and make from one to three dollars per day.
My friends, as I travelled from day to day
through this native wealth and beauty, l
saw how sin had driven man out of Paradise;
for never had seen such poverty as found
in North Carolina, save in South Carolina, J
Alabama and Mississippi, where people are
starving in the midst of natures richest
bounties.
You cannot comprehend and credit this
statement. I tell you it is true. could not
credit it myself. 1t was long before observa-
ton enabled me fully to comprehend it. Go
with me to Mississippi. will take you to
fernando Once fernando was an import
ant railroad town and station. There are
scattered around it few large old mansions,
abandoned and going to ruin, 1t was once
the centre of great cotton growing region,
but now, as far as the eye could range from
the platform of the car, we saw nothing but
sedge grass, weed that is valueless, or the
red, glaring subsoil, washed and cut by
countless gullies, till under the bright sun it
looked like million flames of red fire, blaz-
ing up from the earth.
| The owners of that once rich land had
| planted it each successive year with cotton,
till they extracted from it every agricultural
element and those fibrous roots with which
| nature mats the soil and protects it from
| washing. In response to question as to
the extent of the desolation we beheld, a
fellow traveller, Mississippian, said IS it is
| pretty WIDE There was not a plantation
within some miles of the station, on which
family could make living" and added,
"the soil was always light, and when the
rain began to wash it, it made quick work
of it." Skillful culture would not only have
| saved that wide region from desolation, but
added tc its wealth-producing power.
Come with me again, my friends, to South
Carolina, and behold mother who, having
"roped" herself to pillow, is striving to
drag it through the earth, while her son, APP
parently about eleven years old, endeavors
to guide it that they may open furrow in
which to deposit the few seeds Northern
charity has sent them. You cannot imagine
such scene. But l assure you that could
detain you for hours by illustrations but
little less striking than those of the terrible
results of devoting an entire people to the
production of few bulky agricultural pro-
ducts. Iwish you to remark that have
not spoken ofthe negroes of the South, but
OF the poor non-slaveholding whites. "the
low downs" as l often heard them called.
What would we, in Pennsylvania, with
our manifold Investigation of pursuits
think if the owner of farm of one hundred
acres should apply to the government for
rations to support his family. Yet it is not
a novel or unnatural sight at the South
Lieutenant Colonel ]. r. Edie, of the Eighth
Infantry, is Post Commandment at Salisbury
N. g., and administers the affairs of the
Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen within
his command. recognized in him not only
q gallant son of Pennsylvania, but an old
personal friend. 1t happened to be ration
day, which occurs, believe, once fort
night, and with my companions gladly
accepted his invitation to his Office, that VIZ
might observe the character and necessities
of the applicants. They must have number
ed hundreds, large preponderance of whom
d were whites. Many Of them had walked
more than fifteen miles to procure littl'
corn and bacon. t,ss5
As one lean, pale woman advanced ani
gave her name the Colonel said -" You
have been here before, and I think you owr
land" :" Yes, sir" said she, 81 own lit
tie" How much2 ?" asked he. About
hundred acres.n " How much of it is clear
ed 2" The butt end of it." swell, then
why did you not plant it 2" "All that
cleared is planted" What, then, bring