Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-05-17
Communicated
Western Maryland and West Virginia
Rivers = Soil Climate In
dustrial Advantages.

For fertility of soil and beautiful
and picturesque scenery, western
Maryland excels any other portion
of our rapidly improving Common
wealth. Washington county, (whose
county seat is Hagerstown, dating
back in its origin to the days of the
Revolution,) is some forty miles in
extent from east to west, and in some
parts of it's territory, not over FIVE
miles in width, presenting most nov
el aud unnatural appearance on our
State map. Its southern boundary
is the swiftly flowing Potomac, a
river about the size of the Wisconsin
but wholly unlike it, inasmuch as it
has but few beautiful islands covered
with forests and foliage, to adOrn its
waters, which go on tumbling over
rocks and boulders. in its hasty
flight toward the placid waves of the
noble Chesapeake. Standing on the
borders of this ancient River, have
often thought of Washington, aud a
noble band of patriots like him, who
long ago tread its lovely banks, and
whose eyes beheld the long line of
the coming ages which should render
the Potomac as immortal as Iser and
the classic streams of Oriental lands.
The Potomac is a serpentine river,
turning and twisting in every con-
ceivable form as it makes its way
among the mountain spurs of Virgin
10, which at this season of the year
stretch out before ones vision as far
as the eye can reach, covered with
emerald and variegated with hum
dred towering peaks. The scenery
at Harpers Ferry exceeds anything |
ever witnessed on the upper Missis-
sippi, the mountains on the Maryland
and Virginia sides Of the river being
percipitous and lofty, set with the
toughest. hardest, most uncouth class
of boulders upon which the human
ego ever rested. The Shenandoah,
which unites with the Potomac at
Harpers Ferry, is the size of the
Chippewa, but its course is much
more circuitous and its waters flow
much more rapidly-a characteristic
of all streams flowing through noun
famous regions OF country. North
and south branches of the Potomac,
separated only by range of the
Alleghanies, are something like your
Black and kindred rivers, affording
fine specimens Of water facilities,
needing only the indomitable enter
prise and inventive genius of West
ern people to make them prominent
points of manufacturing power.
In letter to the Herald four
years since, and just after an extend
ed tour among the mountain counties
of Virginia, some facts were given OF
the many advantages 20 industry
and perseverance, presented to West
erners in this delightful portion Of
the South, which letter brought the
writer numerous epistles from farm
ers residing then in Grant County,
but who have douptless found con-
tentment in II West, or perchance,
may still be looking out for some
more congenial spot where to spend
the residue Of their days. To such /
would say, West Virginia, with the
border counties in the Old Dominion,
offers to industry and genius every
possible inducement. Lands are
cheap, ranging from S. to s25 per
acre, salubrious climate, and winter
not over half the length of those in
northern Wisconsin and southern
Minnesota. | often wonder how
farmers content themselves to labor
nearly six months out Of twelve to
provide food for their stock through
the other half of the years Du-
ring the past winter, overeoats were
scarcely needed in this climate, an d
the writer often reflected on the Sc
we're cold winters which he spent in
Lancaster, Prairie du Chen, Patch
Grove, Wingville and Hazel Green,
to say nothing of some ten years
moro spent as an itenerant minister
in other parts of your State, during
which he came near perishing with
cold, though ensconsed amid buffalo
robes and all the paraphernalia-of a
Minnesota outfit. From June to
November the Northwest is Paradise
in its beauty and geniality, but the
remainder of the year bears a strik-
ing resemblance to paradise Lost"
man 10 driven from a garden Of
flowers, "where fruits in great pro-
fusion grow" to shut himself up for
six dreary months, with no fragrance
to cheer the heart, no beautiful Wis
ions to greet the eye, nothing but
the bowling Of the pitiless storms Of
sleet and snow, and the blazing of
fagots fudge, did | say fagots rath-
err piles of bark and hickory, heaped
in wild profusion on the hearth stone,
around which gather the family cir
Gle, in many instances the very pic
ture Of shivering dispair. Pardon
me, friend Cover, | do not wish to
present an overdrawn picture, but |
came so near freezing to death one
December morning, between Joe.
McKinney's farm and Lancaster, not
far from the county poor-house, that
the remem brance of it fills my mind
with horror and those vast heaps of
snow amid which my horse founder
ed, in the winter Of sc, between
Jimmy 7. Browns and VIM. Houdle's
in Clifton, like some whitened ghost,
hound me even to this day.
But / have somehow left the South
in the rush of thought, and fallen in
10 moralizing on the ice and snow OF
a Wisconsin winter. Western Mary
land shall have my undivided atten-
ton in my succeeding letters.
BoonsboiO, Nd, May g. 1870 GLORIOUS.
s9-An earnest Christian writer
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