Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1871-06-16
Immigration.

immigration to this country, whether through
the publications of the Bureau of Statistics, at
Washington, or those of the American Social
Science Association, at Boston, there Is man
ifest tendency to depreciate the claims and re-
sources of the Middle and Southern States.-
1t would seem as if these books and pamph-
lets were made in the special interest of the
railroad companies, or of private and public
land spectators. Tho unbounded capacity
of the West, as an agricultural region, is
glowingly described; whilst all the drawbacks
that are incidental to new country are either
but lightly touched upon, or are not alluded
to at all. NO consideration seems to be given
to the fact that the free lands are many miles
distant from lines of railroad; that they are
difficult of access that of society, in the sense
in which it is generally understood, there is
little or none, and that schools, churches,
mills, country stores and all the convenlences
OF life are often so remote as to render them
nearly accessible
Moreover, all the region-from Missouri
and Kansas westward to the Rocky Noun
tains and northward to the British Possessions
Consists Of great plains, more or less undu-
Iatipg, which are scantly furnished with wood
and water. The first has to be drawn from
long distances whilst to obtain the second
wells have to be dug. Even in Missouri
] from Report now lying before us, the aver
age expense of fencing farm is fifteen dol
lars an acre, and this heavy charge has to be
incurred before seed is put into the ground.
AS we 60 further west into the interior of
Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska-all
of them States to which immigration is now
largely tending, and where extensive tracts of
fertile lands are still open to settlement-tim-
Der is difficult to be had, and the cost is con-
sequently vastly greater.
But supposing these obstacles overcome,
and that an opportunity offers for settlement
along the course of one of the great main
trunk lines that traverse the Continent, and
that lands can be bought within such easy
distance of the rail as to afford rapid means Of
| transportation to market, the price ranges,
according to the latest statistics, from So to
! SIS per acre.
| In Iowa, the great land companies offer for
! ty-acre tracts, at distance Of from twelve to
twenty-five miles from railroad, at So per
acre; but for the rest of the two millions of
acres owned by them, they ask from SIS to
| $40 per acre, according to the proximity OF
the land to the line of railroad and its near
ness to station. For woodland they charge
from SIS to $40 per acre, according to loca-
ton and quality. The price of wood for fuel
ranges from 81 upwards In Nebraska, the
price of land ranges from 81 to SIS per acre,
according to quality the price of the lands
being regulated, as in Iowa, by their distance
| from railroad.
In Kansas, the want of timber is so greatly
| felt that by an act of the State Legislature
"any one who plants and cultivates for three
years any forest trees, except black locust. is
entitled, for period of twenty-five years. to
an annual bounty of two dollars an acre. =
A similar bounty, but limited to eight years.
is also given for every forty rods of stone wall
four and a-half feet high or for like length
of Usage orange, or hawthorn hedge strong
enough to resist stock. Taking, then, all
these draw backs into consideration, it is GER
tainly doubtful whether an industrious family
| of small meaps CAD do So well, even in the
course of years, on the wild lands of the West,
as on lands now offered for sale in the Middle
and Southern States. The principal advan-
| tage claimed for the Western lands is their
fertility. But this is counterbalanced by the
many and serious difficulties encountered in
new settlements, and by the low price which
the farmer getb for his products. The heavy
cost of transportation to market-whether
that market be ST. Louis or Chicago-obliges
him to dispose of the surplus of his crop to
nddlemen, and consequence is that whilst
corn may be selling at St. Louis and Chicag"
at fifty cents bushel, and wheat at a dollar
and quarter, the farmer in the interior Of
Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska. rarely real
izes more than twenty-five cents for the Que,
or sixty cents for the other.
Here, in the Middle States, if the produce
per acre is less, the difference in price, as COM
pared with that obtained in the remoter parts
of the West, more than compensates for the
lesser yield. Land, partially exhausted by
constant cropping and careless tillage, may
be bought in Maryland at rates per acre al
most, if not quite as low as the better quality
of wild Western lands. whilst the cost Of fenc-
ing in the latter, Of erecting buildings, and OF
breaking the soil for tillage, if applied to the
renovation of out poorer soils would bring
them to point OF fertility equal to tue aver
|. age of those at the West, and would render
them Of immeasumbly greater market value.
baltimore Gazette.