The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1871-06-30


chaming valley is superior to that I;
for with a climate lust as soft, it is
better wooded and watered.
L discover IN your State many un-
occupied fields of industry which
would be very attractive to the for
efgneT, and especially inviting to the
Germans and French, the Scotch,
Dutch and English, with their skill,
energy, industry, ingenuity, frugal
ity and resources.
Your climates are as theirs-nOt
divided out into seasons of wet and
dry. like Spanish America-but or
dained for winter and summer,
spring and autumn, with fruitful
showers at all seasons. Your annu-
al rain fall is about forty inches,
and corresponds to that nf France,
England and Germany, with more
sunshine than any of those, Cor even
Italy, and a climate altogether as
lovely and as healthy. Everything
that can be cultivated in France, Ger
many or England may be grown in
Tennessee equally as well, with 9TH
er things besides, such as Indian
corn, cotton, tobacco, peanuts, broom
corn, sweet potatoes, ETC., which are
not known as staples there.
The climates and soils of Tennessee
see are as favorable to cultivation of
the grape and the manufacture of
wine as they are in France and Ger
many. The mulberry and the worm
for silk would find more genial eli
mates and favorable conditions here
than there. So with the beet and its
sugar, hops and beer, olives and oil,
for where figs grow the olives
thriYes.
Water power of vast extent, and
mill sites of offering manufacturing
facilities ofthe most desirable nature,
free from interruption, alike from
the frosts of winter, and the droughts
of summer, abound in all parts Of the
State. But there they are the one
vacant, and the other running by to
waste for the want of capital and
labor.
If we look below the surface at the
treasures that are contained there we
shall find that the openings for capi-
tai and labor, and the fields for en-
terprise below the soil are quite as
rich with promise and as inviting as
those above it.
But let us return to the plan for
bringing emigrants from abroad into
our borders and follow it mp a little
further. Forty acres Ofland on long
credit, or rent for a few years to a
family of five-the introduction of
two hundred families on the average
to each county. Why, that calls in
the aggregate for only 6,720, 600 acres
out of the 81, 900, 600 of unimproved
and waste lands which the census
of 1860 tells us were lying idle in Ten
nessee. Reserving each one to your
selves a farm of ninety acres, which,
not including woodlands and waste
acres, is as much as you cultivate now
on the average, would IeaYe enough
space in the whole State for upward
of 2, $50, 600 farms, of forty acres each,
and houses for more than -, 600, 900
newcomers to follow the 81, 600 that
it IS probable you should aim to start
with
Nor is this all. Be neighbOrly; re-
ceive these new corners with hOspitali-
ty; treat them kindly; encourage them
by the benefit of your own experience as
old residents. Send them a helping
hand whenever you can, and assist
them to do well. By SO doing, you
in your cause, writing and preaching
up to kinsmen and friends in the old
country the advantages and blessings
of their new homes, thus keeping up
for you, with Increasing force, the tide
of imn igratiOn, which you and you
alone, in our day and generation, have
the power to put in motion.
Now, for the per contra. What
will you lose by this plan? You will
lose for some years the uses of forty
acres of land, which is now lying idle;
which you have not the power to cul-
tivate; which you cannot rent or sell,
and which is impOvishing you to keep.
In other words the plan suggested is
80 rich with promise that you can't
lose and may win.
These people will come to you per-
haps not with the accents of mother
tongue upon their lips, but with a
language, social habits, manners and
customs not your own, and peculiar
to themselves. Therefore encourage
them to come in settlements; give
them in fee simple and at once, as fast
as they ceme in settlements of not less
than, sites for villages, churches
and schoolhOuses.
Suppose that in 1865 you had pro-
ceeded to organize some such effective
plan for the encouragement of emigTa-
ton, by Offering 5000 acres in each
county, in 10000 tracts, upon easy
terms, you certainly would have got
some immigrants. Do you think you
would have been worse off than you
are now? On the contrary, would
your lands have been as unsaleable as
they are at present? AS it is, instead
of Increasing, I think the value OF
your land has decTeased-that is, they
are not worth as p1uch now, in 1871,
as they were in 1850. The census
| gives the cash value of farms, by
! counties, in 1850. The average then
for your State, was about S270, 900, ,00(
-S13 the acre.
The wealth of the State is in heI
| own bosom, and that belongs to you
| If you can dispose of a portion of youI
surplus acres at fair prices, you will
| be placed again in a position which
| will enable you to exercise the infiu-
| ence and control that you exeTted fol
such great and noble purposes before;
! and do not see how you can SO dis
| pose of these vast possessions in youl
| lifetime, unless you can induce capi.
| tai and labor to come into the State
more rapidly than they are, or have
been doing since the war. Unless you
/ do this, you will lose control of the
! State, and your children be made
| hewers of wood. They will no longer
! be the men of Tennessee.
The most ready way of doing this
Is to advertise and make known tC
! those who are quitting the old coUn.
try, before they quit, the advantage:
which Tennessee and Tennesseeani
are prepared to offer them if they viii
/ come to you direct. Tell them of be-
undevelOped resources and their ex
haustless character. Tell them wha
facilities you are prepared to offer
hold out, and what encouragemeB
your State is ready TO give. Be no
niggardly, either in promise or perfor
nd Il u