The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1872-03-05
What Virginia Needs.

Tho question now comes up,--how has
Virginia, arrayed with 50 many advan-
tagcs, yet failed, up to this time,-.and
failed 80 utterly,-of the expectations she
had formed Of immigration since the war?
The same disappointment is visible
throughout the south with the exception,
perhaps, of Florida and Texas) but it is
especially marked in Virginia both as
to the height other expectations, and the
extremity of her failure. The discussion
will serve as full exponent of faults of
discretion and of temper which have ap-
peared since the war, in nearly the entire
South. On the close of the war, Virgin
ia proposed to take the lead of the South
ern States in what was indicated as a
new era Of material prosperity. She
has composed all her political troubles
she has been admitted into the Union on
better terms than other Southern States
she is in profound peace, undisturbed by
Ku-klux or any other political appari-
ton; she renews her invitations to the
immigrant aud yet there is an utterly
dead failure as to the incoming prosperi-
ty she had expected The industrial in
terest excited towards her after the war
seems recently to have wholly retreated
the expected army of immigrants mas not
yet made its appearance and the few
straggers who ventured within her limits
have generally been disappointed, and re-
mained reluctantly, if they have not act
ally withdrawn in bitterness and dismay.
The condition Of the farming industry OF
Virginia to-day is thus described in Off
cial language: BARELY one-fourth Of
Virginia's land was cultivated in 1860
and since the abolition of slavery, its land
owners are working but one-half, in many
instances less than one-half of what they
did in 1867
For this failure Of immigration into
Virginia, the writer may mention three
notable causes, each one Of which has an
interest of its own, and involves consid-
erations Of the whole South These are
|. Mismanagement the want of
proper machinery Of advertisement, So
licitation, and transportation of immi-
grants.
2. Social prejudces not only such
as survived from the war towards the
North, but such as have grown out Of the
} isolated ond untravelled condition Of the
Southern people.
3. Mutual ignorance of the Virginian
and Of the immigrant as to ,chat is really
: icanted.
Virginia wants capital .and that bad
; ly. 1t is preferable, toe, that this capi
tai should come in the shape of immigra
ton, rather than in that Of impersonal iu-
vestmcuts 1t is also more desirable, so
far as the agricultural interest is concern
ed, that tn. aggregate of capital thus in
r troduced into the State should be distrlb-
. uted among as many owners as possible
We want number OF small capitalists
| dispersed through the State, making q
, real accession to our population, infusing
| into it new life and vigor, and especially
r aiding the tendency to cut up the for
: mer vast proprietorships of Virginia into
2 small farms. This lost result will be an
acquisition of itself to the agriculture Of
Virginia, which has heretofore suffered
and yet suffers from system of large
farms, that has excluded persons Of small
d. means, sighted the cultivation of the
y land, and is open to many objections. A
statistical table at hand affords, by analy-
r sis, the following divisions eff the culti-
3. waited land in Virginia