Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1873-12-19
Our County and its Advantages,


The winter is now upon us, and the
farmer has holiday and leisure to indulge
in social intercourse and other matters not
so intimately connected with the actual
tilling of the soil or the securing of the
crops. But this period of relaxation is
brief and uncertain, and therefore we avail
ourselves of the opportunity of saying a
few words to them on subject of which
we have often thought, and in which they
are deeply interested.
We, who live on the peninsula between
the Potomac and Patuxent rivers, have
certainly been blessed by Providence be-
yond any people that we know of On
both of these magnificent rivers, unequal
led for the beauty of their scenery, we have
steamers and sail craft, plying every day,
for carrying our produce to the three cities
of Alexandria, Washington and Baltimore,
and when to this facility of access to mark
ct we add the railroad, we do not hesitate
to say there is scarcely man in Charles
county who is not within two hours haul
ing of either navigation or the railroad
Think of the great grain region of the far
West; of the great cotton and rice fields of
the South, many, many miles from commu-
nication by either rail or water, then say
we are not blessed in this one respect
When we add to this the luxuries afforded
by these streams-the oysters, fish and wild
fowl, found nowhere else in such perfection
that at the very mention of their names the
epicurian mouth involuntarily waters
Then the climate is unsurpassed by any,
never subject to one extreme or the other,
without the bitter blasts of the North
west, where hundreds are frozen to death
every winter, or the fierce blazing sun of
the South, where exposure to its midday
sun is certain death to all except negroes
and alligators. The health of our people
will compare most fayorably with that of
any other. Our soil is suited for not only
the growth of the great staple crops Of
wheat, corn and tobacco, butalso the pro-
duction of fruit of almost every variety
that can be grown outside of the tropics.
For the growth of this latter the soil is I'M
exceptionally fine. In former years we
have seen vineyards of several acres of the
most choice grapes, imported from France,
flourish in this county with a luxurious
ness and lusciousness not surpassed in
their native land. Where will you find
the melon and cantaloup grown in more
melting mood than on our light sandy
SOLE Where the delicate peach, the rich
favored apple? The strawberry is indi-
genous and may be found growing in any
old field of sedge.
Thus we might go on enumerating the
products of this our favored land until we
had mentioned nearly everything that goes
to make up the sum of human enjoyment,
and from the cultivation of which great
profits could be made, but to do so would
occupy too much space. We have said
enough to make good our. assertion that
Providence had bestowed upon our people
a heritage blessed with more natural adj
vantages than any equal area of territory
that we know of
Yet with all these blessings of soil, eli
mate, location and markets, so munifcent-
ly bestowed upon us, our people are not
happy, because not prosperous. Why is
this9 And what is the remedy9 These
questions we will discuss hereafter. Space
will not permit us to do so now.