Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1874-04-08
FACTS ABOUT EAST TENNESSEE.
Answers to Corresponden,s-General New,

to know why so many people are leaving
East Tennessee, and what character of
people they are. We are glad our attention
tsas been called to this subject.
Very few of these people are land hold
-ers. Scarcely one in hundred. They
are mostly tenants, who have not been
prospecting, because they have tried to cul-
tivate large tract of land with inefficient
labor and poor tools. They go West,
doping to do better on rich virgin soil with
little labor. We are sorry to see them go,
because we think, by a reform in their
farming they could do better here. Many
of them are going to the cotton fields,
where they have been offered tempting
wages Some of them are colored, most
of them white. They do not leave East
Tennessee because they do not like it, but
because they hope to do better where la
Dor is scarcer, better wages are offered and
land yields better without fertilizers OF
hard work. They will come back in few
years wiser men. They will learn by
bitter experience that it takes hard
labor and close attention everywhere to
make farming pay. They will learn, how
ever, that in East Tennessee they can work
more months in the year on their farm
and raise greater variety of products, and,
all things considered, make more money
farming, than anywhere else. They will
learn that few States have lower taxes, that
few localities have greater natural advan-
tages in soil, water, timber, and climate,
than this favored section.
Northern farmers who have come here
from New England, the Middle States and
the West, all concur that all things consid-
cred this is one of the best agricultural Sec
.hings considered, we mean healthfulness
and the natural facilities for promoting
prosperity and happiness.
If our farmers would only sell of, at
cheap rates, their surplus lands, and invite
thereby men of energy, capital and good
farming ideas, this beautiful valley would
soon blossom as therose.
We give below the following article:
q Truthful Picture of Knoxville.
A latenumber of Frank Leslie's widely
circulated pictorial paper contains an ar
ticle about our city which presents us in
such fair and not too flattering light that
we reproduce it for the benefit of our home
and mana Northern readers:
Knoxville is one hundred and twelve
miles northeast of Chattanooga. We left
Chattanooga in the early twilight of Tues
day Morning. We came to Knoxville over
the East Tennessee and Virginia railroad,
passing through the thriving towns of
Cleveland, Athens, Sweetwater and Phila-
ielphia. The last place, however, does
not deserve the adjective thriving. 1t is a
quaint and curious tumble-down old burg,
looking as though it had taken the dry rot
forty years ago and never got the better of
Il. Poor old, played-out Philadelphia, you
appear to be the victim of bar-rooms and
mud and want of paint. In pleasant con-
trast with this is Sweetwater, a smiling
village, with sidewalks, churches, neat
cottages with green blinds, gates hung on
two hinges, and other surface indications
of civilization and enlightenment / be-
lieve there is paper there, also, given to
lengthy articles on the undeveloped re-
sources OF East Tennessee. This is fruit
ful theme, and one can spin upon it for
ever, but VIXEN it comes to developed re-
sources, about half column will do the
work.
Knoxville certainly gives indications of
solid and substantial growth. 1t has i'm
proved very much within the past year.
Extend the corporation line to where 1t
ought to be, and the claim of fifteen thou
sand population would not be very far out
of the way.
The wholesale trade of Knoxville is
greater than that Of any two cities in the
State put together, excepting Nashville and
Memphis. She draws her trade from the
rich Tennessee Valley for hundred miles
Ip and down, and from half dozen Other
valleys, small, but rich, which lie along
the streams tributary to the Tennessee. Ii
the matter of contiguous agricultural coun
try, Knoxville has immeasurably the ad-
vantage of Chattanooga, and always will
This Is the basis of her prosperity anC
wealth. Her merchants sell far up into
Kentucky, and down into North Carolina
and even into Virginia. The house o
Cowan, McClung d Co. sells to the amount
of over two million dollars annually, which
for place the size of Knoxville, is rush
ing business The house is novelty in it'
way, selling dry-goods, notiens, ready
made clothing, boots and shoes, hardware
stationery, and, until very recently, gro
ceries, all from under one roof. But ii is {
large roof, covering building that would
do credit to New York, or any other city
of the first class. The drug house of San
ford, Chamberlain d Albers Is also worthy
of note. In their efforts to build up
wholesale trade, the people of Knoxville
have met with great success. But they
have not neglected manufacturing, ant
have an iron mill, nail manufactory,
saddle-tree manufactory, and several othe
enterprises of lesser note; all doing well.
In an agricultural point of view, th'
finest portion of East Tennessee is arOun(
Knoxville. We may say that Knoxville