New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-10-07
TENNESSEE.

the unemployed workngman. which we
printed on Saturday, closes the series OF
articles which we have offered upon this sub
iect. They have been written to meet the emer-
gencies of certain class and of the present
| time. For that reason we have attempted III
them only the statement of the advantages,
resources and drawbacks which the emIgrant
will find in the upper Southern States. we
| have confined ourselves to these limits for
| obvious reasons. There is steady stream or
emigration the year round to the West with
the claims of that section every man Is famlilar;
the climate, soils, mode of farming and habits
of the Gulf States are too dissiInilar to our
own to make them pleasant or profitable
field in which the poor man can invest his
cole capital of labor. Capitalists from the
North. taking with them skilled mechanics
into Georgia and South Carolina, have done
well, and so have the men whom they
employed. But the poor man going alone
into the far South, ignorant of the pecullarl-
ties of the soil and of the people, Will, IN all
probability, be worsted by them and find his ex-
periment failure. The belt OF States compris-
ing Maryland, the Virginias, North Carolina,
Kentucky and Tennessee, yield crops very
nearly the same as those which he has known
at home in this State, or Pennsylvania; the
climate, owing to the general altitude. differs
very little from that to which he Is accustomed,
and that little is a gain the people, after all
that he has heard of the difference of insti-
tutions, political belief. or the bloody war
which grew out of them, he finds 10 be much
the same as those among whom he was born.
They are more friendly perhaps, in manner,
more irritable and more sluggish On the whole,
the danger will be, not that he Will qllarrel
with their character or customs, but that he
will too readily fall into them, and JON the
easygoing needy army of lazy farmers who
have cursed the fair lands of the South too
long; so long, indeed, that the incxhaustlble
resources of these great States are as yet
scarcely touched.
Ii is impossible for us to exaggerate the
extent of these resources. There are millions
of acres of timber-and there just next door
to us, almost unbrOken by the axe OF the
woodsman. The succulent, indigenous grasses
Of the Blue Ridge and the Unakas would sup
ply pasturage for cattle to feed the whole
United States. Virginia in her land, West
Virginia in her coal, iron and oil,
North Carolina in her minerals, Kentucky
ural wealth unsurpassed by any other
States. Yet the people of these States
are. as n rule, poor, not so much from lack of
money as of energy. IL is, we repeat again,
enerl,etic workingmen, skilled mechanics and
farmers who will put their own hands to the
plough, that are needed. No man, whether he
buys one acre or thousand, will succeed in
these States who trusts to cheap labOrers TO
work his land for him. Farming is the bust
ness which least of all can be done by proxy.
Especially is this the case in Tennessee, where
the land is being divided and sold in small
farms, each of which must yield u multfari-
Gus crop, and requires to be managed
according TO the full measure of the owners
wisdom, and not by the labOrer's skill in
Sinking work. In no State Will the emigrant
receive a more cordial welcome than in Ten
nessee. Her people have reused to the ne
cessity of developing not only her mineral
resources but the capabilities of her soil, and
have shrewdness enough to see that this VIII
best be done not by capitalists who hold largo
half-tilled farms, but by patient individual
effort. One of tho most successful sheep
husbandmen in the State began in 1864 with
capital of 800 and only very slight knowl-
seryation, and personal attention to every part
of the work did the rest and these qualities
will command success for any emigrant, how
ever Door he may be in money or book learn
ino. The settler in Tennessee should remem-
Der, however, that the fertility OF tho soil,
the cheapness of fuel. every advantage IN
fact, which makes his material condition easy,
ia 20 much of a drawback if it makes him
content to sit down sluggish and satisfied
with beng clothed and fed. 1t Is this salts
faction with his physical condition which has
kent the small farmer of East Tennessee and
Western North Carolina hundred years be-
hind the rest of the country In many matters
of higher import. 1t remains to be seen
whether the colonies already formed in these
sections will act rs leaven, or sink down and
be lost in the torpid mass.
We have reason to hope that the interest
which THE TRIBUNE has excited among its
readers in the direction OF the unemployed
labor of the North to the cheap uncleared
lands of these older States has served good
purpose Our efforts to give plain and ac-
curate information to emigrants have been
promptly and earnestly seconded by the Gov
ernors and Commissioners OF Agriculture of
these States The names of disinterested re-
sponsible gentlemen in different sections, able
and willing to give advice and aid to the emf
grant, were officially furnished to us for publ
cation, and the result has been thousands
of applications to them from men out
of employment eager to begin life afresh in
this new field where work was waiting which
would keep them, their wives and children
from want. Colonies have been formed in the
VirOinina aud North Carolina which nrp do
ing well, and others are forming. There il
,rh,. i,li ,ridI1nla calanina Ii