Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1879-07-18
FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 1s. 1879.
BUILDING UP OUR NElGHBOR-
HOODS

BUILDING UP OUR NEIGHBOR-
HOODS.
OF course, the States south of the Po-
tomac river want immigration.-Every
civilized section does; it wants new people,
new blood, new ideas. It wants money,
too. but it has been sorry lesson gener-
ally taught our people, that if we wait
awhile untold wealth in the shape of CAPT
tai will be poured in upon us from the
weather. sections of the Union. Sorry,
because it makes people lazy, and gives
them after awhile sharp pang of despair,
because while sitting on a fence with pa
tient industry no capital has come for
their waiting. It is time that this empty
idea of golden cloud to rise in the North
or West and rain its treasures On US, should
be done away with. It is time that the
men who have interests in undeveloped
resources should take hand themselves
in developing them. The Southern States
are to be built up by their inhabitants.
Georgia, among them seems to have found
this out. Twenty years from now she will
be a far richer State than Massachusetts,.
Her cotton looms will be buZzing when
Lowell is silent. Somehow that ship of
state has gotten practical cant about her
that is worth copying. She will start a
cotton mill in a two-story house, in fact.
we believe that was the way that her
rapidly charging system of cotton mills
was started. She had the cotton at her
door. and saw that she was the proper
manufacturer of it. Here in Virginia we
have the coal and iron at our door, and
we are waiting for Northern capital, so as
ito make grand beginning. NO two.
story furnace for us! On the contrary,
we preserve our dignity and sacrifice our
purse by selling our possessions to capital
lists for song. A small combination OF
neighborhood capital and muscle would
have started small business, which
would have grown and helped its locality.
We have fruit in unlimited quantity grow
ing on our farms and rotting there. A
fruit canning establishment would be the
very thing for the neighborhood. but not
being able to put up a large one, and
waiting for capitalists coming along to
put it up for us, we let the fruit rot. And
yet fruit canning may be begun by the eff
forts of one man, and in the smallest and
cheapest way. We sit on our farms and
see the merchants of our county towns
buy canned fruit by the thousands from
cities north of us, and don't make one eff
fort to help ourselves. Even Boteteurt
county, 80 miles off, largely supplies this
city and vicinity with canned vegetables
and fruits, put up by the Thinkers there,
and the cash goes there to pay for them
This is sample Of the way that people
lose money by not looking into small
things. Give one Of us an article about
a grand railroad that is soon to penetrate
our territory, and we read it with hearts
full of hope, never stopping to think that
all the railroads that can be built will not
bring us money if we don't raise some
thing or make something to ship over
them.
The Valley of Virginia may as well look
the fact in the face that, whether she
wishes to or not, she will soon have to rely
for much of her profits on small neighbor-
hood ndustries-butter, cheese, canned
fruit and like Industries that have made
counties, districts, yes even cities in the
northern states rich. The time is coming
when it will not enrich US to raise wheat for
market, and when the great granarY of the
West, which is every day getting closer te
us, will be stumbling block in our path
to remunerative prices for our cereals. 1t
is time we were preparing for the change;
preparing for small farms, small industries.
q more plentiful population and more
diversified system of agriculture. The day
must pass away when we shall have to say
that the man with thousand acres barely
pays his taxes, while the man with a few
sheep aud several acres of tomatoes pays
his taxes and has handsome surplus left