The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-10-02
ocror: >. 1871
False Impressions Respecting the
South.

IF NIarVland, Delaware. IennSylVanla New
Jersey and New England, stopping off a
various places going and returning. Thi.
trip afforded US an excellent opportunity tt
compare notes with the people of those
sections. and to disabuse their minds in re
card to the leading features of the South.
We found many who never heard of the
healthy and fertile mountain region rich in
arabic soil and splendid scenery, and pre-
centing in North Carolina alone a dozen
neaks higher than the proud and Boosted
Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
Many cannot d~isconnect the South from
marshy lowlands and cypress, tar and pitch,
in which the crocodile is a prominent fea-
ture. They are surprised to learn that the
South embraces, among the rest, a region
of country three times as large as all the
New England States combined, at an alti-
tude of from 500 to 5000 feet above the
tide, with a large proportion of the surface
free from stone and accessible to the pillow,
and green meadows and pastures where
thriving herds of cattle and sheep are fat
tened ready for market.
The same prejudices under the head Of
surface and soil prevail in regard to eli
mate. The Northern traveller who has only
seen the low sultry country along the coast
in summer, cannot realize that a few hours
railroad travel westward would land him
high and dry in an atmosphere cooler than
the maximum summer temperture of New
England, and bracing and invigorating be-
vond comparison. Official meteorological
observations place these facts beyond doubt,
and though the minimum heat may be
somewhat greater and the summer a tritie
longer, yet the temperature upon the whole
is more equable, generally ranging from
sixty 70 eighty degrees during the summer.
Only once in nine consecutive years the
mercury rose to ninety degrees at Asheville,
n. c., at an elevation Of z, $50 feet, but did
not stay there long. Yet the Northern
people shun the South upon the ground of
uncomfortable heat.
We remember that the Southern people,
before the breaking out of the late civil
war, based some hopes of success upon the
facilitating effect Of the average Southern
upon the Northern soldiers. Yet
experience has shown that the Federal
stood the Southern field of service
much better than the Confederate. Billy
Wilson's Zouaves," from New York, sum-
mered it on Santa Rosa Island, in Florida,
without much inconvenience, and General
Buffers army suffered much less in Louisi-
ana han General McClellan's did in Vir-
ginia.
Again, we were told that Northerners
were not fairly treated in the South in 20
and social respects, an impression
which bloody-shirt newspapers and politi-
cal agitators are particularly anxious to
perpetuate. Disappointed carpet baggers,
whose occupation is now forever gone,
have no other mode of sweet revenge than
letraction. They will not let others live
they cannot thrive themselves. To
class of Adventures, who should be
in every society, North and South,
the unnatural prejudices between the two
are chiefly to be attributed. We
to be in the South at the end of
the war, and we'll remember the manly re-
with which the Southern people
were ready to accept the situation. When
the loss of political power and of their la
Dor system reduced to the resources OF
their own enterprise and energy, they
published their invitations for
Northern men to come among them. to
teach them the craft of Northern industry,
to aid them in rebuilding their broken for
tunes, and to raise their country once more
from disaster to prosperity. The invitation
so cordially and confidingly sent abroad
was numerously accepted, every one but too
well remembers with what results. Freed
4heHn bureau agents, pace nunlcIo aHo
adventurers of every hue and grade, flock
ed in by thousands, not i%nfrequently ac-
companied by women Of doubtful virtue
whom they palmed upon Southern society
under the name Of wife. How their NOR
alty was, in every other respect, on a par
with this feature. need not to- be recalled.
When these v~ultures had glutted them
selves upon the last piece of plumber in the
down troddcn country they had been e1-
pected to rebuild, and sunk it over head in
public debt, they fled before a tardy return
ol public Indignation, leaving behind them
lhat odor which is now referred to in the
misguided North as Southern prejudice
against Northern settlers. Fortunately ev-
cry Ill has its day, and the Northern immi-
= who have gradually sought homes in
lne South within a few years past, carrying
WIN them their traditional industry and
ffonesty OF purpose, are rapidly growing in
. .Saor and are sending forth to the friends
sney lett behind a far different picture of
, nUu'hern hospitality and social feeling than
h lna. Drought home by the elected carpet
"oSStIS OF dave nono roct What xpo houn