The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1881-02-01

The PINES, Jan. %, 1881
Dear FlOrididn {: The articles in your issue of
the 25th, touching the railroad interests in con-
nection with the acknowledgement of the Internal
Improvement Fund, are exceedingly interesting
and gratifying induces of the rapid completion of
our great railroad lines to Pensacola and the
Southern Gulf coast. 'Twould be a pity if lit
igaticn were not now at an end. 1t certainly
has been provoking, beyond patient endurance,
and disastrous beyond computation, already,
and if new crop OF cases is to take the place
of the old one on the court calender charters for
new roads should at once be inaugurated and the
old ones dispensed with. The newspapers are
speaking favorably of the progress making on the
Waycross connection with Jacksonville and the
Palatka branch of the Gain sville, Ocala and
Charlotte HaIbor Railroad. The steamboat
companies, composed as they are of men of large
capital and enterprise are heartily enlisted in the
last named lines, and will spare no effort TO push
them forward with all possible speed.
The largest inducement to immigration into all
our borders is that of transportation. People of
this progressive day will not jump at opportuni-
ties to exchange old sections of the country, web
bed through and through with turnpikes and
railways, with palace cars, for pine board carts
and market roads, crosstied with pine and pal
metto roots. Give us railroads, if you want to
see q constant and ever-swelling tide of immigra-
ton into our virgin State. Of course, this is to
be supplemented by the liberal application of
money, to set and keep in busy motion all the
accessory inducements used to attract immigra-
ton. All bars to the States granting lands 10
immigrants, on the most liberal terms, ought to
be removed. The State, to be prosperous and
grow TO maturity, must own a large population.
not lands. Land ownership will impoverish,
population will enrich her. While our produc-
tons are sufficiently varied TO attract agricultu
raj people, accustomed TO their cultivation, more
or less our climate and special productions take
hold of the minds of people IN all the active oc-
equations Of the time. Gentlemen of fortune and
leisure. members OF the learned professions bank
err. seamen, mechanics and merchants, as well
as farmers. are attracted by The elegant and rich
ly remunerating occupation of raising semi-trop-
ical fruits and flowers, while the latter can find
additional congenialiIy and reward in raising
stock, poultry, corn, rice, oats, cotton. tobacco,
cane, potatoes and an infinite variety ofearly and
all-the year-round vegetables All this speaks
persuasively TO the instinciively moving popula-
tons OF the States, an the over-cnwded coun-
tries across the wafer. Railroads plenty good
schools and cheap lands with their countless
productions, thoroughly and often and every
where advertised, will bring us new aud valuable
citizens by the thousands. There should be no
parsimOny In this vital matter The outlay Of
means TO this grand end by Florida, sheuld at
least, approximate the liberaliy shown by the
other growing young States of the Union.
STET