Morning journal and courier., 1881-02-18
Friday Morning, Feb. IS, 1881.

EDWARD T. oARRrEeroN. JOHN B. cARRIseroN, yR. I Friday Morning, Feb. IS, 1881.
 IS THE SOUTH POOR AND LIKELY TO REMAIN SOs
 l A few days ago we published a summary of
 letter written to Zion's Herald by J. H.
 Owens, who told doleful tale of the pover-
 ty of the South and made the outlook for
 that region appear decidedly gloomy. His
 letter has attracted considerable attention, for
 his idea of the condition and prospects of
 the South is very different from the general
 one.
 Fl If Mir. Owens is right other careful and
 experienced observers are wrong Mir. Ed
 ward Atkinson, for instance, who says con corning the condition of the South: In the
 mechanic and manufacturing arts, if compar-
 ison be made with the barbarism of the ante
 war period, the progress is almost marvel
 lous. Villages are springing up; the coun- try store is established; centres of industry are forming. The South now has at Chatta- nooga the largest single tannery in the coun- l try; the sole leather of Louisville takes
 leading place among the best, if not the best ];
 wood IS being worked in many forms, and
 the chief supply of the best ash, oak and | walnut for eastern cities is now found south of Mason and Dixons line. Nashville is said to possess the largest wagon factory in the country; iron is being made at the lowest cost and of the best quality in many places, and Pittsburg feels the necessity of con- structing new lines of railroad to reach southern mines in order to maintain her place. Norfolk contests the palm with Bal t1more in the canning of oysters, literally ! employing thousands of persons in that in I dustry. In Richmond two carpet -baggers, l who carried full-sized trunks and stayed, em- l ploy some hundreds of women in the man. | ufacture of cigarettes that are mostly made from tobacco of the finest quality grown in places and on lands which ten years since no one knew to be fit for growing any tobacco even of the coarsest kind. Elsewhere in every direction arts and industries that are old to us but new to the South are starting into vigorous life.
 A correspondent of the New York Ecening Post also does not agree with Mr. Owens He says that in North Carolina the rice crop, during the war and until very recent years confined almost exclusively to the wet bot toms of the Cape Fear district, has spread to the feet of the mountains which rise upon her western borders and the receipts of rice in the port of Wilmington alone have in- creased since the year 1878 from 20, 900 to LOG, 900 bushels, or have been enlarged i've fold in three years, with prospects for the 1 present year of still further growth of at least fifty per centum Rice, indeed, seems destined to become one of the staple produc- tions of the State now that it has been | found that the 1ow-1ying lands of the interior | yield it as kindly and bounteously as do the | swampy tracts near the coast. Here, too, tobacco finds natural growth and is every year pushing itself up into a higher place 4 among the principal items of wealth and the chief objects of commerce. Then in Louisi- ana we hear of whole districts of country re- claimed by art from swampy sterility and devoted to the production of the sugar canes, and in Florida of the careful improvement of her tropical fruits and of their rising value in the fruit markets of the world. Through out the South the number of small holdings is on the increase, and small farmers, sowing their own seed, following their own ploughs and reaping their own crops, find each year bringing them more abundant harvest.
 During the last decade, it is stated, the in crease in the consumption of cotton for manufacturing purposes in New England was only eighty per centum, while in the South it was one hundred and twenty per centunn. And the profits realized from southern mills seem to have been great in proportion to their activity. The average gross earnings of the Augusta (Ga. mills are stated to be twelve per centum of it's capital; during the last ten years the average profits of the fac tories at Langley, s. O., have been eight per centum upon their capital, and in that pe- riod there has been an accumulation of 8 surplus amounting to about one-fourth of the whole capital invested; and last year the Van C1use mills (of South Carolina) realized twenty-one per centum profits; those of Greenville, s. C.. 254 per centum.
 Another striking indication of the rapid Industrial progress of the South is the recent growth of her towns both in wealth and pop ulation. Some instances of this are aston ishing Ten years ago the site of the town of Birmingham, Alabama, was cotton field. Now it is brisk manufacturing town, with a population of six thousand. The town of Wilmington, N. O., has by industrial enter prise almost doubled it's population since the var. It now has five guano mills, two large and prosperous cotton presses, six flourish ing lumber mills, two rice mills, busy cot ton factory, 8 tobacco manufactory, and a sash and blind factory which has estab- l lished large reputation and drawn liberal patronage from other States. These are the principal manufacturing establishments of a town of only seventeen thousand inhabit- ants, and it is only following the example set it by numberless other towns of the South, as. notably, by the city of Atlanta, Georgia, which since 1860 has grown from village into city. In 1860 the town of Atlanta had 8 population of about $500; in 1870 her population had increased to 21, ,789; in 1880 she is reckoned in the census returns to have considerably more than thirty thousand.
 There is more testimony against the cor rectness of MT. Ovens conclusions. From this testimony it appears that the South is not now in a poverty-stricken condition, and is not likely to be, as the outlook for agricul- ture, manufactures and commerce is promis- ing If MT. Owens or anybody else has facts which will show this view to be incorrect the public would like them.
 EDITORIAL NOTES.
 |