The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1881-01-29
Away Down i'll Maine. "

Letter from an Eastern Business Man to
| Citizen Of Baton Rouge. "A Jaunt
through the Sunny South-The Indus
tries and Crops of Maine Described
The Thriving City of Lewiston-A Good
Citizens Efforts to a1lay Sectional AMI
mostly.
OFFICE OF T. b. HAM,
Miller and Dealer in Flour, Grain and Feed. I
LEWISTON, Me-, Dec. %, 1881.
CAPT. II. +. SHARP, Baton Rouge, La.
My Dear Sir-You may recollect that,
with my good wife, spent few days
with you and your friends on the good
steamer Guiding Star in the early part
of October last. think that when we
parted with you at your ewn pleasant
Southern city and home, promised to
write you after my arrival home i'll
Maine. Though considerable time has
elapsed will now attempt to redeem
my promise and give you a brief account
of some things that have happened since
we saw you.
We continued our journey to New Or
leans, and after stopping there few
days, ia which time it was very uncom-
Portable on account of the excessive
heat, we took the cars Of the Morgan
Louisiana and Texas railroad and went
to Morgan City: then took steamer across
the Mexican Gulf to Galveston and
Houston, Texas; thence northerly
through the great State Of Texas, to
Texarkana, and thence homeward via
Little Rock, st. Louis and Chicago, and
then through the Canadian Province of
Ontario via Montreal to our homo here
in Maine, and we stopped at all the cities
and towns | have named, and arrived
home in twenty seven days after leaving,
having travelled in all just twenty seven
hundred miles eaci, way, going and re-
turning.
went south OH no business whatever,
but only to give my wife an opportunity
to see some portion of that sunny land
and to try and learn something about its
people and it's industries, and l trust our
very pleasant journey was not wholly in
vain.
We were every where received kindly,
and only wish that more Of our North
ern people could visit yonr section of
the country, and thus coming in contact
with the people of the South and finding
that there is not much difference after
all between the inhabitants Of the two
sections, VIC should butter realize that
we are one people, having one interest
and one destiny and how pleasant, too,
it would be for more Of your Southern
people to visit us here in the extreme
North, where, assure you, my Dear Sir,
you would find warm hearts, though our
section have long, cold, Winters. Good
sleighing commenced this year in this
locality about the Goth Of November,
though it usually does not happen till
about month later. During some days
in November the thermometer was ten
degrees below zero, but most of the time
we have had what we call comfortable
Winter weather. .- !-4.- #
Possibly you, who have lived all your
days i'll warm and sunny Louisiana,
might not enjoy our cold Winters, but
assure You that suffered more in two
days of heat in New Orleans, than l
shall with the cold all this winter here
in Maine We who are raised here easily
become habituated to the climate and
enjoy ourselves quite as we'll in Winter
| as il, Summer time. We have fine horses
and sleighs, and can skip along over the
| frozen snow and ice to the merry music
of the sleigh bells.
| We Can not raise oranges, cotton or
sugar cane, but your cotton comes in
large quantities to our busy little city,
here it is manufactured into many
kinds of goods, and these immense cot.
| ton manufactures here III Lewiston
| afford employment to some ten thousand
| operatives, who get good cash wages
and are thus able to maintain many
happy homes.
Money is plenty here and business
good, but we all have to earn what we
| get, and are perhaps thus better e.luca-
ted to take care of what little VIC do
scrape together.
If We can not raise oranges and other
tropical and semi-tropical fruits, we can
and do raise as fine apples as are to be
found any where in the whole land.
| The apple crop in Maine WAS very
abundant this year, and the frnit is now
| very cheap.
AS nice apples as you ever saw are to-
| day going begging for buyers about the
streets Of Lewiston for about a dollar u
| barrel. We also raise very choice Irish
| potatoes and fair crops Of corn, wheat
and other grain.
| This country also produces choice but
| ter and cheese, as we'll as tirst-class beef.
! pork and poultry E; so, You see, We need
not suffer for the absolute necessities of
obtain them. Perhaps the hay crop is
really the most valuable Of any one pro
duction Of the farmers in Maine, and this
Winter hay is worth about $13 per ton
here.
70 give you little idea Of the extent
of the cotton manufactures of this city,
let me say that our corporation will next
Saturday (Christmus) give every man,
woman and child in their employ a little
present of a silver dollar each; and that
it will take 1900 of the hard dollars to do
it and we have four or five other cotton
ing..establishments of similar
magnitude.
/ When l saw yon on the Guiding Star
it was my intention to write ont some
account of my Southern trip for one of
our newspapers here, but l afterwards
decided not to do SO, but to enbody my
observations in lecture OIL the South
and its people and productions, and /
have been giving this lecture or rather
a sort of familiar talk to the people of
my vicinity, and shall continue to do so
more or less during the coming Winter.
[ do this without money and without
price, but i'll the hope that may do