Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1881-09-24
The Atlanta Fair and the south.
New York sun.

new 1OfA sun.
We are glad to hear that the At
lanta Exhibition, which is to open
next month, promises to be very
successful. The city where it is to
be held is the most progressive in
the South, the last census showing
that between 1870 and 1880 it had
made gain in the population
which compared fayorably with
that of the NEST enterprising West
ern towns. Moreover, the month
of October is usually delightful
one in the part of Georgia which it
it is situated, and the fair will have
novel features that must prove at
tractive to strangers.
But what makes the fair chiefly
interesting and important, is the
circumstances that for the first time
in its history the South will have
an opportunity to display to the
world at Atlanta the peculiar adj
vantages it possesses in the way of
soil, climate, mineral riches, and
varied products, both natural and
cultivated. A great stream of inn
migration has been pouring into
this country during the last two
years, and its volume is likely to be
much increased during the remain
ing years of this decade; but so
far, very small part of it has
tended to the Southern States.
Apart from Texas, they have hith-
erto benefited little by the addition
to our population from abroad F;
and even now the German, Irish
Scandinavian and English immi-
grations look forward hopefully to
the West, and are either ignorant
of the fertility of the South or are
preiudiced against the region on ac-
count of the slavery which once
blighted it. They do not wish to
enter into competition with negro |
labor, and they fear the climate of
the States in which 1t is the COM
moneSt.
Yet land is cheap at the South,
and nowhere in the Union are the |
industry and the enterprise of the |
agriculturist better rewarded. Its
railway system has been much inn
proved and extended within recent |
years, and the facilities for trans
portation both by land and water |
make it very desirable region for |
settlers. Its soil, too, is so diversi-
fed and it's products are so numer-
Gus that there is room there for
new population who shall engage |
in many kinds of agriculture and
in different departments of indus
try. Cotton manufacture, which
has the advantage IF nearness to
the raw material, has only lately
begun to assume importance, and
is capable of extensive develop
ment.
With all this in its favor, how
ever, there are still vast districts of |
incompatible fertility in the South |
which have never been turned by
the plow, and many of the old
plantations are now overgrown
with weeds, their owners not hav-
ing the capital to cultivate them.
A great influx of immigration
which shall result in the dividing
up of these vast estates into small
farms. and in the patient tilling
of the soil not yet broken for crops,
is what the region needs.
1t was wise recognition of this
want which stimulated the projec-
tors of the Atlanta fair to make it
something more than of mere local
interest. Unfortunately, all the
Southern States have not been
Many of them have remained inert,
and have failed to appreciate the
they would gain by
their calling the attention of capi-
talists at the North and Immigrants
from abroad to their many and
incompatible natural resources.
Florida, which has already bene-
flied greatly because of immigra-
ton, is one of the States which
have understood the importance
of improving the opportunity to be
afforded next month at Atlanta.
But enough will be shown at the
fair to surprise those who are ignO-
rant of the natural riches of the
South and if its management is
as wise as its c,nceDtion, we have
no doubt that the exhibition will
give q new impulse to Southern
Capital in abundance
is ready to go thither whenever ii
can be proved that enterprise will
meet with its reward immigration
may be diverted southwark by
encouraging the establishment of
new industries and by disabusing
the foreigner of the impression
that labor rests under ban in the
South, and that the climate is un-
favorable to health. Perhaps the
Atlanta fair will be the beginning
of a new era for the States which
have not yet recovered from the
a,.1.oA g ol.