San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-07-12
A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE.

pirs 10 Chasrs lis Course Southwark.
Professor Felix X. Oswald. In Cincinnati Enquirer
The true basis of national wealth
is not gold, but wood. Forest-de'
struction is the sin that has cost us
our earthly paradise. The ak has
turned the garden lands of the East
into hopeless deserts; it has destroyed,
rather than devastated, the fairer
half of the habitable earth, for the
ruin is practically irremediable:
There is theoretical possibility OF
retaining the barren lands of the
East, but experience has shown that
the difficulties of the task exceed the
present and prospective resources OF
the human race.
The chances are hundred to one
that the United States will become
the most densely-populated country
of the world before the ingenuity OF
despair will enable mankind to re-
claim the Eastern sand-wastes. The
great Mediterranean desert is moving
westward as fast as our centre OF
population, and has reached the east
shores of Italy and Spain. Africa is
a dying continent. Australia is q
steppe with narrow border of farm
ing land. The climate of South
America, like that of Hindostan, is
not compatible with the habits Tor, In
palmer language, with the Wces) OF
the progressive nations. North
America is the land of the future.
The census of A. D. 1900 will
show remarkable change in the dis
tribution of our population; before
the end of the present decade its CEN
ter will begin to move southwark in.
stead of westward. Two hundred
wears ago, when the first settlers of
our Atlantic seaboard we're guided by
the comparison of natural advantages,
most of them preferred the colonies
south of Chesapeake Bay. The pill
grims of the Mayfower intended to
settle in South Virginia, but heavy
storms drove them out of their
course, and their landing at Plymouth
Rock was purely accidental. The
next twenty years will modify the re-
suits of that accident, as well as the
after affects of negro slavery and po-
litical intolerance. Before long the
climatic superiority of the Piedmont
REGION" the terrace land of the
Southern Alleghenies, will begin to
tell. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee
and the Carolinas will more than
double their population within the
next fifteen years. Various industries
will establish their headquarters in
the South. Commercial activity, in
the highest phases of its present de-
velopment, seems to require the slim
illus of a cold climate, but the me-
chanical industries find congenial
home under the isotherms of Lyons
and Geneva, and will profit by the
cheap labor of the old slave States.
Cotton will be spun where it grows.
The coal deposits of Tennessee and
Alabama, the immense water-power
of Northern Georgia, will not be
much longer neglected; and, after a
few successful investments, the rivalry
of trade will soon stud the South
with manufacturing towns. The
railroad from Atlanta to Lynchburg,
via Spartanburg, Charlotte and Dan
vile, Virginia, is destined to rival the
Big City" road from Niagara to
Lake Michigan. These Chicagos of
the South will, perhaps, be more Or
thodox than their Northern rivals
conservatism being concomitant of
climatic blesslngs-but they will not
be Sabbatarian cities; under the lati-
tude of Italy it has never been popu-
lar to suppress the outdoor amuse-
ments of the poor.
On the plateau of the Southern
Alleghenies the summer season is as
genial as in Southern Switzerland,
while it's spring is just late enough to
prevent the premature blossoming of
fruit trees, and thus save them from
the March frosts. This apple region
comprises all the Southern mountain
states between the thirty-fourth and
thirty seventh parallels, and seems to
be equally as well adapted to pears,
peaches and figs. immigration and
experiments will settle that point, and
the MANHOOD par excellence will
cease to be an article of luxury.
The West, in the meantime, will
become the granary of the world. But
after the vast wheat area has spread
to the borders of the arid central
1-I.o.. - Ill ,,,r-ndn fhn Woodlands