The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1890-04-10

poplar tItSS lIOiu SlA 10 cISHt IcSt III
diameter forests of pine many of the
trees a hundred or a hundred and
twenty-five feet to the first limb for
ests of walnut, cherry, hemlock, oak,
ash, hickory and maple. Walnut and
red cherry logs are shipped from all
over this region to Liverpool, London,
Hamburg and Paris, and the great
lumber mills of the near future will
puff and roar and rattle among these
now silent mountains and valleys.
1t is a region of sanitariums and
marvelously potent medicinal springs.
Here are nearly all the famous white,
black, red, yellow, blue and salt sui
pher springs of the country. Here are
chalybeate, lithia, alum and magnesia
springs, which have been health resorts
for generations. Here are hot, warm
and cold springs without number, all
beneficial insome forms of disease,
while natural petroleum springs and
salt wells abound. The climate is the
blessed medium which can only be
found in that combination of low lati-
tude and high altitude-too far south
to be cold in winter, too far up among
the mountains to be overwarm in sum-
mer. Malaria can find no foothold in
its high, dry, equable atmosphere, with
nothing but sunshine and crystalline
skies between it.and heaven.
Railroads are pushing in from every
direction to give its exhaustless riches
transportation to the markets of the
word-railroads from Baltimore and
Washington from Norfolk and Rich
mond from Wilmington, Charleston,
Pensacola and Mobile from Louisville
and Nashville, Pittsburg, Cincinnati,
and by direct connection, from every
other important mercantile center,
maritime and inland, of the Union.
When all these incoming roads begin
to send their trains rushing amid the
treasure houses of the gods, that have
lain untouched by pick or spade, axe,
saw or drill, for untold ages, in the
rugged bosoms or on the sloping sides
of the Blue Ridge and Allegheny, the
Unaka, Cumberland and Great Smoky
mountains, there will be such boom
as Winnipeg, Minneapolis, Los Angeles
and Duluth never dreamt Of And
unlike those booms, it will be steady,
permanent, enduring as the everlasting
hills, on whose inexhaustible treasures
it is founded.
The boom is glorious, but it has just
begun. Chances for great and speedy
fortunes, on small investments of capi-
tai, enterprise, energy or common
sense, are as plenty and as sure as they
ever were in the West and Northwest
in the widest booming days. New
towns and cities are to be built in the
| wilderness ; new mines, and vast ones,
to be opened up; new mills and facto
ries to be founded, and all the thous-
and one industries of populous, busy
and prosperous empire to be established
in the next few years where the mighty
primeval forests stand unscarred by
the woodman's axe to-day. Lands as
rich in soil, timber and mineral as
ever the sun shone on, can be bought
in many favored spots now for less than
the annual taxes upon them will
amount to in ten years from this time.
Lands can be bought by the acre now,
that will sell by the foot in less than
ten years.
The suggestion of your earheaded
correspondent, Thomas p. Gasty, that
Southern men who have made fortunes
in the West and Northwest, can now
find far better field for their opera
tions in their own seCtlOn,is emlnently
sound and sensible Such wide awake
young Virginians as Royal McMurran
of St. Paul, and Matthew Harrison, Of
Duluth, who have won fame and big
fortunes in those bleak regions by un
wearying enterprise and energy that
have astonished even the hyperborean
natives, can speedily double or treble
their wealth with far less labor and far
more pleasure, lin the State and section
of their birth, among their own kindred
and friends, and where every effort
that added to their own gains would
aid in rolling Oh the chariot of Vir-
ginian and Southern progress. Now
is the time to catch on! Virginia
abounds in bonanzas. She alone has
resources enough to maintain 5,ooo,-
900 of prosperous people. What has
I been done at Roanoke and Pocahon-
,as, Clifton Forge, Iron Gate and
Buena Vista can be done in hundred
other places. Her rush forward has
started grandly, and in spite of your
modest bushes, Mr.. Editor, trust
you will permit me to say, that in my
opinion, the Manufacturers Reeo,A
/ has been the greatest OF all the agencies
that have contributed to the mighty
and glorious change that has taken
and is taking place in her borders. 1t
| has done an incalculable work for the
whole South, and especially for the
Old Dominion. When the day of full
Southern jubilation and glorification
comes when the golden tidal wave
of progress and prosperity sweeps, as
! it surely will and soon, resistless and
gladstone, from Virginia to Texas,
from Accomac to Corpus Christi,
Southern gratitude should dedicate a
special niche in the temple OF fame and
thanksgiving to the great paper which
has labored SO intelligently, SO zeal
ously and SO ably for the upbuilding o.
Dixie. p. DOMAIN.