The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1896-07-16
@~@0>*>04G 4 50 ..D|o
? 81 Breath From
8 Georgian Pines.
.@*~*@ !. ~.0 !.

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village Of the plain
Where health and plenty cheered the laborine
swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summers lingering bloom de-
EE layed."
Auburn, Georgia, might almost have
sprung from the ashes of the ssDe-
serted Village" of which Goldsmith 50
tenderly tells. Surely spring pays her
earliest yisit'' here, coming when the
Northern towns lie buried under the
SHOWS of February, and Summers
lingering blooms" are hardly gone at
the holiday season. Indeed, roses in
bloom at Christmas time is not uncom-
mon.
This little town, situated on the
''Seaboard Air Line" Ry. and said to
be the highest point upon that line,
l,2OO it. above the sea, came into ex-
istence four years ago and is now vii
lage of perhaps half q hundred resi-
dences with several stores, a post-of-
fee, gristmill, tannery, churches, two
white and one colored, a, school called
from the stream near by the Mulberry
High school, and Perry Rainey
college, named for it's founders. It is
forty-fve miles little northeast from
Atlanta and lies in the famous Pied
mont section. Like the greater por-
tion of the South, much of this part of
the country was in the hands of plant
ers before the war, and a few still own
large tracts of land occupied for the
most part by "renters."
The surface is rolling, with groves
of oak, pine, hickory and other woods,
and the soil is of a red-clay nature
with an admixture Of sandy loan,
white and gray. Apples, peaches,
pears, plums, cherries, figs and grapes
are grown, with Strawberries, rasp-
berries, blackberries, and everything
in the line of vegetables.
Cows are plentiful and the milk and
butter frst-class in every respect.
Some are venturing upon the chicken
industry and we see no reason why
this should not prove lucrative here if
anywhere.
All that has been accomplished in
the way of Improvements can be traced
to very recent beginning. The ma
tive southerner is perfectly content to
''let we'll enough alone" and goes on
of tnr, lott To- I,
his continuous cotton crop, neither
hoping nor caring for anything beyond
the few dollars to be realized from it's
sale ''in the fall" One of them re-
Gently voiced the sentiments of his
race by declaring that Georgia was
made for poor folks who were sent
over here by Oglethorpe because they
had to be imprisoned for debt, there
his wife cunningly interposed: Did
they send them here instead of to
prison;') and they always have been
and always will be poor folks. Poverty
is their inheritance"
This same Individual, when asked
why the fields were left filed with
skeleton groves, trees killed and left
standing like a multitude of sailless
masts in a harbor, replied: ''Why,
you were just telling that we put moth
ing back in the ground, we leave the
trees for the litter-that enriches the
land"
Generous, hospitable, noble-hearted,
it is chiefly their ambition that lies
dormant and with the influx of few
enterprising,, industrious, pushing,
Yankees what revolution there would
be! An instance of what is possible
among them was lately shown. Three
or four families from the North, hav-
ing settled upon what has been dubbed
yankee Hill," erected dwellings, af-
ter modern pattern and these were
for a time objects of wonder to the
''natives.'' ---...+
Plastering overhead! why, what
would keep it from falling? And cell
lars, and screens! They had never
heard OF such things but it was not
long, nevertheless, before several had
invested in screens, some in cellars,
and all are looking with growing favor
upon other innovations as they find
them real comfort and convenience
Green lawns are almost unknown, the
white, cleanly-swept yard sprinkled
with hower-beds being the housewives
chiefest pride and they take the greatest
pains to uproot anything in the line of
grass that ventures to show itself. And
grass will grow in Georgia if only al
lowed the right of way. We discov-
covered beautiful green expanse OF
many acres extending from near the
college grounds along the course Of a
babbling, rock-bound creek which rip
pies its way meath the shade of grand
old willows, pines and naples, or
catches the sunshine as it tumbles over
the lodges in tiny, shimmering cas-.
cades.