The state republican. (Jefferson City, Mo.) 1871-1896, 1896-04-09

hickory, ASH, sycamore all ynrie.
ties of oak timber. Oftsh trees are. to
be found from fifty to sixty feet TO III,
first limb. from ffty[to eighty incbe.
in diameter and from twelve 20 twent,
feet in circumference. The timber i,
so abundant that vast scopes of IL 1,
girdled and burned, standing, prepara
tory to putting the land in cultivation.
Once cleared the yield is enormous
forty bushels of wheat, eighty to one
hundred Of corn, two bales Of cotton.
two tons of hay or two cars of Zoo
large watermelons to the acre. Yet
this same land, in its native wildness.
can yet be had for from SO to So per
acre, and cleared and fenced with
comfortable houses and barns, sells
from S12 to $50 per acre. Much of IL
being within hauling distance from
the Mississippi river, freight rates are
usually reasonable. That alluvial soil
never has been exhausted. So rich is
it, that when the upper crust becomes
thin, deep blowing turns up as rich
earth as was the virgin surface. It is
so light and porous that in many places
ploughing can go in on an hour after a
heavy rain.
The whole of southeast Missouri is
n good section alike for the large cap
italist, the man of moderate means or
the poor man. 1t is impossible to find
any settled region without its public
school and church. If one wishes to
engage in the saw mill business he can
do well in nearly everyone of our
counties. If he is a miner or a stone
cutter or a manufacturer of the products
of lead, iron or other metals, his field of
operations will best be found in upper
southeast Missouri. There, too, grapes
and apples, pears and peaches thrive,
but southeast Missouri. taken as a
whole, is a fine fruit growing section.
Peaches do particularly well in Cape
Girardeau, Perry, Howell and Oregon
counties.
In 1865 we had but ninety miles of
railroad from st. Louis to Pilot Knob.
Now we have near a thousand miles,
with Louis Houck building more in
and from lower southeast Missouri
through northern Arkansas; Hiram N.
Holiday constructing a line from Will
Evansville, in Wayne county, northeast
through Madison county, to a point in
Perry or Ste. Genevieve county oppo-
site Chester, Illinois, and c. b. Par
N and his associates of the st. Joe
Lead Company at Bonne Terre are con-
tinuing the road they have already
built from River Side on the Missis-
sippi river twenty-five miles south
of st. Louis to Doe Run, in st. Fran
co.'s county, on down the st. Francois
river through the counties of Madison, |
Wayne, Stoddard and Dunklin and on
to Memphis, Tennessee. The vastness
OF our have compelled the
men | name in the continuation of
their busincss-Parsons in lead, Holli-
day and White in lumber and Houck in
developing his large landed interests,
to build railroads, first as aids to their
work and as it has proven profitable,
to invest in the roads their means and
to develop our part of the state. These
southeast Missouri men and others l
could name have elements of the
heroic.
Parsons came to us in 1867, inexpe-
rienced in mining and is to-day the
best mining manager in the country.
Neal, at Crystal City, in jefferson
county, about 1850 began to expert
ment with our waste sand there and
now makes the finest French plate
glass, his product largely reducing the
old import prices Holiday in 1868
began life a country lad with a single
pair of mules and a wagon as a log
hauler and to-day is the owner of great
saw and planning mills, a railroad and
thousands of acres of fine land as is
also Col: j. b. White at Grandin, in
Carter county, whose beginning was
also that of a novitiate. Our success
full men have all thus learned the de-
tails of their work and made it pay as
they progressed. None of them began
with fortunes.
1t was the glory of Humboldt, so cos
mopolitan was lie, that he was alike
at home among savages and savants.
The citizen of southeast Missouri.
as he contemplates his brother, who
has eve lived in and is best ac-
quainted with the brick and mortar of
which the cities, in which he lives
are built, and who at most deems us
provincial because he, good humor-
eddy, comedies we are at most prodigies
from the c~ountry-we say the South
east Missourian can, as he surveys
the many different resources of our
section and ~acquaints himself, as each
day he does, with what we possess and
the way to convert it all to
money, console himself with the
thought that his is the work of SUBJ
DUNG primeval forests, opening farms
and mines, ~cleaving down mountains
of granite and marble and from them
and u forests furnishing the volume
of subsistence and trade upon which
alone cities are built and by the sale
of our products alone thrive. So it is
very environment makes our south
east Missouri people myriad minded.
1t may surprise the reader to learn,
that five United States senators have
gone out from the old town of Ste Gen
evieve, Linn, the Dodges, father and
son, Jones and Bogy. No other small
town in this country has ever done
the like.
The limestone hill sides of uppef