The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-03-09
AGRICULTURAL.
A vermOnter In the South.


customed to, and having TO learn a
great many new things. The writer
has found so many new things in the
South that he wishes to tell the WATCH
MAN family something about this part
of the country. We left New York
city on the Old Dominion Steamer
Guyandotte at P. M. If any reader
of the WATCHMAN has occasion to go
South and can take an Old Dominion
steamer, he will find every provision
made for his comfort. The accomoda-
tons are most excellent in every way.
Onr first contact with the South was at
Old Point Comfort, where there are
two large hotels. Here the air was
warm, the sun was shining brightly,
and it seemed as though we had been
suddenly transported from winter to
summer. After brief stop, we passed
on to Norfolk, thence to Portsmouth,
where we took q Seaboard Air Line
train for Georgia. There is keen COM
petition between this line and the
Southern Railway, the Seaboard being
managed far more in the interest of
the public. We have never found such
good Accommodations on railroad, or
such kindness shown by employees as
on this line. We did not see Virginia as
it was passed in the night, but we must
say that North and South Carolina on
the line of the railway are the poorest
and most desoate country we ever saw
in our life. The land seems to be
naturally poor, it has been farmed in
the poorest way, and everything be-
tokens extreme poverty. Occasionally
there is a good looking farm house, but
the most of the homes one sees from
the cars are low cabins, often without
windows, and all having chimneys
built on the outside. All the houses
in this part of the South have fire places
for warming the rooms. These are
nice to sit around in the evening, and
they keep the air of the rooms pure
and sweet, but they do take such a
quantity of wood, three times as much
as a good stove. However, wood is
plenty in the South, the best of hard
wood costing only a dollar per solid
cord, delivered. Then fires are not
needed near so long in the South as in
the North. 1t is now the end of Feb
ruary, and people here are making
their gardens, planting potatoes, and
doing springs work. Cotton is the
great crop, and every week day when
the farmers come TO town, some of
them bring bales of cotton. The teams
look very odd to a northerner. Mules
are the standard team, oxen come next,
then few use horses, and occasionally
horse and mule are used together,
or single OK is hitched up. There are
no carts, light wagons seem to be the
vehicles used by all. The "mountain
wagons" are covered, and look like the
pictures of the old army wagons. Some
of these come 20, 30 and even so miles
from the Blue Ridge TO trade here in
the town. The men are the typical
Southerners, full boards, broad SLOUGH
hats and general Southern" look.
But here in the city the business men
could not be told from Northerners.
The plows in use here would make a
Vermont farmer smile. AS we came
down through the Carolinas we saw
very many negro and white farmers
blowing with one mule. We did not
see single two.horse team on pillow.
There are several kinds of pillow, but
all are small, turning narrow furrow
and light enough for one man to take
under his arm and carry where he likes.
From what l have seen it looks as
though commercial fertilizers were the
ruin of the Southern farmer. You see
fertilizers everywhere, you smell it
everywhere. The makers and agents
must reap rich harvest, but we fear
the poor farmers with five cent cotton
will fall behind. Wheat bran is 81 per
hundred, corn sixty cents per bushel,
corn meal sixty cents per forty-eight
pounds. Sweet potatoes eighty cents
common potatoes SLIGO, kerosene oil
twenty cents at retail. We are about
100 miles north of Atlanta on the line
of the Southern Railway. We get
seven mails day here, the city having
population of about $500. A branch
line of railway extends fifty miles TO
the Seaboard Air Line at Elberton.
On the whole we like the place very
much. The climate is 80 mild, the
people are very kind, the scenery is
fine, and this part of the South is one
of the healthiest in the country, being
only short distance from the Blue
Ridge. We expect to get out among
the farmers and learn their ways, and
to be able to tell the readers of the
WATERMAN something of what we