News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1900-02-28
A LAND WITHOUT A WINTER.

ike fatl IN vermont upU TO New lear b,
then after the cold wave it begun to
seem like spring, and since then it has
alternated between fall and spring
weather with not more than week
of real wintry weather. Now in the
middle of February the blue birds are
singing, and it seems just ike the
middle of April in the north. Twice
the thermometer has gone down to
nine degrees above zero, but that was
only for little while in the morning.
There we're two or three days of cold,
windy weather at each of these times,
but we have not seen fake of snow
this winter, and much of the time it
has been what might we'll be termed
delightful weather.
People here cannot realize what
real cold weather means. They often
say to me when it is quite cold, "This
makes you think of the North don't
it?" and they ask many questions
about the weather and the snow.
There have been very heavy rains
here as in the North, and some dam
age done.
The South has entered upon a new
era OF manufacturing. Cotton Mills
are going up on every hand, and mil
lions of dollars are being invested in
them. Here there is one large mill,
and ground is soon to be broken for
another. Where the rivers come down
from the highlands of the Blue Ridge
there are many waterfalls, and now
these are being utilized. The posi-
bility of conveying power by a wire
enables towns situated some distance
from waterpower to build mills and
use the power by interposing an cleo
trio plant. Toccoa is planning to do
this, there being 1000 horse power
at II distance of about seven miles
from here in the falls of what's known
as the Tugalo river. And so this
town is booming, and $4,000 school
building is to be erected next sum-
mer. All through this part of the
country there is more hopeful feel
ing. Cotton is up to 8 cents, and lift
only stays up, and there is good
crop, it will be such help to the farm
ers. But when the farmers have
money. they use it and all other oc-
equations prosper.
Railroads are a good index Of the
business of a country, and judged by
this standard there is great industri-
al activity in the South. 1t is now
the beginning of the fertilizer season,
and vast quantities are being ship
ped into the farming regions. This
is one of the ways in which the cOun-
try is being impoverished. No care
whatever seems to be taken of the
manure, in fact everything about
farming here is decades behind the
North. The COW pea and the other
fodder plants which gather nitrogen
from the air are grown largely, and
as the people grow intelligent the old
slovenly ways will be- done away
with.
1t is not easy to tell what effect the
building of cotton mills will have
upon the industrial situation in the
South. Many farmers move to the
vicinity of the mills, and the whole
family works. AS in most of these
states there are no laws concerning
child labor, hundreds of children are
working instead of being in school.
No colored people work in the mills,
and where families all work there
must be deterioration. The children
look pale and puny, and some in the
South say that the modern white
slavery of the cotton mills, is worse
than the old negro slavery. ALI the
mills are run night and day, and this
forces half of the operatives to work
in the night, children and all. The
wages paid are the very lowest, 60 to
rs cents per day for men with de-
scending scale for women and child
rem.
In short time people will begin to
plant their gardens, and before the
end of March the bulk of the corn
crop will bein the ground. Ifit should
be a good fruit year, many thousands
of dollars will come into this section.
Last year the fruit was an entire fail
ure owing to the cold weather of the
winter previous. The men who ad-
vertise for the South tell the truth in
most things. but they do not tell
about the failures, the drawbacks.
You have to come here to live to find
them out. When you read about the
warm winters, it is all true, but they
do not say that the summers are ter
rible hot, and though there are few
cases of sunstroke here, vet the heat
does wear on one until they get used
to it, and some never do. 1t is a gen.
eral rule that the warmer the winter,
the hotter the summer, but a good
many people would rather endure the
heat than the cold. But it seems to
me northern family coming South
TO live would be pretty sure to be
homesick, unless they were exception
ally we'll placed. We have not been
homesick at all, but we o"cupy a very
different position from that of most
emigrants. And of course we have
seen only small part of the South.
but we think we have q pretty goo1
idea of the country. Many come from
the North and prosper, ore happy
and contented. Southern people like
to have Northerners come here. there
seems to he feeling that the North
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