The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-03-02
Special Correspondence.

Raleigh, N. c.. February "a.
The holiday February % was delight
fully spent in a visit to Southern Pines
and Pinehurst, those GASES in the piney
woods sandhills of south-central North
Carolina, a visit full of profit as well.
On the way to Southern Pines from
Raleigh there were many evidences
Of the great revival of the lumber
trade. wnlcn a Few years ago appeared
TO have hopelessly declined. All tim
Der that can possibly be used is eager
ly sought. All is fish which comes to
the lumberman's net now. Great is
the hevoc in the forests. Tramways
ramify in all directions, like feelers
reaching after timber belts.
Three d~estroyers are steadily at
work; the lumberman, the forest fire
and the hog. The first finds the best,
and leaves the woods all a-scramble
with the tops of once stately pines; the
fire sweeps along and caves ~blackened
ruins, the CHASTITY of charred
timber and stumps, while the hog, the
true piney-woods rooters, performing
well his part in the great work of de-
Struetion, applies himself to the task
of roofing up the little pines and eating
the tap root which to his half-starved
stomach is a choice morseL Mile after
mile the SeabOard Air Line whirls the
traveller through a country made half
deselate by these three agencies.
The Cumnock mines are near the
route, and their output is now AS tons
a day, taken by the SeabOard Air Lin
mainly. The cotton mill is beginning
To make it's appearance and by and
bye perhaps one will be at nearly every
station, as is the case at the North
Carolina railway between Raleigh and
Charlotte.
The Seaboard Air Lin track
straifStning has been completed and
the sharp curves taken out. Watched
from the rear platform of the train
the work done shows up well. 1t is
all preparatory to the running of the
fast FLORIDA and West India special
trains next season.
Southern Pines grows. 1t seems bu a
little while since a terpentine distil-
lery marked the place. In those days
Aberdeen, now a lumber centre, was
merely a siding. First the Prospect
house was built at Southern . Pines,
then came cottages and more hotels,
eliminating in the Piney Woods inn,
and now the place is known every
where. Mr.. Charles St John who
lately bought the inn, says he will this
pea increase its size so per cent. He
finds a steady improvement in its
ciientage. There is a Sanitarium for
white consumptives in the town and
several place there which these unfOrt-
unates frequent. The negro consump-
tives'sanitarium is a mile from the
town and it's three buildings make a
neat appearance. 1t is something en-
tirely new.
This whole sandhil country is but at
the beginning of it's career as a health
resort. 1t capital and taste to
develop it, and if such a thing be posi-
bile, to actually improve on nature her
self. Four years ago the writer made
A. G--A ,.-.t ~ onl 70 20
visit it was delightful indeed. Then
Mr.. James w. Tufts, it's owner, had
proved such a wonder-wOrker that he
was termed the Aladdin of the Pines"
He has all the while kept up his wizard
work and Pinehurst is a model
The way there is like over a sandy
ocean, on whole pillows the electric
car careers. On it's way it passes
through the VanLindley peach orch
ard, yet the largest in the state
through more than half shorn of it's
glory Sixty thousand trees showed
the fatal blight of the San Jose scale.
Van Lindley applied the axe
lily and leveled $50, 900 worth of trees.
Now il is said a discovery has been
made by which he could have saved
them. Forty thousand trees remain
in the young orchard. They are perhaps
four and a half feet high and perfectly
proportional, the tops so trimmed as to
Dc Adk Iilu ohAL4AN VI IN i"iAN
of the fruit. 1t is said the part from
which the trees were cut viii be re-
planted in pea trees.
The state horticultural experiment
farm adjoins that of Van Lindley, n
on it tests were made of the effect on
sandy soils of various fertilizers on
various crops.
The trolley car ride to Pinehurst IS
a delight and this is made complete
when the car slips through MIR. Tufts
worm wire fence and into a "Piney
Paradise" There is a days sight
seeing. The Holly inn is more tina
doubled in capacity, there are two
smaller hotels, half a score of flats
OF apartment houses, and 76 cottages,
all models within and without And,
biggest and most beautiful Of all is the
new hotel, with the proud name of
Carolina, with its 325 rooms, its porch
es twelve feet wide and h~ve-eights
of a mile around; its los private baths;