The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1903-03-13
MARYLAND EMIGRANTS TO
THE WEST.

The Baltimore Sun" which has
always seemed to take great interest
in the development of this section
of the State, recently contained the
following editorial. The suggestions
are timely and practical A greater
effort should be made to induce people
from the northern counties of the State
to seek homes here. Some Of our best
citizens are persons who come from
the upper section of the State and
from Pennsylvania. We can supply
farms at reasonable prices for many
more enterprising and industrious
farmers, and the conditions here offer
many advantages. Tue Sun" says:
Two news items appeared ia the 'Sun"
one day recently which are worth con-
sderation together. One was that
special train leaves Hagerstown each
week during the early spring to carry
emigrants from Washington and the
adjoining counties of Pennsylvania and
West Virginia to the West. The other
item was that farm in Prince Georges
county on the Pennsylvania railroad 16
miles from Washington was put up at
public auction and not more than $40 an
acre was bid for it. The farm is situat
ed in one of the fertile parts of Maryland,
the Forest" of Prince Georges county;
contains over 800 acres Of land, one fourth
of which is said to be in fine timber. The
buildings on the farm perhaps cost more
than the sum offered for the entire estate.
The price offered was not accepted, but
there is an abundance Of land in Prince
Georges and the other Southern Mary
land counties which can be bought for
even less than SO an acre. No improv-
ed lands in any of the States Of the Cen
trail West to which the Western Maryland
emigrants resort can be bought for any
such price. And that land is far from
markets, and the surroundings and climate
are far inferior to those of Maryland.
Emigration from Washington and Fred
erick counties to the country west of the
Allegheny Mountains has been going on
steadily for more than century. 1t be-
gan, in fact, in the early years of the
Revolutionary War and has been going
on ever since in steady stream, almost
without intermission. Portions of Ohio,
Kentucky, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa and
Nebraska were peopled from Maryland.
If the emigrants who have started out
from Hagerstown for the West since the
Civil War had turned to the southern
counties, that section would now doubt
less be the most populous and prosperous
portion of Maryland. The Marylanders
who go West are among the most indus
trious and thrifty of our people. They
know how to farm, and under their
management the Worn out soil "f some of
the southern counties would speedily be
come fertile and productive. They are
people who mainly do their own work,
and where they 60 the labor problem is
solved. In Southern Maryland there is
a lack of white population TO till the soil,
and they complain that the negro popu-
lation will not work and few crops re-
Quire as much labor as tobacco, to the
cultivation of which the people are we'd
ded and from which they refuse to be
divorced. While the State immigration
Bureau is devoting itself to getting set
tiers to come to Maryland from other
lands and is doubtless doing good work
in that direction, we are losing our own
people, who are far more valuable citi-
zens than any we are likely to get from
foreign lands.