The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-01
SOUTHERN PROGRESS
INDUSTRIAL AGENTS TELL OF
 THEIR SUCCESSES.
Part Railroads are Playing in Inducing Immigration and the Location of Manufacturing Plants
 Along Their Lines.

Baltimore, Md, Dec. 31.-(SpecIal.)- J. In the midst of the business of carry ing wouldbe homeseekers to desirable localities and of locating settlers, a number of the industrial and immigra- tion agents of Southern railroads have found time to contribute to this weeks issue of The Manufacturers Record some details about their methods and facts about results.
 A pioneer in this work Is the South ern Railway, which Is experiencing the cumulative effect of coteries of satis- fled settlers adding their testimony to the demand in the South for more peo- pie. It has taken years to create such situation. which M. V. Richards well describes in the statement that he is in active touch at the present moment with 35,000 negotiations in a more or less completed state, ranging from a search for a home acre" to locations for great industrial plants.
 This cumulative effect is what Capt J. F. Merry of the Illinois Central Railroad calls his line upon line and precept upon precept," and in the bird's-eye view of the results of the years operation in the territory served by his line he includes 1900 Italians settled in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, about 50 per cent. of whom have gone to cities and towns. the rest being engaged in growing cotton, veg etables and small fruits; the location of colony of Danes In Mississippi; of sixty-four Hungarian families in Lou isiana, each bringing with them from $500 to $500 in cash and buying from twenty to sixty acres of land for truck farms; of German colony in Missis- sippi and a Swedish colony in Louis jana.
 Persistent work has been done in advertising Virginia in other States and F. H. La Baume of the Norfolk and Western Railway notes a steady increase in the number of home-seek- CTS, 40 or 50 per cent. of whom have purchased farms and nearly all the oth- CTS have declared their purpose to come to Virginia as soon as they can dis pose of their holdings in the North. The settlers. too, have written to their former netghbors advising them to sell out and come to Virginia, and these voluntary missionary labors are expect ed to bear rich fruit.
 Frank Y. Anderson of the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, reports that in addition to locating several compa- nies to engage in coal mining and lum- bering he has sold farm lands to l9s families and has leased 472 tracts of lana to parties who prefer to raise a crop and test the soil and climate be- fore purchasing. The Frisco System, according to the estimate of Mir. s. H. Hughes, has carriedInto the Southwest S,132 homesekeers, and has located, as result of the first trip. 1,50S who have purchased 164.007 acres. representing an investment of more than $1,S7s,0o0 the settlers coming principally from the Middle West and Northwest. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas has a record of many hundred families settled along this line. as well as a large number of new manufacturing and business en- terprises established.
 Complimentary to the work of the railroads spreading abroad knowledge of the wonderful potentialities of the South and seeing to 1t that incomers from other parts of the country and from abroad find suitable locations have been the efforts of industrial leagues, business mems associations and like organizations to attract indus trial capital or to bring Into the pro- ductive market conveniently located lands. Typical of the work accom- plished are the building of a belt line railroad and a steel bridge and the establishment of industries represent ing an investment of more than sLoOO.-