The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-01-16
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
OF NORTH CAROLINA
Splendid Industrial Growth of State Reyiewed-Banking and
Other Features Point to Great Strides MIXTURE

+ Cur own people and it has been done
by u home labor. There has been
no outside help. Naturally, the mill
operatives and railroad employees have
been drawn from the farms. To that
extent agriculture has suffered some
detriment. But Notwithstanding this
drawback, in ten years the value of
the farms in North Carolina has IN
creased 30 per cent. Indeed, agricul-
ture has never been 50 prosperous as
in recent years. Formerly Moth Car
lima raised put half a million bales of
cotton; now her crop approximateS
100000 bales, and there has been Il
equal expansion in her crops Of corn,
tobacco, the cereals and hay. Her cat
tie and stock and dairying and or
chard production show a much greater
increase. The prices of farm products
have been and still are unusually re-
, munerative. While the manufacturers
and the railroad lines have made large
earnings, the farmers, as well, nave
much money in bank and are con-
tented. The improvement has been
general and all classes share in the
prosperity. Even the negroes, whose
exemption for two centuries from care
and responsibility and all thought of
the morrow, and whose want of thrift
is natural, have laid up something for
Il rainy day, and in 1903 listed for
taxation s14,339,00O, chiefly lands
which they have bought and paid for.
But no account of agriculture in
North Carolina would be complete thai
did not make reference ii the marrc.-
ous development of the trucking in
dustry. The eastern section Of The
state has become the market garden
of the northern cities. The industrial
character of that region has thus been
greatly changed and the people them
selves have been transformed. Their
quiet, placid existence has given place
to a life Of great energy and indus-
trial activity. Three and four crops
succeed each other in the same fields
during the year, and the profits are, at
times, enormous. The development Of
this trucking industry has been SO
rapid that the resources of he great
Coast Line railroad are taxed to move
these vegetables to market. Near the
close Of 1904 that line ordered LEO
additional freight cars, and in 1905
1900 more were ordered, together with
so additional engines. The past sea-
son. Notwithstanding unusual exer-
lions, the strawberry crop could not be
moved, and a half million crates were
lost and had 10 be dumped in the local
rivers. Arrangements are now being
made for 1850 refrigerator cars to
mOva the crop next spring.
While eastern North Carolina thus
vegetables and small fruits, the noun
tain region in the west furnishes great
quantities of the finest apples. Not
only in manufacturing and in agricul-
ture have there been notable improve
uentS and rapid progress, but the for
ests and mines have also yielded up
vast products, increasing the wealth
Of the state.
AS a d%eplorable result of the unfor-
runate snG i'll advised reconstruction,
our people, both black and While,
were forced to undergo some terrible
experiences, and it was long before
the dawn Of the better days of a pres
porous era. But the white people Of
North Carolina will know how to solve
The problems Of life, and in due time
they remedied the ills that had over
taken them; and with the opening of
the new century they amended the
constitution of the state so as to re-
quire an educational test for suffrage,
except as to those who were entitled
to vote under the laws of the state in
1867 and prior thereto. The result
has been most happy. The chief effect
has been to convert the people more
largely into industrial forces, and to
eliminate that political excitement
which had heretofore been a draw
back in the work of progress. Since
then there has been uninterrupted
prosperity and contentment among all
classes of the inhabitants. Another
result has been the general promotion
of education. For twenty years North
Carolina had been exerting herself to