Year: 1869

them. Coal, said to be abundant and excel
lent, is also developed on this property and
all around but had not time to examine it.


heard vaguely of mines of copper, lead,
zinc, plumbago, and even silver, in this
western part of Virginia proper, but know
nothing of their value. l was very glad to
find at Dublin depot lot of charcoal pig
iron from mine ten miles distant in the
opposite direction from Giles county, and to


learn that the company which made it ex-
pected soon to turn out one hundred tons
per week. trust that many such compa-
and coal-deposits throughout this region.


Yet of even more immediate interest to
the agriculture of Virginia is deposit of
gypsum in Smyth county, on the head
waters of the Tennessee, (Holston Fork
some thirty miles westward. This gypsum
is of unsurpassed excellence as fertilizer,
soft, and easily quarried; is several hun
dred acres in area, while q shaft sunk into
it to a depth of 5S2 feet has found no diff
| ferent stratum nor any depreciation in
quality. Farmers who have used this
plaster certify that each dollars worth
added ten dollars to the value of their first
crop and I do not deem this extravagant.
As yet this bencfcent deposit is accessi-
BILE only by wagons, and its use is conse-
quently limited but branch of the Ten
ncssee railroad up the Holston fifteen miles,
over grades not exceeding twenty feet to the
mile, is projected, which, when capital can
be found to build it, will diffuse this plas-
| ter all over Western Virginia and East Ten
| ncssce at cost of three TO six dollars per
ton, and supply Central and Eastern Vir-
gnia at five to eight dollars per ton. And
! never did region hunger and thirst for o
! fertilizer as this does for plaster, which is
so cheap and so sure to yield immediate re-
turns that o farmer must be wrctchedly poor
who cannot somehow contrive to give his
grass and tillagc dressing of at least
bushcl per acre. And one bushel per acre
sowed over all the face of Virginia not CO.
| yered by woods or buildings would add
| many millions to the value of her ensuing
| harvest.


ATTRACTIONS FOR IMMIGRANT9.


That some soreness should still be felt by
those who were badly astonished as well az
discounted by the result of our late strug-
gle is inevitable; yet think there are few
| localities where an immigrant from the
North, unless he made himself conspicu
ously disagrccablc, would be annoyed other
wise than by being let alone. Even the
natural distrust of and reserve toward
strangers would soon give way if the settler
| obviously sought TO make himself agree
able and useful. Hence it is no apprehen
sion that any one need fear i!l-usage that


leads me to rcItcrate my advice that those
who from the North would make homes III
| the South should take their future neigh
bors along with them; for the ways of this
people are 50 different from our5-their
! ways Of thinking as well as acting
| that we cannot at once become good
! ncighbors. It we're absurd to expect it. We
could not cobblc harness, and work farm
with one poor, worn-out plow, as they will
we must have the blacksmith, the harness
maker, the wagon-makcr, at hand We want
| more tools for fifty acres than suffice Vir
ginian with five hundred; and we could not
| live among unbridgcd mountain streams,
which q days rain swells to raging tor
rents, imprisoning each farmer on mar
row isthmus until the floods see fit to sub
side. Coming down from, the mountains to
| Wolf creek, our party struck the clearing of
a pioneer who had probably lived here tii-'


teen to twenty years, had cleared twenty to
| thirty acres, and had most of it in grain
yet who had no outlet but a bridlc-path-
| no sign of cart, sled, or wagon-track-to the
road half a mile distant and perhaps three
hundred feet below him, through forest of
superb oak, where good weeks work would
have made very passable cartway. No
Yankee could possibly live so and it we're
idle to fancy that modes Of life so con-
| tra6ted rs ours and theirs will ever assimi
| late.


Northern enterprise and settlement in
Virginia will mainly concentrate around
mines of iron, coal, copper, lead, gypsum,
&C.; and here alone can fortunes be rapidly
accumulated. venture to say that there
are mineral properties now to be bought in
Virginia for prices which will be quadru-
pied in ten years, though nothing in the mean
time be done to develop them while, if they
be opened and worked with the requisite
knowledge and capital, the value of some
will be increased hundred fold. II the
gypsum bed whereof have spoken be such
rs it is represented, $l,000,o0O invested in
buying, developing, and building railroad
to it, ought to yield profit of at least halt
q million per annum for the next hundred
years. An average of two dollars per ton
! for the gypsum delivered at the intersection
of the Tennessee railroad would insure this
to party who knew how to advertise and
sell. And this is but one instance out of
many.


But where nothing Is to be done with
mining or minerals this is the only plan OF
emigration that I could recommend:


Let q company be formed Of not less
than one hundred heads of families, Of
whom each will contribute $500 or over to
be invested in lands. Collect the money,
and send two or three of the best men to
travel widely, look deliberately, and pur-
chase in body for cash only, taking care
that the title is unQuestionable. Now sur
vey the whole tract into farms, village
lots, &C., with the proper reservations for
churches, schools, wooded park, &C., &C.,
open roads, and, after due notice, put the
whole up at auction, allowing every one to
bid and buy, whether o member of the
company or not, but allowing any one who
chooses to pay in the stock OF the company.
Now settle up every account and wind up
the company, dividing the profits to the
shareholders pro rata on their investment.
l confidently believe that one hundred
thousand dollars thus judiciously invested
would pay profit Of fifty per cent. and
return the capital within year, while
enabling each stockholder to obtain at cost
lust such a tract as suited him--thc me-
chanic buying yillsge plat of at least an
acre, with an out-lot of forty acres OF tim
ber; the farmer choosing tract suited for
grain or stock as he should prefer; and
each beginning their new life with old
friends all around him; the mechanic, sure
of work and Iay from the start, and the
farmer finding in the growing village a
| L l..,,s ...o .l-o4 Cor i'm hnr nd fuel tEat he