Year: 1867

IL y
and is there bought by the Philadelphia com


mission merchants, who charge another profit
on their labor. 1t is then sold to New York
men, who charge another profit for their inter-
ference, and they sell it TO the commission men
Of Brooklyn and distant Boston, Albany and
Rochester, and 80 on, who charge another
profit There are from four to six charges
which are levied upon all produce between you
and the consumers. But, when an article goes
directly from Bridgeton TO New York, ii goes
to point which Is the market not only of the
city Of New York, but Of Syracuse. New Ha-
ven, Hartford, and all the great cities north
ard east, varying in population from fifty to a
hundred thousand people, When you touch
New York, you reach populations numbering,
with surroundings, iu the aggregate, nearly
two millions of people and when you take
into account the great cities, such as Albany,


Troy, Boston, and others, you probably reach
market OF not less than from six to ten mil
lions of people. OF our Strawberries which
wele sent from Vineland this year, many boxes
went as far as Montreal and Quebec, and thew
first had to go through Philadelpha. accumu-
lating tolls and expenses all the way through


And yet it was more profitable by twenty-five
/ or thirty per cent. to send them to New York
than to Philadelphia. The aggregate amount
ed to thousands of dollars, and it was a clear
demonstration of what it would pay the people
OF Vineland to have direct route to New
York The advantage in this respect alone
would not be less than from fifty to eighty
thousand dollars next season That advantage


is enormous; and the advantage to you would
be equally large in proportion If we had n
direct route to New York, within one year and
a half after the building Of the road, the value
of land in the portions of Cumberland and
Camden counties through which the road
would run, would be fully doubled, would be
increased hundred per cent. Before making
a remark of that kind, have been very care
full, in case you might consider it extravagant.
But, Iwould ask you to calculate carefully the
effect of Railways upon a country in your own
experience, and you will find it to be very
moderate statement of the almost immediate
advantages of the proposed line. In our own
experience the increase in value of land has,
in five years, been from three to four hundred
per cent. over and above the selling price of
land when the road was first laid out.


This section of the country has peculiar
advantage in the supply of the city markets,
and that advantage is climate. We are better
Oft than if we were within ten miles of New
York. | mean so far as the making of a profit
out of these lands by means of agriculture is,
concerned. Every mile from New York brings
US into better climate and you may rest as
sured that the amount which YOU produce
would bring over and above what it would
bring to you were you late instead Of early in
the season, throughout South Jersey, ut least
millions of dollars Whilst bushel of toms-
toes, for instance, from this part of the coun-
try, will sell in New York for two dollars we
would not get more than fifty cents if we were
within ten miles of New York OUT strawber-
ries will sell for twenty-five cents a basket.
while if we lived in the neighborhood of New
York, we could only obtain ten cents. BY the
| time our berries are out of the market, that is
precisely the time when the New York straw
berries are entering the market. You can
supply the market with all the early produce,
at time when you can get thirty or forty per
cent. more than if you were farming in the
neighborhood of New York.


These are not questions of surmise or con-
lecture, bus questions of fact the truth oe
which is being demonstrated every year 1t
has only been few years since you have paid
any attention to the raising of poultry in this
vicinity. You have noticed that since you be-
gan to send your poultry to Philadelphia you
received from fifty to a hundred per cent.
more for it than you did before. You omen a
direct communication with New YORK, and that
business will offer from twenty-five to thirty
per cent more profit to every man who raises
poultry.


This ro ad presents advantages entirely diff
fe-ent from any that We enjoy at the present
time. lhave not said any thing about the
advantage of being on great through route
in the midst of the world, instead of being in
an isolated situation 1t has only been some
six or eight years since you have enioyed the
benefit of being on the spur of railroad: but
those six or eight years have changed our en-.
tire business interests as we'll rs added to the
| attractiveness of living in this section of the
State Now here, in this portion Of New .Jer-
sey, with fine soil and lovely climate,
within forty miles of Philadelphia, and it is
new country You can go fifteen hundred
miles west of New Jersey, into countries,
which, ten years ago, were barren wilderness,
! and at the present time you will find cities of
thirty thousand or more of people What is
the reason of that +? Has it been because the
natives OF this section have been different from
the rest of the people of the United States
less energetic or less intelligent? Not at all
The people here are as intelligent and gifted
IN every respect as they are anywhere else -
There is q great difference, gentlemen, be-
tween man with dollar in his pocket. and a
man with hundred thousand dollars in his
pocket. We have been wanting in opportunity
We have been away from every external infu-
ence, and so isolated that you could tell
man from this section in any place Men
would talk of this country as they would about
Africa; they would ask you what sort of place
it was; what sort of animals were natural to
our swamps, and what sort of people we had
down here. In fact; it was said this country
did not belong to the United States This
sounds like absurdity, but there is a great
deal of sense in all this You may take
traveller from Maine to Texas, and in his
whole journey it would be impossible for him
to reach this section of the country. A man
travelling from extreme East to extreme West
again, would never touch this section, and
among the millions of people who are constsnt
ly travelling, none of their travel ever touches
this region of the country We have been
upon no through route; and everything, in as
far as the prosperity of the country is con-
cerned, depends upon the outside world being
able to get to US and through us In the
period of the Middle Ages, to give an example
we have Palmyra and Venice They were
great cities because they were upon the great
through route between Europe and Asia
Antwerp, Amsterdam and the Hollanders
changed the route of travel from an overland
to sea route, and Venice, with her magnif
cent palaces, become q mere museum of an
| tique curiosities From city of hundreds of
thousands it has dwindled down to small in.
significant place of some fifty thousand uhab-
itants. Palmyra, sinking in the dusts Of the
deserts, while Antwerp, Amsterdam, London
and Liverpool, ere the marts of European
commerce. Do you suppose that Cleveland,
Chicago, st. Louis, and all those vast Western
cities which have so lately sprung into exist


ence-do you suppose that they would ever
have been heard Of if they had not been on the
great through route between East and West?
But for this the wolf and the bear would yet
have been heard where now you hear the hum
of commerce and industry. These are facts
which are evident to your own minds.


Now then, what does this proposed railroad
do? This railroad changes entirely for the fu-
ture our position with relation to the outside
world Instead of our being an isolated coun-
try, it puts US on the great through route be-
tween North and South. Between New York
as starting point, we have New England and
all the Southern States, The route will make
the time from six to eight hours shorter than