Year: 1870

VIRGINIA IN THE FUTURE.


So far as we can learn, no part of the Union
is now in the enjoyment of more perfect peace,
order, and general obedience to lawful author
ity. than the State of Virginia. And such has
been her condition for more than year past.
Three bugaboo stories from her soil have
reached us by telegraph within the past three
months one of them giving horrible ac-
count of the torturing to death of a small
boy by a negro who suspected him
of stealing some money he had lost--a
fabrication which was promptly and ut
terly exploded; Q. A collision between
sheriff7s posse and some negroes who refused
to Weld possession of tract of land on which
they had been located by Military authority
which seems to have been peaceably adjusted;
g. The collision of authority between the rival
pretenders TO the MayOralty of Richmond
which they at last referred to the arbltrament
of the Courts, as they should have done al
first. There are doubtless some bad and many
shftless fellows among them; but, take them
altogether, we venture to say that there nave
been fewer feOnes, fewer Outrages, committed
in the whole State Of Virginia during the last
twelve months than in single Congress dis
trict of this City.


And-better yet-the great body of the people
of Virginia seem cured OF that intense
absorption in politics which was so long a
madness in their blood. They no longer assem-
BILE at their Court Houses and CROSSROADS to
be laIilIHyued by the day on State Rights, Con-
sOldation Federal usuTpatiOn, 90 the Resolutions
" of '9S,r &c. &c, as their fathers and grand
fathers took q strange pleasure in doing but
they are generally intent on completing Rail
roads. planting fruit-trees, opening Mines, buy
ing Gypsum, ClOyer-seed, choice Breeding
Animals, &c. &c. Their Agriculture is still in
the main primitive; but the lessons of last
years desolating drouth have not been thrown
away Most of her arabic soil is still plowed
too shallowly and hardly fortified at all; but
there will be more and more good farming
done in Virginia each year until she shall have
become what she ought to be-the best titled
and (apart from the great cities) most product
i've and populous State in the Union.


And prospective buyers of her lands are pour
ing in upon her as never before. We estimate
that the area of her soil sold to strangers since
this year opened is at least ten times that of
any former year. Some are buying for col
onies; some to sell again; many intending to
keep part and sell off the residue; Others
for their own future homes. A number
of Engishmen have bought for them
selves and their friends; each expecting
to be followed to his chosen home by scores
of his countrymen. The mild climate, the
abundant and excellent timber, the immense
deposits of Coal and Iron, the admirable blend
ing of hill and dale mountain and valley, field
and forest, render Virginia especially inviting
to those English farmers who choose to trans
fer their families and their means to The soil
of the New World. Nowhere else in America
does the British farmer feel so much at home
as on the soil of the State whose foundations
were laid by Britons before the Rock of Ply
mouth was discovered or the right angles Of
Philadelphia were projected


And, though some estates have been sold to
firm holders, the area for sale at low prices
in Virginia to-day exceeds that of Massachu-
setts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut all to-
gether. The plnr alton system went out with
Slavery, leaving the patriarchs with hundreds
and thousands of acres each which they can
only turn to profit by selling Most of them
are in debt-many of them heavily bur
dened and sharply pressed; so that their
lands, though more salable than hitherto
since 1861 may still be bought amazingly cheap.
We Judge that there are millions of acres ID
the State that are offered for less than the
net proceeds Of their timber, after paying the
expense of cutting, transporting and selling
it, leaving the land clear profit to the
buyer.


And Virginia is no untrodden wilderness.
The last Indian abandoned her soil nearly
century ago. Her people have in the main
been Americans for five or six generations.
Her Capital is but five hours distant from
that of the United States half her
population live within ten hours ride
of the Federal Metropolis. Her Potomac,
James, and Roanoke, are among the largest
and finest rivers that descend from the Allie
ganies to the Atlantic her bays, estuaries and
harbors, are unsurpassed; the Apple, the Grape,
and the Peach, find her soil and climate most
genial her innumerable upland streams are
equally adapted to impel machinery and irrigate
her fields and, in short-now that Slavery is
dead and her people practically a unit for
Universal Amnesty and Impartial Suffrage
she is evidently entering upon career Of