THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA THE COLLECTION OF NORTH CAROLINIANA C91? N87U c? 00006792189 This book is due on the last date stamped below unless recalled sooner. It may be renewed only once and must be brought to the North Carolina Collection for renewal. b-k- Jt/r zrWo Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://www.archive.org/details/northcarolinaitsOOturn ISTOETH OAEOLHSTA: ITS RESOURCES AND PROGRESS; ITS • * BEAUTY, HEALTHFIMESS AND FERTILITY; AND ITS ATTRACTIONS AND ADVANTAGES AS A HOME FOR IMMIGRANTS. V COMPILED BY THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION, STATISTICS AND AGRICULTURE. i KALEIGH : J03IAII TURNER, PUBLIC PRINTER AND BINDER /. 1875. TO THE READER. This publication has been gotten up under the authority of the Legislature of North Carolina, in order to furnish persons desirous of coming to this State, the most reliable, general and statistical information as a guide to investment and location. To the Northern and European settlers coming to North Car- olina for the purchase of lands of all descriptions suited to the wants of the agriculturist, the vine and fruit-grower, the truck farmer, the miner and manufacturer, and to all those seeking any employment, these pages will give such information as may be useful to each, and any class who may seek a home in one of the most highly favored portions of the earth, in cli- mate, soil, natural advantages, capacity for improvement and population. The world does not possess anywhere a more quiet, peaceable, honest and frugal population than the people of this State. Notwithstanding the devastation, ruin and de- moralization of the late civil war, our people are rapidly re- turning to their old customs and labors. A more law-abiding people cannot be found. Foreigners and strangers who come among us to engage in the industrial and business professions of life, and to pursue the arts of peace, are everywhere hailed with joy, and the aim and desire of our people generally is to promote peace and quietude, enterprise and prosperity among ^all classes, and to encourage and support wise laws, and a good ^government which gives the greatest security and protection rgia t Northern Alabama and Tennessee. Then instead of a tram- melled trade and a restricted commerce, the greatest mere utile marine the world has ever beheld will carry the greatest com- merce ever dreamt of by man into and among the fifteen hun- dred millions of people who have " a local habitation a id a name" outside the boundaries of the United State of America. We shall then parody the poet, and instea I of saying "No pent-up Utiea contracts our powers, For the whole boundless continent is ours," we will say, " No pent-up trade destroys our growing powers, For the whole boundless world is ours." I have now briefly sketched some of the advantages hat North Carolina presents to settlers. To the people of Scot! ind it offers greater inducements than any other quarter. It is not subject to long cold winters, like Canada and the States of the north-west ; it is free from the excessive heat of the far Sor tb ; it is not subject to the fearful want of rain that proves so lis- astrous to the Australian farmer ; it is much nearer the 1 nd of their birth and the kindred left at home than NewZeala d; it is only one day's more sailing to Norfolk than New Yc k; it is 400 to 1,500 miles nearer the sea than the States of he north-west ; so that its products can reach the markets of he world at a much lower rate of freight — so much lower, t iat the saving in freight alone would pay the coet of an improved first-class plantation in ten years ; it has a very large population 74: of Scottish descent ; it is a strongly Presbyterian State, hence congenial to their religious views ; its people are very favorable to the interests of education, hence high mental culture is at- tainable. To the banker and capitalist it offers a high rate of interest, that can be well secured. To the cotton manufacturer it offers cheap water-power and abundance of cheap coal and a healthy country, in the close vicinity of the cotton fields. To iron-masters it offers inducements equal, if not superior, to any other quarter of the globe. The future Wilsons of Dundyvan and Bairds of Gartsherrie, of this country, will be found in Chatham county, North Carolina. Where the cotton and iron trade flourishes, all other incidental industries will abound. To the Scottish farmer it offers a plantation at from one to two years of his present rent per acre, on which a large indus- trious family can win a fortune in ten year ; a mild climate, a great variety of productions that come to maturity in convenient rotation and enables him to keep at work with vigor all the year round. To the Scottish stock-raiser it is an earthly para- dise, the mountains and valleys of the western portion of the State being so much richer than the Lammermoor hills, the Pentland hills, or the hills around the home of Dandy Dinmout. Nothing in the highlands of Scotland can compare with these grazing mountains for richness, and Switzerland cannot vie with them in beautiful scenery, while no snow-clad peaks threaten the valley with destructive avalanches. To the laborer, good wages, kindley treatment, a fine garden, where abundance of fruits, flowers and vegetables, that are easily raised, will make his life one of rational enjoyment, and give his family a chance to climb fortunes highest ladder. With these glorious advantages the entire emigration of Scotland should be directed to this one point for the present. A new Scotland can be founded which, at some future day, may rival the old in science, literature, and song, where the liberty eo loved by Bruce and Wallace will be tempered with a love of justice founded on the teachings of Calvin and Knox. T5 From Mr. Scott, a gentleman formerly a resident of Glas- gow, and the past three years residing near Kaleigh, North Carolina : I find that English gentlemen who discuss the advantages of owning an estate in North Carolina generally inquire as to the possibilities and profits of stock farming. Cotton and tobacco they know little of, but if stock can also be profitably raised, then, with the other reputed profitable crops, they think them- selves placed beyond a contingency. The general impression prevails that when the tobacco or cotton belts are reached, there grazing ceases to be profitable. It is true that in the days of slavery the plantation productions were nearly con- fined to cotton and tabacco. These crops were well adapted to slave labor, and requiring little of the skill for stock growing, were favorite productions with the slave. Taking these facts together with the admitted profits from these staples, there was every reason why planters should prefer not to trouble themselves with stock raising. It would be difficult to give in figures the exact profits of stock raising in this State, but it is certainly most profitable, and land owners and plantation owners tell you so. They have not had the money since the war to go into the business on such a scale as they would like, but every one, so soon as Le makes a little money in cotton growing goes in also for stock raising. Messrs. Randolph, Tilley, Dr. Gregory, and others in that neighborhood, have grown cotton extensively and made money, but so certain are they of the advantage and profits of stock raising that they made most liberal arrangements with young Englishmen to dovelop this branch of farming. Mixed husbandry is in every sense the beat, and I am satis- fied that every cotton farmer to be continuously prosperous, must lay out his farm for it. If he raises wheat and corn he will have bread for himself and servants, and food for his mules and horses. He must also grow potatoes to serve his establishment ; root crops, such as mangolds, beets, &c, for his stock ; clover, partly to onrich his land, and partly to feed his 76 stock. If he does this he can save the whole price of his cot- ton crop, and he can grow a full crop ; half a bale is an aver- age crop, but two bales can be grown and every pound short of this is short of a full crop, and so much labor lost. Although, at the same time, any farmer getting his land into condition to produce one bale per acre, is sure to make a fortune properly managed. To any one who asks our special advice, we say select a farm where cotton, tobacco and wheat can be grown, there also you are sure of being able to grow clover, and raise and keep stock. Mr. Scott further adds : So little has it been the custom amongst English and Scotchmen, contemplating immigrating in search of a home, to consider the Southern States as in any wise suitable, that it seems in every way desirable in this 6heet specially to invite the attention of our friends in the old country, to the subject. We do not much wonder at the fact. The conception which our brethren in the Northern States have had of the climate, soil and mode of life of the citizens until a very recent period, was of the crudest kind. Many reasons may be assigned for this. Such is the idea which invariably prevails, that the heat in summer was ex- cessive and overpowering, that to be associated with negroes, especially in the relation of owner and slave, was barbarous and degrading, and the natural and well-known jealousy with which the citizens of the Southern States regarded what they believed to be an invasion of the system under which they at least had striven and lived in ease and luxury, whatever pro- gress was made in the matter of civilization and improvement of the countries in agriculture and commerce, all operated as a powerful deterrant to the peopling of these States. In Great Britain the Southern States were regarded simply as the source whence their cotton supplies were obtained. The life of a cot- ton planter and plantation owner was supposed to be one of mag- nificent ease and luxury, supported by the labor of his negroes and the enterprise and industry of the old and New England 77 manufacturers, which converted that labor into gold. Fancy pictured him reclining on an ottoman like an eastern prince, surrounded by his slaves, each with an allotted task, as trivial as the life he seemed fated to live himself. That these States, and especially the good old State of North Carolina, abounded in fertile lands, magnificent hills, beautiful valleys, meandering streams and variegated woodlands, charming in their aspect and character almost beyond conception, we venture to assert never once entered the minds of our brethren in the old countries, not to mention the more latent resources of the State, which consist of every variety of mineral of profitable de- velopment yet known to the geologist and mineralogist. We have endeavored, and, in great measure, succeeded in dispelling those notions, and in awakening an interest in our State, in Europe, Canada and the North, never before realized, especially amongst our English and Scottish friends, whom we invite and wish to see come amongst us in large numbers. We feel confident in asserting that no State in the Union so much resembles the old country in most of its features as the good Old North State. The Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex wheat growers in England, the Lothians, Carse and upland ditto in Scotland, all can find their homes re-prod need in our Wake, Warren, Franklin, Granville, Halifax and other counties. Representatives of the old country dairy districts we have in Buncombe, Yancey, Watauga and other counties, and our glo- rious mountains, with their rich alluvial soils, nearly all of which can be cultivated to the summit, would require but little clearing to render them unequalled in the world for richness of pasture and adaptability to stock raising and wool growing of the finest and most profitable textures. We would address ourselves to Scotchmen particularly. We know there are many wealthy farmers in that country who have difficulty in deciding how they can best give their sons a start in the world. The professions are over-crowded. Farms are high rented and likely to go higher, the grain trade, so speculative in its character, seems a natural one for the son of 78 a farmer to embark in, and yet to how many has it proved dis- astrous and ruinous ? Hence, in the counties before referred to, we have cleared farms of from 300 to 1,000 acres, with ex- cellent dwelling-houses, containing, many of them, spacious halls, large-sized rooms and frescoed ceilings, entering which you are at once struck with the evidences of former home-like comfort and elegance, all of which can be bought and possessed at once, in fee simple, for little more than one-half the annual rent of such a farm in Scotland. Prices of products bear no unfavorable comparison with those of the Northern and British markets, so that with the application of such industry as characterizes the Scottish far- mer at home, aided by the superior climate here, no where in the world does the road to wealth and comfort seem so easy and smooth, no where else can the farmer with small capital find equal advantages. Besides the specialty of cotton, the cultivation of oats, hay, potatoes, turnips, mangolds, beets, &c, is exceedingly profit- able, but with the exception of cotton and potatoes, all else* should be consumed by stock kept on the farm, so that a suf ficiency of manure should be at hand to maintain the land in condition to produce full crops of whatever the farmer elects to cultivate as his money crop. This, however, every good farmer understands, and in conclusion, would only say that in cordially inviting our brethren in the old country to come amongst us, we believe we are rendering them an invaluable service as well as the State whose resources are so boundless. From a former Captain in the English army : Here, in old Granville county, the farms and the crops aije looking well, and, for myself, I hope this, my second year, to do even better than last. Probably the money I laid out last year returned me twenty percent. All the laud here has been > badly cultivated, having little or no manure applied to it, but it will grow almost anything if properly cared forv I like the climate, the country and the life, and have found every one 79 very kind. I think Kaleigh one of the prettiest places I have seen anywhere. I have not at all regretted coming out. I am thankful to say I was not allowed to be one who was disappointed in the least. Of course, this section of country is as different as pos- sible from England, as is also the general appearance, manners and customs of many of its inhabitants, and every one should be prepared, before deciding to come here, to accept the country as it is, and the people as they are, then all will go smoothly. No one should come out without expecting and having made up their minds to discomforts of some kind. At the same time, I think any one would find the life pleasant and agree- able. Labor is pretty cheap. It would be best for any one coming here to have at least £300. "With that and economy, they could get a nice farm of 100 acres, with good house, out- buildings, &c. Dr. Palemon John, of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, for twelve y«ars editor of a leading journal in Central Pennsyl- vania, says : "We have visited and traveled through fourteen States of this Union, and we assert what is a fact when we say that in none did we find so many advantages for successful agriculture as in this part of North Carolina. We have now lived here five years, and we claim that in that time we have learned all about the country and the people, and we unhesitatingly declare that in our opinion the honest, industrious immigrant can nowhere find a more congenial home. There is no question that the ?State of North Carolina has surpassing inducements to offer to the immigrant. Its fruitful fields promise an abundant return for his labor. With its open highways, a civilized people and all the advantages of long set- tlement, it has hundreds and thousands of acres of land tha can be had quite as cheap as in the pioneer territories of thet west. It is a great mistake to suppose that the climate of North Carolina is too hot for white men to labor in the fields. The proof of t /is is in the fact that such work has always been done. The hardest work, requiring exposure to the sun all daylong, has beer, performed by white laborers since the settlement of the Sta'o. We .ave recently had visits from gentlemen who have trav- elled xtensively, especially in the South, and they tell us that now' ere have they found so much fraternal good feeling as in Nc ,h Carolina. They say that unlike in some of the South- er i States they have visited, they find no sullen mourning ' ver the " Lost Cause," but a spirit manifested full of buoyant iiope — a disposition to go to work, and especially a desire shown to cordially greet those who come to cast their lots among them. And this is every word true. We can testify to it from a five years' personal experience. The people of eastern North Carolina are, in this respect, so much like our own that we scarcely felt the difference. They are hospital, social, kind. There is no locality where the immigrant, be he from the North, the West, or from Europe, will be more kindly treated. Mr. J. E. Rue, of New Jersey, states : You wish to learn my experience as a planter in North Carolina. I will be brief. Three years ago I came to North Carolina from New Jersey, and^bought a farm with others in Halifax county. All our improvements — and they are exten- sive — have been paid for from the products of the farm, and in three years we have doubled the producing capacity of it. North Carolina is one of the best States of this Union to settle in, if a man has common sense, energy and capital, and will give his life to his business. Improve the land as it is in New Jersey, and it is a much better country. He can raise all the crops of the North and cotton over them. It is a great fruit country, and all that is needed is to set it out. The cli- mate is admirable, and we can work all the year round. In my section society is good, and our intercourse with the people all we desire. I can say to all good men and true, come to North Carolina. 81 Extracts from letter of G-. S. Bellis, late of New Jersey : I came to Halifax, North Carolina, in the spring of 186& to examine lands with a view of purchasing for the purpose of raising and dealing in fruits. I was soon convinced that both the soil and climate were pre-eminently adapted to the culture of fruit of every variety. Since that time I have been en- gaged in its cultivation with remarkable success. I have now on my plantation of one thousand acres, over twenty thousand fine peach trees. I have shipped two crops from the orchards which have paid a fine profit. With a favorable season for fruit the yield will net at least $300.00 per acre. I have raised the Early Louise, Early Rivers and Poster peaches which are great favorites. They all ripen in June- and early part of July. The fruit is very fine, and sells very high in the market ; it sold last year as high as $10.00 per- orate with less than three pecks to a crate. I have found numbers of trees in my orchards, four year& old, that have been well cultivated, producing two crates to a tree. This is a remarkable yield for trees of that age. I have a plan by which I convert old and valueless trees- into new fruit — budding the new variety on old stumps, which gives the new fruit in a much shorter time than is required to raise the tree. I am satisfied that this will not succeed so well in any other place but this. The season is of sufficient length to justify this proceeding which is proper only in the fall. I can pick out 10,000 trees that I would not sell for $5.00 a tree. The land has been greatly improved, and its value much enhanced. The soil is loamy, light and a little sandy, with clay subsoil. 6 LIFE IN NORTH CAROLINA. The following communication we clip from the London Daily News, 8th August, 1874, and written by a lady who spent the two past years in the town of Asheville. We also copy the comments of the London News Editor thereon. To the Editor of the Daily News : Sik: — Some five or six years ago you had a long and inter- esting series of papers upon the great advantages of persons with moderate means emigrating from England to Virginia or North Carolina. These writings appealed to our imagination, and made us think we should like to go and live in such a splendid climate and possess our own thousand acres for our children's inher- itance to the latest time, but were apparently immovably fixed by an untransferable manufacturing business in North Stafford- shire, and thought we should live and die there. This, how- ever, was not to be ; for a year or two later a sudden and pro- tracted attack of congestion and abscess of the lungs threaten- ing consumption, seized my husband, and made it imperative that we should leave that neighborhood, and so for a year or two, we tried all the warm southern places in England, all to no avail ; then the physician's fiat went out, that we must leave England or die. We chose the former alternative, but as we had very many relatives in North America, and thought we could more advantageously settle our family on that continent than in Europe, we decided to go in the spring of 1872. This is now rather more than two years ago, and as we went for health, I may now state that our invalid, that almost every doctor thought beyond the possibility of recover} 7 , is now 83 quite well. While making inquiries about where we should locate ourselves, we read of an obscure distant town among the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, where consump- tive people went with marvellously good results. The eleva- tion of the town is 2,000 feet above the ocean, and the atmos- phere wonderfully bright and pure. We decided, therefore, to go, although the distance from New York was 800 or 900 miles. The description of a voyage to the New World is so well known that I will pass it by, although every one who first crosses the Atlantic feels it is an epoch in his life. The real interest of our southward journey began when we embarked on one of the beautiful steamers on the Chesapeake Bay, at Baltimore. The bay itself is so very beautiful, and when the sun set and the stars came out, I felt I had never known before what starlight was. The steamer itself was, in all its appoint- ments, like a first-class hotel, and oh ! the relief of being for a few hours free from mosquitoes. New York and Philadelphia had left ks in a state like peo- ple recovering from small-pox. We left the steamer after a five o'clock in the morning breakfast at Norfolk, in Virginia, and there commenced our land journey by rail in a westerly direction, passing through apart of the " Dismal Swamp" that Mrs. Stowe made us all so familiar with in " Dred." Norfolk is quite a considerable seaport town and very flourishing. The journey from Raleigh to Norfolk is very uninterest- ing, excepting that was the first time we sew cotton and to- bacco growing and the black people -cultivating it. At Raleigh we saw also for the first time a thoroughly southern house in the holtel built of wood and each story pro- vided with deep verandahs, the lower ones of which seemed to form the Exchange of the town, (I beg its pardon,) city. Raleigh, really, is a very pretty little place. Several of the principal people there very kindly called upon us and almost begged us to take up our abode there, but the great heat and the musquitoes frightened us away to the promised coolness of the mountains. So after a few days' rest we set oft' again about 84 8 o'clock at night for our western destination, the trains in that direction going only at that time. We had to stay for an hour or two at one place and change trains, and while there we watched the early dawn and sun- rise. The sky was as clear as possible and there was the red- dening East growing brighter every minnte ; but what was that mystery, to the north?' I think it must have been, was another bright clear light in the heavens, stretching about half way to the zenith, but more sharply defined than the true sunrise r though growing paler as the sunlight advanced. There was no moon at that time, besides it was altogether unlike moon- light. Some of the country people looked at it, but did not understand or care about it ; to mo it was a great joy, like what I have experienced once or twice in seeing unexpectedly an eclipse, and I recollected seeing a picture of the Zodiacal light sometimes seen in September in southern latitudes, and this- was one of those rare celestial exhibitions. About noon we arrived at the terminus of the railroad in that direction. I ought scarcely to say that, for the railroad is- cut much farther, but not finished. My poor invalid husband and little children were by this time considerably exhausted, for we had been traveling nearly a week, and we were now only about twenty-four miles from our journey's end, and this we were to accomplish by coach. There exists really no excuse for the discomfort of this. As we bumped along we tried to say to each other, continually, "how beau ," but a big stone stopped us before we could say " tiful."" The hills became lofty, with here and there lovely glades between the trees, and we looked involuntarily for gen- tlemen's houses, but there was only here and there any sign of cultivation, and there are thousands of acres of splendid timber clothing the hills, their summits without any signs of life. As we approached Asheville, the roads became a little im- proved, though still very bad in places. "We were certainly too tired when we arrived there to enjoy the magnificent scenery surrounding the town. The town i8 so situated that several ranges of mountains and hills are visable in different directions. I have asked the names of distant points, and have been told that they were in Tennessee, from forty to sixty miles away, and yet so sharply defined that they appeared within a few miles of us. Well may they be called " Blue" Ridge mountains, for I have seen every shade of blue, from intense ultra-marine to a pale light, but bright clear blue color like our own skes in England on a fine midsummer day. I have traced branches of trees miles away, and It is singular that the brilliant clearness of the at- mosphere has stamped a corresponding clearness of recollection of every detail of that enchanting and ever varying panorama* As we determined to stay twelve months at least to give the place a trial, we rented a handsome house for eighty pounds a year, a large rent for those parts, but interest is high there. This house would be considered a great looking villa residence in any English town. It is built of wood, painted white, with outside green shut- ters to every one of the numerous windows, for all the prin- cipal rooms had four large sash windows. A beautiful broad covered piazza or verandah, nearly forty feet long and ten or twelve broad, and one smaller at the back, had to do duty as butler's pantry in summer for washing up glass and China, three large lofty sitting rooms, and two smaller ones, used as bedrooms, and three large good bedrooms, the servants' rooms were quite detached from the house across the yard. But English ladies always pride themselves upon their kitchens, and mine, I found, was just four square brick walls under the dining room, often flooded in the heavy rain, with no furni- ture, no pantries, only one outside place that vagrant dogs could enter and steal my dainties from, and worst of all, there was no attempt at any kind of drainage. The water was all drawn in the most primitive fashion from a well, and we had to keep one man whose sole business it was to clean knives and shoes, draw water, bring in firewood and go errands. Before taking possession of our house we had to remain a few 86 weeks at one of the hotels of the city. Towards the middle of September, we settled in our house. On the third day after we got in, our lovely little girl, Lucilla, as beautiful and good a child as ever blessed this earth, died after three days illness. Of her I cannot dare not write. Let it pass. But I am compelled to speak of it, as the circumstance brought out the good feeling of the people towards us so wonderfully. General M came and undertook everything for us. The kindness and sympathy this gentleman showed us then and during our whole stay in that part no pen can tell. Soon after we arrived at Asheville all the principal people called upon us. Our very first visitor was the Episcopal Bis- hop of North Carolina. Bishop Atkinson, a splendid looking elderly man of the very highest old English type of face and figure, and a most benignant countenance. We had had ex- cellent letters of introduction to many gentlemen in the Southern States, but had none whatever to Asheville, and yet we were received with the utmost confidence and kindness. We have all heard occasionally in American writings of people of the old Dominion school, and I for one never clearly under- stood what it meant till I was in Asheville. It seems that when America successfully revolted from Eng- lish rule, many, especially Yirginians of good English birth, retained their attachment to English rule, and considered the founding a republic as a great mistake, and they were called of the Old Dominion school ; and we were much surprised to find that something of this feeling exists even now here, and there in the South especially since their Northern conquest. We found in that remote place people far better acquainted with English politics and the movements and combinations of English political parties than we were ourselves. We also met with the most staunch old fashioned, loud responding Sir Roger de Coverly, and Dr. Johnson Stamp of Church of England men. It was refreshing to hear the out and out tory- J8m of our dear friend, the General, and how he mourned over our increase of the franchises in England. 87 The gentleman had been originally in high command in the United States army, and had lost his right arm while a major in command in Mexico more than twenty years ago. Being and thinking they had the right on their side, he had em- braced the cause of the South, and with its loss he had lost his fortune, and late in life he had become a lawyer, and what every body else is there more or less, a farmer also. His wife is a Northern lady, and was interesting to me to find how in- timately she was acquainted with European courts and their intermarriages. She had been a good deal in Europe herself, and her father and brothers had been consuls in Paris and St. Petersburg. The extreme cheapness of land and provisions had induced several gentlemen, whose fortunes had been di- minished by the war, to settle in Asheville. There were also several English and Irish gentlemen who had tried Canada, but had been droven, by the severity and length of the Canadian winters, to try their fortunes in the South. One was mild mining, one was a doctor, and another tobacco growing. If properly attended to, we understand tobacco growing is very profitable there, as the climate and soil are very favorable, but very often the whole crop is destroyed by being left in the hope of growing a little longer, until an early frost, which will utterly destroy it. We could have bought a house with eight or ten large rooms, and servants' houses, barns, stables, gar- dens, &c, and splendidly situated, for a thousand pounds; and farther out in the country for still less; and they will all double in value as soon as ever the communication is complete. In this small community of about two thousand inhabitants, there were about eight regular medical men, and fourteen or fifteen lawyers, and many churches and chapels with their ministers. The people are generally extremely English look- ing, much more so than many of the Northerners, and they have the kindest feelings towards the English generally. Some^ef the ladies are very pretty, and the young ladies dress with considerable taste, but in a few years after they marry they seem to adopt a very plain style of dress, and gen- 88 erally to place themselves a good deal in the back ground of the unmarried people. The great number of lawyers puzzled us, but we found that Asheville being a country town, there was a very great deal of land business to be transacted, especially in collecting the taxes ; and as a good deal of land was bought from the Government and paid for by instalments, and lawyers secured to be land surveyors also, there was work enough for all. Where the population is so very thin there are tracts of land here and there unowned and unsurveyed, and some of these lawyers buy up these lands for less than a dollar an acre. We expected to find the manners of the people to be in many respects different to our own, and this was the case. The young gentlemen of the place, and even temporary visitors, called in the evenings upon our daughters, quite ignoring the father and mother. Dancing parties, commencing at 9 o'clock, were very usual. They were kept up till two in the morning, and in many cases without any refreshment whatever being provided. I inquired the reason of this, and was told that during the war the people were so poor they could not afford to give parties with any refreshment, but the young people, being very sociable, had become tired of staying at home al- ways, and had therefore agreed to have the dances without the supper, and this had continued in some households when the necessity had ceased. On moonlight nights serenading was very frequent and often very effectively and well managed, the broad piazzas forming an excellent platform for the performers ; the gentlemen who gave the serenade being accompanied by the black banjo players, and we were always supposed not to know who the serenader was, but we found they were quite dis- appointed if we did not find out. I have said that food was very cheap. To give an idea of prices in English money, we generally, during the summer and early winter, bought good chickens alive for 7£d. each ; we kept them two or three weeks to fatten on Indian corn, and they were very good for the table. Young turkeys were 2s. each, large ones 3s. Beef was from 2-fd. to 3d. or 4d. a pound, ac- cording to the supply ; the beef is generally very tough and lean, although if ordinary care was taken the animals might be as well fed as in England. Butter 8d. to Is. a pound, and eggs often twenty-six for a shilling. Flour was also very cheap and good, and if you understood their mode of home-made bread, and liked it hot every meal, yon could do very well ; but to buy bread was very dear. I think it was only English resi- dents who did so generally. Potatoes were cheap and very inferior. Tomatoes, peaches and apples, and wild straw- berries, and especially tomatoes and grapes, were excellent. There was no eatable fish except oysters, which, when the roads were good, were brought from Baltimore in excellent condition. Yenison and mutton were occasionally to be bought but not often. There was no regular supply of game, but^ when it was brought it was absurdly cheap and very good. The small hares, about the size of a rabbit, and the partridges, as large as good sized pigeons, were sold for four pence each. Splendid, large good-flavored apples we bought in the autumn for forty cents — about one-and-nine-pence — a bushel. Groce- ries were dearer than in England, unless you bought them in New York, wholesale. Notwithstanding this extreme cheap- ness, we found house keeping a great trouble, as the supplies were so extremely irregular. The poorer people have scarcely any money, and the country farmers come into the town with their goods for barter with the shop or storekeepers, as they are called, though I believe they prefer the term merchant to any other, and, in some sense, they are correct, as a good deal of the produce they receive, such as hides and wool, they send on to New York. All the shops are general shops. I have gone to buy a bit of ribbon, and have seen horrible raw-hides, barrels of nails, meat, groceries, and every imaginable thing for sale, including, perhaps, masses of mica, which is found in the neighborhood in great quantities, at least it exists there largely, and the roads sparkle with it everywhere. It is ob- tained, to Borne extent, but nothing to what it might be. 90 Asheville is upon the same parallel of latitude as Egypt. We had been told that the winter consisted of sharp, short spells of severe dry frost, with some heavy rains in the au- tumn and spring ; but even here our ill luck followed us in the matter of weather ; for the people told us they had never had such frequent and severe cold, and such a wet, cold spring within the memory of "the oldest inhabitant." Our house was, as 1 said, well built of wood, lined and plastered, papered or whitewashed, which latter is by far the most usual plan in the South, and is infinitely preferable to most of the fearful papers that are, I should think, the rejected of all other places. One pattern that I saw had a border consisting of a vast num- ber of catterpillars, the paper itself was like the dreadful look- ing things we see hanging up in low butchers' shops — the hideous, reddish, yellowy masses of liver — and no one could look at this paper without seeing the of course unintended re- semblance. Even I was once an accomplice in selecting a dining-room paper when flock papers were in fashion — and very good and handsome the paper was — with dark green ground and bright oak pattern of fruits and flowers. What was my dismay when it was hung to see an infinite series of copper teakettles — spout, handle, lid, and all complete dang- ling all over the walls ; but this was not in Asheville, and so has no business here. I was speaking of the cold, being so far South. Asheville was always moderately warm — the sun at all times had great power — but during the winter, if ever the wind veered to the North it was intensely cold, and this cold was often extremely sudden. I remember, especially one day in January, the day was so bright and warm that we sat on the piazza without our bonnets or shawls, let out the fires in the rooms, and had all the windows open ; we noticed the thermometer stood at eighty in the room ; we fell it colder in the evening and had fires in the bed-room. In the night I woke to find it intensely cold, all the water in the rooms frozen, and even a pail of water by the fireside frozen to one 91 solid mass of ice. This frost lasted about a week, and was suc- ceeded again by warm weather and rain. The thermometer fell 55 degrees in twelve hours. When it rains it rains in a perfect deluge, and will perhaps continue for three days ; and the mountains and hills there being formed of very soft, light soil, they are all deeply furrowed with what amount at times to gorges and ravines, and it is this that in a great measure makes the roads so bad, and the people are at present too few and poor to grapple with the difficulties of nature, and cheapness is all they look at, so as to make a road barely passable. A few private gentlemen make the roads about their own houses good, but this is the exception. As an instance of their road-making, several times while we were there, during the winter the mails were detained a day owing to falls of earth, in short, cutting near Old Fort, (the rail ter- minus.) The banks had been purposely left too steep, as the road-makers said " the rains would wash them to the proper angle gradually, and it would be somebody else's lookout to clear the line, should the earth fall, and save themselves much trouble in making the proper gradient. "We had a good deal of trouble with servants at first ; we kept one man and two women — the black women I could not tolerate. I suppose I did not know how to manage them. I succeeded at last in getting a " poor white " — a widow — and after a little training she made a very good servant, quiet and docile, and obliging, a good deal better than the English one I had taken out with us. The air was so excessively dry during the frosts that on brushing our hair it detonated with a sharp noise, and stood out from the head, and wonld follow the movements of the comb, like the needle following the magnet. But the electrical condition often produced severe headache. The town had an ill-built appearance, but all the shopkeepers had their pretty houses upon their own land just around, and almost everybody kept horses and mules. People possessing their own land and having only 20,001 a year, could live in comfort and drive about ; and as servants, such as they are, are plentiful, money 92 would go just as far again there as in England. We got very good native wine from Raleigh in the cast at a dollar a gallon; it was deep red, and ranch sweeter than claret. I think it was called " Catawba." As for milk, we bought a good cow and her calf for 3£. As an example of the kindness of the people, I will mention one instance. The place was a great resort for consumptive people and those suffering from lung disease — indeed, it was this that led us there. There are no workhouses, but if any one is ill and unable to provide for himself, the State provides him lodgings and everything that is necessary. A poor young man wae ill and far gone in consumption in a distant part of the country, and as human life is precious there, at his own wish he was brought to Asheville, but it was too late. He was taken to one of the inns almost dying. The young men of the town, gentlemen in every respect, went immediately to 6ee him, and two of them sat up with this poor young man every night for a fortnight, and if he had been ever so rich he could not have received more considerate attention ; and everybody inquired about him, and sent little dainties to him, with an affectionate interest I have never seen exhibited in England about a pauper patient. I called at a gentleman's house one day ; the daughter came in from visiting a very poor woman, as dainty and relined a young lady as one would meet with anywhere in Leamington, and though she had a bad cold her- self at the time, and had been much disturbed the previous night with her own invalid sister, 6he was going to sit up and attend as a nurse upon a poor woman who had just been con- fined, and nurse her sick baby, and all this was done so natu- rally as if it was just an ordinary every-day duty, calling for no remark whatever. I felt we English ladies had yet some- thing to learn from these ex-slaveholders, that some of us had held in such horror. We talked a good deal with the people about slavery. They all thought it a bad system, but they had found it and had grown up with it, and it had been left them by the English, and therefore they had not been entirely re- sponsible for it ; besides, we did not go from England to America to find fault with the people or their institutions. If they had sinned they have suffered, and they are bravely trying to repair their ruined fortunes. It has been hard enough for them to try to adjust their relationship with the negroes, and they would have done this amicably on both sides if it had not been for the interference of Northerners, (carpet-baggers, I believe they caB them) trying to make the colored people dis- satisfied. Northerners are now kindly received in the South, and there were many in Asheville, but so long as General Grant is President, they will feel no interest in politics, and feel themselves, in a measure, under military despotism. Good top coats in America cost nearly twenty pounds, and as the men cannot all of them afford this, in the winter they almost all wore large, coarse, thick, dark shawls — worn length- ways, not like women wear them ; the effect was very peculiar. We observed that generally the ladies dressed much better than the men. The women all ride on horseback, but the riding on such bad roads is sometimes very injurious to the spine. One lady told me that she had once been on a journey of fifteen hundred miles into Texas, with her father on horse- back thirty years ago — a long journey for a slight young lady of eighteen. We left that beautiful region in May of last year. Much as we liked the people and admired the glorious mountains, the attractions to England were stronger. We were too far from the large towns, and especially from the railway, and so we have given up our thousand acres for a neat, prim little villa in an English town, with a large garden of a quarter of an acre or so, and sometimes rather despising ourselves for our want of pluck. We have at any rate greatly enriched our memories and imagination, and seen a good deal of the better side of human nature, and our dear invalid to a very large extent re- covered the use of his damaged lung, and will, I hope, now live to be eighty. Upon the whole we were most of all sur. prised to find five thousand miles away, a people brought up u under different influences and yet so very much like ourselves in habits and dress, language and appearance. Most of the women suffer from dyspepsia, and are very thin. This is in consequence of only taking two meals a da} r , save-trouble plan introduced since the war. The newspapers were intensely personal ; flirtations between young people at a pic-nic would be mentioned almost by name, and advertisement such as this, " Mr. Robinson has a large number of excellent sewing ma- chines to sell at his photographic premises, and as this amiable young gentleman is still delving in the mines of single bless- edness, we advise all the young ladies to take this opportunity of improving their acquaintance with this excellent young man N ." The people were always more amused than annoyed at these things. I am sir, Your obedient servant, S. H. Leamington. EDITORIAL COMMENTS OF THE LONDON DAILY NEWS OF 8TH AUGUST, 1874, ON THE LETTEKS WRITTEN BY THE ENGLISH LADY.' A lady, whose letter we publish this morning, presents us with a lively picture of society in a part of North America , which is less visited by our countrymen than formerly, but in which it is impossible for us not to feel an interest. The Carolinas, like all the Southern States that threw in their for- tunes with the Confederacy, are in a very depressed condition. Good harvests and industry are raising them, but they have a new system of labor to bring into operation, and their recovery must be gradual. By and bye they will attract the merchant and the traveller as formerly, and then we shall hear more of them. Our correspondent went from this country to North Carolina under circumstances that appeal to our domestic sympathies — to find a place where her husband and children might recover lost health. We doubt whether there is any other country of the world where home attachments are so strong as they are in England, where a voyage across the Atlantic, with the pros- pect of a journey of 800 miles at the end of it, would be un- dertaken by a whole family in such circumstances. After all the warm places in the south of England had been tried in vain, the resolution was taken to proceed to Asheville, a small and little known town, 2,000 feet above the sea level, among the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. Here, amidst magnificent ssenery, an atmosphere of extraordinary purity and brightness was found, which gives a peculiar sharp- ness to all objects, and of which our correspondent cannot even speak without enthusiasm. In the climate of Asheville the benefit desired was realized, and the life which was in grave peril is likely to be prolonged for many years. 1 > 96 Life in Asheville, as represented in the letter of our corres- pondent, has features which may recommend it to certain classes of onr people. In these days of dear food, which in- dignation meetings have not made any cheaper, it is both pleasing and tantalising to read of beef from 2£d. to 3d. per pound ; young turkeys at 2s., and large ones at 3s.; bares and partridges, 4d.; and chickens 7£d. each. With flour, potatoes, grapes, peaches and strawberries, all exceedingly cheap, and good wine a dollar a gallon, it may well be understood that, notwithstanding the dearness of house rent, £200 a year in North Carolina will go as far as £400 in England. Life, how- ever, is conducted in a primitive fashion in these parts. If supplies are cheap, they are also irregular, and you must often take, not what you want, but what the producer happens to have to part with. Transactions are effected very much by barter, and if the country dealer brings in raw-hides, when you are wishing for a joint of mutton, so much the worse for your dinner. Then, again, the roads are very bad in the interior of North Carolina, and many of us would, perhaps, think it boring, at least, to be so far away from the great world, with its life and activity. But what our correspondent most cares to say, relates rather to the people than to the condition in which they live; their kindness of heart, whether to one another or to strangers, and particularly their great resemblance to our own people. " Upon the whole, we were most of all surprised to find, five thousand miles away, a people brought up under different influences, and yet so very much like our- selves in habits and dress, language and appearance." The people, we are told, are very English looking, much more so than the northerners, and they have the kindest feel- ings towards the English generally. They carry this predilec- tion for us so far as to adopt many of our ways of thinking and acting, and even to preserve some habits which we, whether for good or evil, have forgotten. Our correspondent had for her first visitor the Bishop of the diocese, " a splendid looking elderly man, of the highest old English type of face and figure, 97 and a most benignant countenance." On Sundays they met with the most staunch old-fashioned, loud responding Sir Roger de Caverly and Dr. Johnson, stamp of church of England men." Ritualism would have little chance in such society as this, and judging from analogy, will have to wait fifty years before it get a footing in North Carolina. Then, too, there are old- fashioned tories at Asheville, not the modern degenerate rep- resentative of the school, which is content to call itself con- servative, but men of the type of the late Sir Robert Inglis. There was a general who had lost his arm in Mexico, who "mourned over" the recent extension of the franchise in fcng- land, and to whom Mr. Disreali might in kindness send a set of his collected works. There are even Americans at the South who, since the war, have taken up a notion which was held by a good many decent people seventy years ago, that the founding of the republic was a mistake, and that the people would have done better under English rule. Canada is too cold for them to try the new Dominion instead of the old, and so they pursue their harmless fancies and keep one another in countenance. The letter of our correspondent exhibits North Carolina in a state of transition. The people have too much good sense not to right themselves ultimately. The old people described in this letter will not guide the fortunes of the State, and their sentimental talk will not hin- der the progress of events one hour. As soon as the Southern communities admit that they have to adjust themselves to their new circumstances, they will begin to feel the return of pros- perity, and this they are doing. A very matter of fact kind of lady from Georgia, whom our correspondent encountered, told her that for a year or two ?fter the emancipation of the slaves, she and her husband believed themselves ruined, but that after they had got back to work they found it very much cheaper to be able to hire such good strong laborers as they now had than to have to support a crowd of slaves, including children and aged and sick and disabled men and women. The fair Georgian insisted that she and her husband had been 7 9S deprived of their human " property " most unjustly, yet ad- mitted that they were doing much better under the new and free system than under the old. Now, that slavery is gone, even at the South, nobody has a good word for it. Our corres- pondent talked a good deal about it with the people. " They all thought it a bad system, but they had found it and grown up with it, and it had been lett them by the English, and therefore they had not been entirely responsible for it." This is the best way of putting the case, and if everybody had spoken like this between 1S50~'60, there would have been no war of secession. Our correspondent was told that they find it difficult to adjust their relations with the emancipated negroes, but this was to be ex- pected, and the difficulty will continue until both classes learn that each is indispensable to the other. Our correspondent refers again and again to the kindness of the people to one another, but this we believe is the common testimony of those who have remarked the manners ot English-speaking people in colonies and remote countries. A country clergyman lately published, for the benefit of agricultural laborers, a touching dissuasive from emigration to Canada, expressly on the ground that there are no union workhouses in that colony. This good man could not imagine a perfect state of society without a workhouse. There are no unions in North Carolina, but there is humanity. " A poor young man," writes our correspondent, " was ill and far gone in consumption, in a distant part of the country, and at his own wish he was brought to Asheville, but it was too late. He was taken to one of the inns, almost dying. The young men of the town — gentlemen in every respect — went immediately to see him, and two of them sat up with this poor young man every night for a fortnight, and if he had been ever so rich he could not have received more considerate attention ; and everybody inquired about him, and sent little dainties to him with an affectionate interest I have never seen exhibited in England about a pauper patient." For the idle and improvident there may not be the encour- agement which exists : " ->ur own country, but the self-respect- 99 ing and deserving do not. starve. Most of us, we believe, will share the kindly feelings and good wishes with which our cor- respondent took leave of her friends in North Carolina. Her choice of that State as a temporary residence, she informs us, was? determined by some articles which were published in the Daily News five or six years ago. We cannot regret their appearance in view of the result. Our correspondent, how- ever, has returned. "Much as we liked the people and ad- mired the glorious mountains, the attractions of England were stronger. We were too far from the large towns, and espec- ially from the railway, and so we have given up our thousand acres for a neat, prim little villa in an English town, with a large garden of a quarter ot an acre or so, and sometimes rather despising ourselves for our want of pluck." This re suit might have been predicted. Going abroad for health is a very different thing from emigration, and our correspondent having fully accomplished the object of her journey of ten thousand miles, need not accuse herself of want of courage. THE DIRECTORS OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION, STATISTICS AND AGRICULTURE OF TFE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA. Dr. WM. H. HOWERTON, Sec. of State, President. GEORGE LITTLE, Com. of Immigration, Sect'y. WM. C. KERR, State Geologist. WM. JOHNSTON, Mecklenburg County. R. R. BRIDGES, Edgecombe Dr. WM. J. HAWKINS, Warren JOHN D. WHITFORD, Craven " E. M. HOLT, Alamance " E. R. LILES, Anson S. H. GRAY, Craven HENRY NUTT, New Hanover JOHN B. GRETTER, Guilford D. G. WORTH, New Hanover E. J. ASTON, Buncombe " *j