Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1875 — OPPORTUNITIES OF THE SOUTH. [ARTICLE]

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE SOUTH.

There is nothing to prevent the Sounthern States from at once entering upou a career of prosperity that they have never before enjoyed. The territory of the South comprises some of the nuest land for agricultural purposes in the Union, and in some respects is the best in the world. So country produces so fine cotton. India, Egypt, the Fejee Islands, and some other countries, produce cotton, but of an inferior quality; indeed the best productions of these countries require American cotton mixed with them to make good fabrics. There is only about nine percent, of the whole territory of the Cotton States that is in cultivation; so that instead of four millions of bales of cotton, the highest amount of their production of this staple, there could be produced by these States, in a few years, fifteen or twenty millions of bales; and instead of a revenue qf forty or fifty millions of dollars, it could be five or six times that amount. Besides cotton, it is admirably adapted to the cultivation of sugar; especially Is this true of Louisiana, and portions of Florida. The cruel and relentless war in Cuba is fast destroying the finest sugar plantations of that Island, and unless it is speedily closed sugar culture will be ruiued there. Then we will have to rely on the South for our supply of sugar* and molasses. Pfesides these great staples, almost everything can be grow r n with profit. The best wheat, and the most of it to the acre, we have ever seen grow, was in Texas; the best corn, and the-most of it to the acre, was in Mississippi; ami the best tobacco in Kentucky ami Tennessee. After njl this, they have the labor. Their four millions of negroes arc of more value to those States now as free men, than when they were slaves. The white population, too,, have changed. Those known as poor whites —the uon-slaveholding class of tiie olden time —are doing better, and many of the slaveholding class have gone to work themselves. There is work for all to do. The blacks must scatter out into tUeJoouutry, and not loaf about the tow iki" and cities so much. They must work more, and seek office 'less. The whites must cease to oppress them, do less sluxiting, work more, ami encourage education. They must talk lei-s* about State Rights, and whine less about their rights. In a word, if all will go to work with the activity and industry that characterizes the people of the 'North and West, prosperity will be iusuml to them that will surprise the world,— lFhram' Indianian. Under its ckl management. The Union had frequent occasion to express admiration for the candor and fairness of the Warsaw Northern Indianian; apd from the article above copied it seems to our judgment tliat its recent change of proprietor is not likely to diminish any of its admirable characteristics. The editor’s observations with regard to the inhabitants of the Southern States are true, though far from being comprehensive or exhaustive; and his advice to both wlikes and blacks is good as a general summarization. That policy which encourages idleness, which sympathises with discontent and useless, fretful repining, is not only unwise but it is unkind to the subject, and discourages those who are honestly and earnestly striving to repair the disasters of forraet days. The Soutlfcrn States are not only desirable for the productions that may be grown in their cultivated fields—the cotton, corn, tobacco, sugar, rice, wheat, sweet potatoes, peanuts, peaches, figs, oranges, lemons, grapes, bananas, and other varieties of fine fruits which they yield in abundance- —but they are also rich in natural resources. The hill countries and mountain regions of the Virginias, Carolina?, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri abouud in coal, iron and other valuable minerals. The Kanawha valley of West Virginia has long *heen famous for its salt wells. There is gold in Georgia. The tar and turpentine orchards of Kortb Carolina have been a source of revenue to the inhabitants since the early Colonial days. The blue grass pastures oi Kentucky, the savannas ot Florida, and the vast unbroken prairies of Texas have world-wide celebrity as grazing districts, where innumerable herds of cattle teed. The vast white pine regions of West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, the immense yellow pine forests which extend from northern Alabama and northwestern Georgia far down into the : peninsula of Florida southeast and | across Mississippi and into Louisiana on the southwest, the forests of rank, huge cottonwoods and tulip trees which fringe both banks of the Mississippi river and its tributaries through Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, the cypresses and live oaks that border niorg, than two thousand miles of sea-coast from the southeastern shore ,of Virginia across Korth Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana amhkTexas — all these vast forests, interspersed with oak, and poplar, and hickory, and black walnut, and cherry, ana red cedar, for centuries have been waiting the appliances df modern invention, skill and enterprise to convert them into valuable lumben. for taruiture. lidpees, and sbipbuilingd. Thiai, all through the highland* of the Cumberland, Blue

Ridge .and other ranges of the Alleghany mountains, and through the Ozark spur, arq splendid water privileges for mills, machinery, aud manufactories, yet in the primitive, untamed indolence of nature that some day will be made to contribute to the support of man. In climate, soil, minerals, versality of productions, and many natural advantages that portion of oqr country known as the South is not excelled on the continent, or in the world. It is far more valuable for man’s uses, and easier to be made subservient to his wants than other sections more extensively advertised, where the stream of . emigration has poured and flowed I for years. That is not the wisest' i policy of government which favors one portion of country to the hurt of another; neither is the system a perfect one which gives a bad reputation to a naturally good locality, and thus prevents its being settled, improved, and made to contribute to the support of government and the welfare of mankind. Thanks to the destruction of slavery in the South, the inhabitants of the United States are rapidly becoming united in the desire to make a prosperous nation, of diversified interests it is true, where the natural, inherent rights of all art- protected and where tho acquired privileges of each are respected. It seems to us that "all good citizens and all newspapers ought to encourage the growth of friendly feelings between the people of the two sections lately at tvar, boeauscriiq good can possibly come from keeping alive the animosity and bitterness that were its natural consequences, while it is possible for harm to result from such a course; and emigration ought to be directed to the South in order to settle its waste pi aces, develop its natural resources, carry thither improvements, advance its social condition, and make it contribute its just proportion to the support of government and the prosperity of our common country. The people now .in that section shopld work more and whine less about the irrevocable and just penalty of their own foolishness, to modify the language of the Northern Indianian; and people at the North should have more charity for tlfcm, chide them less, and give them greater encouragement to make the best of their changed condition and surroundings.. We should above all other things encourage emigration in that direction. llad one hundred thousand of those who went to the droughty, windy, grasshopper, chinch bug districts of the-far West, during five years back, gone South, they and the country would be very much better off to-day.

An c-arthquake disturbed the nionotpny ot' humdrum life through the eastern portion of this State ami the western’part of Ohio, last Friday morning about ten o'clock. The shock appeared to come from the north, and continue southwardly. It was accompanied by a noise 1 ikalow gambling thandvr. In some places it shook buildings and furniture in a lively manner, and caused considerable alarm. At Indianapolis especially were fears that the topmost stories of their taller buildings would fall down. From east to the district effected extended from Cincinnati to this side of Indianapolis; and north and south it reached from lake Erie to the Ohio river. In a late issue of this paper,was published a notice of the filing in the Secretary of State’s office of the Articles of Association of the Chicago South Atlantic' Railioad J Company, and the election of a | hoard of officers. .V misapprehension has prevailed with some, re-1 garding the nature and the object of these actions. As we are told 1 these articles of association and; .the board of directors aud officers ! were for the link of the road be- i tween Indianapolis andllisiiHiSun, j oirthe Ohio river. It was done to i complete the organization from | •Chicago to the Ohio, and in no | manner impairs or lessens the re- | sponsibility, efficiency, or jurisdjc- j tiou of Dr. Ilaymond, Mr. line and! the other gentlemen who are displaying such wonderful adroitness, perseverance, pluck and energy; in j the groat undertaking they are ! managing with consummate skill.

’The prospect for war along the Mexican, border,, in the neighborhood of Brownsville, Texas, is sp threatening that our government has sent a man-of-war to be sta tioned at the month of the Rio Grande, which is provided with steam launches, so that in an emergent case the marines can more speedily co-operate with the land forces; arid General Ord, now in Washington, has-been ordered to San Antonio at once to put a stop to the operations of the Mexican raiders. In the meantime parties of Texans are acting oti the hint of Secretary Belknap to nse measures to protect themselves as far as possible, and at the least provocation or suspicion that provocation is contemplated, carry their operations into Mexican territory,

claiming that they have authority to do so undcran order or decision oi Attorney General Williams which has never been revoked. Goodland Courier is the name of a neat six-column folio, the'first number of which was issued at Goodland, last Saturday. T. West is editor,- and Ed. F. Maxwell, publisher. i The make-up of the paper ig neat and tasty. We extend greeting and wish all connected with it an •.abundhqt success.