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There are a few localities in which a wagon cannot go and return in a day from a railroad station. The lines of road would suffice to cross the State east and west about fourteen times, or north and south about nine times.

The leading railroad centres are Atlanta and Macon. Savannah and Augusta inaugurated the chief enterprises.

The capital invested probably exceeds $60 000,000, the gross income $10,000,000, and the net income is between $2,000,000 and $2,500,000.

EFFECT OF RAILROADS ON THE VALUE OF PROPERTY.

This is illustrated by the following table for the Air-Line and N. E. Railroads.

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This shows an increase in ten years of nearly forty per cent. The per cent. of increase for the State between 1874 and 1884 being but eight per cent., viz: from two hundred and seventythree to two hundred and ninety-five millions.

The comparative increase would show to yet greater advantage between 1870 and 1880, because in 1874, the first date in the table, the appreciation of property had already begun, in anticipation of the railroads. To illustrate this, the tax return of Hall county in 1870 was 1,067,000, and in 1874, 2,139,000--more than double the return four years previous.

The property of the nine counties through which the Air Line Railroad passes increased in four years from $21,171,000 to $32,995,000—nearly 56 per cent. During the same period the State increase was less than twenty-one per cent.

GEORGIA-A STATE FOR HOME COMFORT.

No State is more admirably adapted to ample Home Comfort. Many advantages are common to other Southern States-others peculiar to Georgia. What is needful to home comfort? Whatever it is, Georgia has it. Land abundant and cheap, a climate excellent for health, comfort and production; with two seasons, giving both summer and winter crops—an excellent year round climate, with moderate summers, moderate winters, delightful spring seasons, and Indian summers indescribably fine.

Building material is cheap, and a good house easily reared. The farmer is the most independent of men, with no rent to pay, no fuel to buy, with supplies of food, easily had, with soil and climate adapted to grain crops, to garden, orchard and dairy products, and equally so to poultry. Cows may be fed through the winter on barley or oat patches.

The garden, the orchard, the cow and the hen! What a share of human comfort they contribute! With fruits and vegetables, milk and butter, chickens and eggs, what a start we have towards supplying not only an ample but a luxurious table. These facilities exist, moreover not in a mere pioneer country, but accompanied by the advantages of an already established civilization, the land cleared and ready for cultivation, with railroads, schools, churches and social opportunities already provided.

Erroneous opinions exist as to safety at the South. The sense of security, essential to comfort, obtains in a remarkable degree, Nowhere does a larger proportion of the population sleep without locks on their doors, fearless of violence or theft. Her people, as a rule, are honest, hospitable and friendly to strangers.

In addition to the mere supply of food, it is easy to have choice fruits, vegetables, grapes, melons, etc., covering a large part of the whole year. In addition to provisions, there is the best of all money crops, cotton. Indeed, if one will but make home comfort

and abundance a prime object, no country is better suited to them.

A FARM IN GEORGIA, as an investment, is unsurpassed in its returns, especially to a poor man or a man of moderate means. A few hundreds or a few thousands invested here may, with good management, make a home of comfort, health, abundance, and security. Here, as elsewhere, good management is necessary; but nowhere does it pay better. Germans and other foreigners remark on the advantage of winter as well as summer crops, and of land not ice-bound in winter.

In his volume on South Carolina (equally applicable to Georgia with some added advantages here) Pike speaks of it as an “agricultural paradise," and warmly commends the "inestimable advantages for an agricultural country of having no winter, and of living in a climate in which ploughing may be carried on in every month of the year." He winds up his view with these words: "If there be an Elysium for an agriculturist, it is a fruitful soil, a salubrious climate and a delicious atmosphere in which frosts and snows are almost unknown."

We have had frequent occasion to refer to Georgia as a variety State. It is not suited alone to agriculture.

MANUFACTURING INVESTMENTS

also have especial advantages. In cotton manufactures this is eminently true. Not to dwell on them, it is sufficient here to say that the cotton and the mills are together-saving freight one way. For many cotton goods there is a home market-thus saving freight both ways. The climate is remarkably suited to the work both in winter and summer. The cost of living is low, and so the wages of labor diminished. In a word, it seems to be the place of all others adapted by nature to cotton manufactures. Many other undeveloped facilities for manufacturing exist. But they begin to be appreciated and are rapidly undergoing development.

MECHANICS.

There is a wide opening and demand for good skilled mechanics in various departments of industry. The supply of skilled labor is inadequate, owing in part to the superior attractions of farm life.

With the growing use of improved machinery and the introduction of engines, reapers and mowers, separators, etc., there is a growing demand for workmen capable of keeping them in repair, distributed better throughout the country, as well as in the cities.

Take the advantages altogether and the time is not far distant when the advice will be, "Young man, go South." We do not hesitate to say, as the result of observation and experience, that the best immigration for us is from the North rather than from abroad. Northern immigrants are soonest assimilated. Their children and ours are indistinguishable. The best means, moreover, of harmonizing the sections is by the mutual acquaintance to which immigration gives rise. Sectional antipathies are based on mutual ignorance, and rapidly disappears before mutual knowledge.

To bring this outline view of the State to a close, we quote from the Hand-book of Georgia as to the advantages it presents.

"NATURE has been prodigal in her gifts to us, and man needs. only average skill and care to make here as happy homes as the world has ever known. The ground, with its wide range of productions, the sun and air and conditions of climate, the abundant wood and water, and water-power, the present settled state of the country and degree of development, and the future promise of a higher development-all point to the South as admirably suited for immigration, and to no part of the South more than Georgia." Her relative claims, indeed, are undisputed, and her positive claims need only to be investigated to be apparent.

CHAPTER II.

FRUIT IN GEORGIA.

Under the sanction and approval of the Georgia State Horticultura! Society, sixty-four varieties of apples are scattered over the State in orchard and garden culture, fifty-five varieties of peaches, thirty of pears, thirty-three of grapes, thirteen of nectarines, twelve of apricote, eighteen of plums, sixteen of cherries, twelve of fige, five of quinces, and three of mulberries. This is the sifted and expurgated list of the Society. The character of the individuals who compose this distinguished body, and the success and reputation achieved by many of them, give to their judgment on fruits the very highest authority. The catalogue that is given here, for most of the fruits named, might be easily duplicated—perhaps quadrupled if less stringent rules of testing were adopted than such as have obtained in that Society. But it is meant to be understood that every fruit mentioned in the list published by authority of the State Horticultural Society, is one entitled to rank in the choicest collections.

To the enumeration given above of standard fruits of very general culture throughout the State, and popularity, the almond, Japan persimmon, orange, lemon,pomegranate,olive and banana might be added. There are many square miles of territory in Georgia where each of these last named fruits might be easily made profitable. It will have a strange sound to many who are enthusisatic in horticultural pursuits, to hear that the entire orchard product of the State is under eight hundred thousand dollars in value, as appears from the last census. While few citizens of the State will be ready

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