Immigration Bill Before the Virginia Legislature.
The legislature of Virginia is trying to devise some method to promote immigration to the State. A bill has been introduced in the Senate, creating the office of Commissioner of Immigration of Virginia, and providing for the election of such an officer, who shall properly advertise the advantages of the State and shall, at the request of any real estate agent or owner of land, keep on file a list of lands for sale and shall refer all contemplating purchasers impartially to the various sections of the State, according to their requirements.
It is provided that the commissioner shall receive a commission of not more than 5 per cent. upon the sale of any lands sold through his department. Any owner of land situate in Virginia shall have the right to list for sale the same with the Commissioner of Immigration, who shall advertise, without cost to the owner, the fact that such lands are offered for sale.
The bill concludes by providing that the expenses attached to such an office shall be paid out of the fund arising from the tax on manufacturers of fertilizers.
Colonel E. S. Jemison, president; M. G. Howe, general manager; Major Tom Cronin, superintendent, and General John M. Claiborne, immigration agent of the Houston East and West Texas railway, are trying to interest the people along their line in some plan whereby immigration can be brought to that section of the State.
Mr. J. T. Merry, of Harlem county, Nebraska, writes from Velasco, Texas, to his home paper as follows:
“Here we are in Velasco, Texas, the land of sunshine and flowers. Surely this is destined to be a large city; within three miles of the mouth of the Brazos river, and a large, deep harbor, where ships come and go at pleasure, and load right here in this city heavier than at any point on the Gulf coast. Of course the country is new, but vegetables and fruit trees of all kinds are growing nicely. Good fruit and vegetable land can be bought from $4 to $12 per acre. The country all around, except on the Gulf side, is a gentle undulated plain, which is being settled with people from the Northern part of the State and from the Dakotas and Nebraska in the main, and Iowa, though some are from Missouri and other points.”
A Swedish gentleman who has had considerable experience in establishing colonies of his countrymen in the United States, has been conferring with Mr. John M. Lee, of Shreveport, La., representing the land department of the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad Co., and looking over the ground, and says he can locate several hundred families if the conditions are favorable.
Mr. W. E. Pabor, founder of the Pabor Lake colony, near Fort Meade, Fla., has recently been visiting his old home, Denver, Col., and has induced a number of families to move to Florida.
There is more land open to settlement in Arkansas than there was in the Cherokee Strip. The Little Rock Democrat wisely says: “Counting all kinds of our public lands in Arkansas, government, State and railroad, we have nearly 7,000,000 acres. If we could divide these lands into homestead tracts, advertise them extensively and donate them at stated periods to actual settlers, what an impetus would be given to the State. What the State needs is not money for her lands, but active and enterprising home builders, who would become wealth producers and tax builders. A liberal land policy on the part of the State and the railroads would soon result in a vast increase in our wealth and population.”
One of the largest excursion parties of land-seekers that ever went South over the Mobile & Ohio railroad arrived at Mobile lately in charge of Mr. F. W. Greene, general agent of the Mobile & Ohio railroad, at St. Louis. The party consisted of all classes of home-seekers and investors, who have become interested in that section of country through the efforts of the passenger department of the Mobile & Ohio railroad. Over 200 people made up the excursion, some stopping off at places in Mississippi and Alabama. They went from Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Indiana and Ohio.
Further developments regarding the steamship line to be established between Galveston and Denmark indicate that it will be of great importance to the Southwest. It is intended to use the vessels in transporting immigrants from Norway, Sweden and Northern Europe direct to Texas and the West by way of Galveston. Heretofore these passengers have been sent to New York, and from that point reached their future home by rail. The Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce has become interested in the project and heartily approves it. Vice-Consul Thygge Sogart, of Denmark, now located in Kansas City, is a promoter of the line.
Mr. Hamilton Disston says that Mr. Schulzen, a prominent Scandinavian, will establish a Scandinavian colony near Kissimmee. Mr. Disston met Mr. Schulzen at the Columbian Exposition, and impressed him with the fertility of the soil of Southern Florida, and advised him to try it. This he did, and became so satisfied with the prolific growth of sugar and peaches that arrangements have been made to settle Scandinavians on the South Florida railway, between Runnymede and Kissimmee, at once. Mr. Schulzen’s father and brother are now North disposing of their farms preparatory to settling in Florida.
The last monthly report of the president of the Commercial Industrial Association, of Montgomery, Ala., contained this paragraph:
“There is now a general interest in the subject of immigration to the South. The marked falling off in railroad earnings, with prospects for continued small returns, has aroused the great lines in the South to the necessity of making well directed efforts to induce Northern and Western people to visit the South and invest along the various roads. Some of the leading lines have called conventions of their agents to discuss ways and means to promote an increase of traffic and business. This association, with the other commercial bodies of the State, will assist in every laudable effort to induce desirable people to build up the waste places of the State, increase the population and promote the general prosperity.”
The North Alabama Immigration Company is an organization formed at Florence, Ala., for the purpose of bringing immigrants to Lauderdale county and surrounding sections. The officers are J. Overton Ewin, president; R. G. Banks, general manager; R. T. Simpson, Jr., attorney, and John Rather Jones, secretary and treasurer. The company expects to take several excursion parties to that section of Alabama from the Northwest. Dr. N. A. Nelson is the Northwestern agent at Dawson, Minn.
The section of the valley of Virginia around Lexington has attracted some attention from prospective purchasers from the North, West and Northwest, who are going to locate at some point in the Shenandoah Valley. Additional inquiries are being made for homes and farms, and the prospects are that as soon as the weather opens a number of these parties will pay that section a visit to look over the country.
The immigration movement to Southwest Texas is progressing at a lively rate. The new settlers are mostly from Kansas and Nebraska.
C. R. Camp, a home-seekers’ traveling agent, expects to take an excursion of Northwestern farmers to points in the South some time in March. His plan is to inaugurate a series of monthly excursions, beginning about March 1 and continuing twelve months. He says the class of people he will bring South are among the best citizens of the North and Northwest, farmers who are hard working and practical, who want good farming land, and are making the change on account of the climate.
A large number of farmers from Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Kansas, have settled in the neighborhood of Port Lavaca, Texas. It is here that the Phillips Land Co., of Kansas City, Mo., has bought some 6000 acres of land, and divided it up into small farms for German colonists.
On February 16th a party of sixty persons from Iowa and Nebraska reached Fort Worth, Texas, on the way to the Gulf Coast to investigate the fruit-growing capabilities of that region. Most of the party are descendants of the people who built up Nebraska, and made that State take a front rank among the wealth-producing States of the Union. While most of them are doing well at home, they are anxious to live in a more congenial climate, and have had their eyes on Texas for a long time.
In consequence of numerous inquiries from the Northwestern States, Mr. M. V. Richards, of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., has arranged a number of special rate land excursions, as they are called, from Chicago and points west of the Ohio river to Baltimore & Ohio points in the Shenandoah Valley, in order to induce settlers to come to this region. Mr. Richards intends to make the most of the reduction in rates allowed by the Southern Passenger Association on certain dates in February, March and April for the purpose of aiding Southern immigration.
A large number of land seekers recently visited Crowley, La., and most of them bought property. Indiana and Nebraska were among the States represented. The visitors report great dissatisfaction among the farmers of their States, and say that Louisiana will receive many immigrants this year.
Messrs. Sappington & Howell, Little Rock, Ark., are working on a plan to combine the State and railway lands in Arkansas, aggregating 7,000,000 acres, and offer them for sale at nominal prices on an opening day, to be fixed.
A dispatch from Rockford, Ill., says that quite a company of Rockford’s Swedish population are planning to move down to Mississippi this spring.
The Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville, Ala., is in receipt of many letters from the West asking about farm lands in the neighborhood. Huntsville is one of the most delightful towns in the South. It is surrounded by a splendid farming country.
Norwegian prospectors are going into Lawrence county, Tenn., every day and the majority of them buy homes. There are over 100 families here. They are good farmers and make good citizens.
A movement is on foot to locate upon the rich prairie and timbered lands adjacent to and just west of Charlotte Harbor, Fla., a colony of Bohemian agriculturists.
It is reported that a tract of land aggregating about 12,500 acres, at Wilson Station, Ala., on the Louisville & Nashville railroad, has been bought for a German colony. The first settlement will be named “Milton Grove,” in honor of Mr. Milton H. Smith, president of the Louisville & Nashville railroad.
A recent settler at North LeRoy, Fla., is so much delighted with the country that he has persuaded seventeen families of his former neighbors in Missouri to move to Florida.
The business men of Baton Rouge, La., are organizing a development club, to further the interest in securing immigration, etc.
A party of twenty Illinois capitalists, including Mr. A. L. Klank, a nurseryman of Champaign, Ill., has been looking over Arkansas with a view to making large investments in fruit farms.
The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railway recently took 200 home-seekers to Texas from Kansas and Nebraska, and 400 more were to follow.
It is said that a transaction is now under way by which 3000 families, representing a population of 15,000, are to be located in the Yazoo Delta.
