While devoting great attention to the building of railroads, the South also made rapid progress during the decade ending with 1860 in the development of its diversified manufactures. The census of 1860 shows that in 1850 the flour and meal made by Southern mills was worth $24,773,000, and that by 1860 this had increased to $45,006,000, a gain of $20,000,000, or nearly one-fourth of the gain in the entire country, and a much greater percentage of gain than in the country at large, notwithstanding the enormous immigration into the Western grain-producing States during that period. The South’s sawed and planed lumber product of 1860 was $20,890,000 against $10,900,000 in 1850, this gain of $10,000,000 being largely more than one-third as much as the gain in all other sections combined, although even counting in the slaves the South had less than one-third of the country’s population.
The advance in iron founding was from $2,300,000 in 1850, to $4,100,000 in 1860, a gain of $1,800,000, a very much larger percentage of increase than in the whole country. In the manufacture of steam engines and machinery the gain in all of the country except the South was $15,000,000, while the gain in the South was $4,200,000, the increase in one case being less than 40 per cent, and in the other over 200 per cent. Cotton manufacturing had commenced to attract increased attention, and nearly $12,000,000 were invested in Southern cotton mills. In Georgia especially this industry was thriving, and between 1850 and 1860 the capital so invested in that State nearly doubled. It is true that most of the Southern manufacturing enterprises were comparatively small, but so were those of New England in their early stages. The South’s were blotted out of existence by the war; New England’s were made enormously prosperous, justifying a steady expansion in size, by the same war. In the aggregate, however, the number of Southern factories swelled to very respectable proportions, the total number in 1860 having been 24,590, with an aggregate capital invested of $175,100,000.
A study of the facts which have been presented should convince anyone that the South in its early days gave close attention to manufacturing development, and that while later on the great profits in cotton cultivation caused a concentration of the capital and energy of that section in farming operations, yet, after 1850, there came renewed interest in industrial matters, resulting in an astonishing advance in railroad construction and in manufactures. But this is only a small part of the evidence available to conclusively prove the great energy and enterprise of the six and a half million white people who inhabited the South.
(To be Continued.)
AN AMERICAN ITALY.
By Erwin Ledyard.
The Southern States of the Union have received only a small proportion of the tide of immigration that has flowed into this country during the last half century, and especially during the last twenty-five years, swelling the population of new commonwealths, causing towns to spring up, like Aladdin’s palace, in a night, and giving to cities a growth phenomenal and marvelous. It is not the purpose of this article to inquire why this has been the case; it is sufficient to state a fact that is indisputable. During the past decade the people of these Southern States have turned their attention seriously to the question of attracting immigration, and thus increasing their industrial importance and utilizing some portion of the immense tracts of land now lying idle. Books and pamphlets descriptive of the climate, soil, products, and resources of the different States have been published, conventions have been held, and agents have been appointed. The results of these efforts are now beginning to be seen. The number of foreign settlers in the South is steadily increasing, and the class of immigrants coming into the section is, generally speaking, a most desirable one. They are men of sufficient intelligence to think and act for themselves, and to leave the beaten paths that have been followed by most of their compatriots.