“Austin Corbin, one of our greatest railroad workers, transports free over his railways every pound of material an actual settler puts on his land in improvements. I would advocate free transportation of the household goods of every actual Northern settler by your great railway lines.”
“Austin Corbin, one of our greatest railroad workers, transports free over his railways every pound of material an actual settler puts on his land in improvements. I would advocate free transportation of the household goods of every actual Northern settler by your great railway lines.”
This is commended to the attention of Southern railroad managers.
The Legislature of Virginia seems to have some spite against real estate agents. Not satisfied with the present burdensome and wholly unjust tax imposed upon real estate dealers in the State, it is proposed now to make the real estate agents bear the expense of a State immigration commission.
Mr. John T. Patrick, of Southern Pines, N. C., secretary of the Southern Bureau ofInformation, deserves much commendation for his enterprise and public spirit in having arranged for an excursion through the South of the editors of a number of leading Northern medical journals. This undertaking of Mr. Patrick’s is in furtherance of an effort to correct the impression that still exists in the minds of a great many Northern people that the South is an unhealthful section.
At the last meeting of the Commercial & Industrial association, of Montgomery, Ala., the president said in his monthly report: “The association should advertise the city and hold forth its advantages in every way possible which will attract capital and cause enterprising citizens to locate here. A new era of growth and enterprise will come apace and Montgomery should be prepared to reap the rewards that flow from it.” This admonishment may be heeded with profit by every community in the South.
Mr. Clark Bell, the writer of the article on the fruit growing possibilities of the South Atlantic seaboard, is a New York lawyer, and editor of the Medico-Legal journal of New York. He has had a quite extensive practical experience in fruit growing, and his judgment as to the capabilities of the South for this branch of agriculture is that of a competent expert. Mr. Bell was one of the party of editors of medical journals who recently made a tour of the South Atlantic States under the auspices of the Southern Bureau of Information, located at Southern Pines, N. C.
It seems incomprehensible to a Southern man that there should be any doubt in the minds of Northern people as to whether Northern settlers will be well received in the South or not. Mr. Clark Bell, in an article in this number, says: “Northern settlers would, strange as it may sound to you, need to be assured in these respects,” and he thinks it necessary to quote the assurances on this point that he had from distinguished Southern gentlemen. Not only will Northern farmers and business men be well received in the South, but they will find awaiting them a most eager welcome. The newspaper utterances all over the South, the statements of public men, the personal letters to the newspapers from farmers and merchants, the actions of commercial bodies, indicate not only a welcome to the Northern settler, but a keen appreciation of the value to the South of immigration from the North, and a most eager desire for this immigration. No Northern man, who is respectable enough to have standing in his own community at home, need have any fear but that he will find in the South the utmost consideration and good will.
The superior train service on the Chesapeake & Ohio is well known to all patrons of that system. During the month of January train No. 1 made the run between Washington, D. C., and Cincinnati, twenty-nine days, exactly on time, and on the other two days lost but twenty minutes. Train No. 2 made every trip between the cities on time, and the “Fast Flying Virginian,” one of the finest express trains in the country, reached Cincinnati thirty out of thirty-one trips on time, although it was an hour late out of Washington on seven trips, caused by waiting for connections. This is a month’s record that the operating department can be proud of.
The assistant land commissioner of the Illinois Central Railroad, Major G. W. McGinnis, in a recent interview on the subject of immigration to the Yazoo Delta, spoke as follows:
“I believe that the time has now come for the introduction of white labor. Our road, besides having agents all over the Northwest, have men in Germany and also in Holland, gathering families together to settle up our land. There are many residents of Dakota and other Northwestern States who want a milder and a better climate, with a soil more fertile than that of the Northwest. All these advantages are possessed by the Delta.
“The greatest interest is manifested in the movement. Scarcely a day passes but what we receive from fifty to seventy-five letters of inquiry.
“The colonists who have already taken advantage of our offers and settled along the Delta, are making money hand over fist. They are raising cotton, corn, vegetables, stock and fruit. The largest peaches I ever saw in my life came from the Delta.
“When our work is done we will see every man his own landlord, and by the way, these foreigners are apt to steer clear of that condition, so prevalent in the South, of being land poor. They want no more land than they can cultivate with the aid of their families, say forty acres. In fact, some of them buy no more than twenty. They make up the greatest population for agricultural districts possible to imagine. They have made the Northwest what it is.
“When the movement is once fairly started there will be no stopping the rush of immigration. Northern people all move in bodies. When one comes all come.”
The following resolutions were adopted at a meeting of the State Agricultural Society of Alabama, held at Birmingham, February 23:
Resolved, By the State Agricultural Society of Alabama, that we invite to Alabama all honest and industrious farmers that should be desirous of changing their home, and extend to them a cordial welcome, assuring them that the right hand of fellowship will be extended to them, and that feeling that is always accorded one good citizen from another will be extended to them by the farmers of the State.
Resolved(2), That we will cordially indorse and sustain our honorable commissioner of agriculture and his excellency, the governor of Alabama, in a vigorous and continuous effort for immigration made through the Department of Agriculture under existing law. At the same meeting, Mr. Chappell Cory, editor of the Birmingham Age-Herald, read by invitation a paper in advocacy of efforts to induce immigration from the North.
The organization of land companies for the purpose of inducing immigration to West Tennessee is most commendable, especially when these companies are conducted upon the plan of that one which proposes to open up the territory along the line of the Paducah, Tennessee & Alabama railroad. The capital of the company is very small, and there is little profit in the enterprise for those who have formed the company. They intend merely to direct the attention of immigrants to the advantages which this heaven-blest region holds for the thrifty and hard-working farmer. The road is a new one, but it runs through a most fertile region, especially adapted to small farming. The Illinois Central railroad has done much to attract settlers to Mississippi, and every railroad in this section should be equally alert. It was the railroad agent who made States out of Territories in the Northwest, and it is a most assuring sign that he is now taking hold of the Southern country. The railroad company is the best of all immigration or colonization societies. It can accomplish more at less expense than any other. The example set,therefore, by the officials of the Paducah, Tennessee & Alabama, is commendable in the highest degree. The prosperity of a railroad depends upon the population of the country through which it runs, and the more rapidly the country is built up the sooner will the stockholders realize upon their investment. The public has a profound interest in such enterprises. The Appeal-Avalanche has no support to give to purely speculative and boom schemes, but it is in favor of all enterprises the object of which is to put forward the advantages of soil, climate and distributing facilities which Tennessee and other Southern States enjoy to such an exceptional degree.—Memphis Appeal-Avalanche.
Col. C. P. Atmore, the general passenger agent of the Louisville & Nashville railroad, is pushing the matter of immigration to the South with great vigor. When approached on the subject recently he said that the Louisville & Nashville road had several agents in the Northwest and in Europe, who were sending families down rapidly. It is the intention of the road to put between 200 and 300 families on its line between Paris and Memphis.
The Louisville & Nashville is now running home-seekers’ excursions from points at a rate of one fare for the round trip, with a view to encouraging the movement. It owns many thousand acres of land between New Orleans and Flomaton, Ala., and also between Pensacola and River Junction.
On the Nashville, Sheffield and Florence branch of the line in question there is a Norwegian colony of about 200 families. This colony has done remarkably well, and the road is much pleased with its venture.
At Velasco, Texas, recently several carloads of fine draft stock belonging to newly arrived farmers from Nebraska were received, and the next day several carloads of household goods for another colony from Kansas, who had bought farms in Brazoria county, were unloading. M. M. Miller, of the Velasco National Bank, and others have received letters from parties who are coming with families and stock from both of these States and from New Mexico, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
At the present rate Brazoria county’s population, it is said, will be doubled by the end of the present year; at least 90 per cent. of increase began coming in less than two years ago.
Mr. O. J. Johnson, excursion, land and colonization agent, of Minneapolis, has been prospecting in Florida for a site for settling immigrants from the North and Northwest.
Mr. Johnson will take a good many hundred people South, he says, if he has the right encouragement. He was the immigration agent of the Northern Pacific railroad for nine years.
Four business men of Minneapolis are interested with Mr. Johnson. They are Mr. N. C. Westerfield, Dr. William E. Wheelock, Messrs. P. S. McKay and C. E. Channel. Their idea is to purchase a tract of land of from 10,000 acres upward, divide it into smaller farms and lots and then sell these lots to such settlers as they want.
“I’ve had a deal of experience in this line,” said Mr. Johnson, “and know what is to be done. I am well satisfied with Florida’s climate and attractions, and know that we can settle many hundreds of good people. We have a large number of inquiries already, and I am satisfied we can place all the people we want to handle. The farmers of Dakota and other points in the Northwest are dissatisfied, and hundreds and hundreds of them will come the moment they are assured that this State promises them a fair living with the work they have to devote now to a mere existence.”
Officers of the Rock Island Fruit Growers’ and Improvement Association are in Texas inspecting lands. It is the purpose of the association to acquire a large tract of land in the Gulf coast region of Texas, in the centre of which to lay out a town site, giving to each member of the association a town lot. A maximum and minimum ownership of land is restricted by the by-laws of the association. Reservations are made for school, church, town hall, park and cemetery purposes. No lands can be held in unimproved state for speculation; a certain portion of each owner’s land must be improved during the first year by planting fruit, vegetables or other horticultural products, and at least two acres additional each succeeding year until each owner’s lands are under cultivation. When the products are ready to ship the shipments will be made in car lots to the most advantageous markets of the country.
The association expects to number 100 families, composed of persons who will go into the Texas coast region and make their homes, their previous occupations having been fruit growers, gardeners, mechanics from the government works on the island of Rock Island, clerks, artisans, etc. While their fruit trees are developing the members of the association will raise garden truck for shipment. The officers of the association propose visiting the most advantageous sections of the Gulf coast, from Houston to Corpus Christi, and will devote about four weeks time to that purpose. The originator of the enterprise is Mr. I. E. Whistler, whose attention was directed to Texas as a fruit growing country by seeing and testing some fine specimens of peaches shipped from Tyler, Texas, last June to New York City, which rivaled the best California peaches in size, and far surpassed them in flavor. The officers of the association making this tour are I. E. Whistler, president; J. O. Logan, vice-president, and W. E. Hilton, trustee.
Although the Mobile & Ohio Railroad only traverses a few miles of Alabama, yet it has done probably more in the way of inducing immigration to the State since 1890 than any other line, through extensive advertising, combined with excellent folders and maps, which have been extensively distributed through Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, etc. They also pursue the same liberal policy with local land agents and all engaged in promoting immigration along their road, distributing their advertising matter, and granting to them courtesies which are necessary to insure local parties to endeavor to give them the benefit of their work in securing immigrants. Alabama wants 10,000 families from the North to settle within her borders in the next twelve months, and only by hard combined work of the people and railways can it be accomplished, and now is the time to organize and keep the ball rolling. Let us get a move on us in this matter, and we can accomplish our object.—The News, Birmingham, Ala.
The farmers around Augusta, Ga., are becoming interested in a proposed plan to organize an immigration society, and many have expressed a desire to take an active part in perfecting a permanent organization of that kind.
A prominent merchant farmer from Wilkes county stated recently that the people of his section of the country were very much enthused over the organization of an immigration society in Augusta.
“You would be greatly surprised,” he said, “to know how many of our merchants and planters have taken up the idea, and how anxious they are to see such an organization established at Augusta. Our people are willing to help in every way possible, for they realize that they are to reap the benefits, and consequently are desirous of sharing the labors.
“You see, the farmers are generally land poor throughout the entire country, and what they want to do is to get some one who will work, and take some of it off their hands.”
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 ofthe 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.
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The annual report of the Roland Park Co., of Baltimore, makes a showing that, considering the extreme business depression of the last year and a half, is quite remarkable. The Roland Park Co. is engaged in developing a fine suburban residence park north of Baltimore, three or four miles from the centre of the city. The first building operations were begun in October, 1892. The first house was completed early in the spring of 1893. On the 30th of December, 1893, the date to which the annual report is brought down, the residences built and under construction represented a total cost of more than $300,000. In the space of a year a locality that was in effect nothing more than farm property has been transformed during a period of unprecedented financial and business stagnation into a beautiful and rapidly growing residence suburb, with all the comforts and conveniences and appurtenances of life in the thickly built up part of the city. Between thirty and forty families have moved out to the park for permanent residence, and are living in houses that cost from $4000 to $15,000 each. At the initiation of this enterprise there was not a man in Baltimore who would have looked for such development as this, even with favorable business conditions.
Baltimore is an anomaly in this matter of suburban residence. Up to two or three years ago the city had no rapid transit, and consequently no suburban development. Its half million people lived in compactly built rows of brick houses, having neither front nor side yards. The enterprise of the Roland Park Co. was the first suburban development undertaking of a high class and on a large scale. Messrs. Jarvis and Conklin, of Kansas City and New York, who have invested in this country something over $30,000,000 of English money, bought 500 or 600 acres of land immediately north of Baltimore, and proceeded to develop it as a first-class residence suburb. An avenue 120 feet wide was constructed through the property, and a double track electric road was built through the property to a resort at Lake Roland, and coming down to the centre of the city at the City Hall and postoffice. A system of water works, a complete scientific sewerage system, paved roadways, asphalt sidewalks, along which shade trees were set out, and electric lights and other conveniences and accessories to comfort were provided. Under the management of Mr. Edward H. Bouton, the vice-president and general manager of the company, the progress that has been made in the actual building up of the locality has been much beyond what was expected, and there are many reasons for the assurance that this will seem small in comparison with the progress that will be made during the coming spring and summer.
The present high rate of taxation in the city proper, and the recent large expenditures for public improvements that will necessitate an early increase in the tax rate are tending to send people into the suburbs. This and many other potent causes point to a rapid building up of Baltimore’s suburban territory.
Real estate is getting active at Atlanta. One firm alone, since January 1st, has sold $128,000 worth of property in the city and vicinity. Samuel Goode, a realty expert, gives the following opinion of the outlook in Atlanta:
“The practical certainty that the United States prison will be located in Atlanta, the direct probability that the Grand Army of the Republic will hold its next convention here, and the settled fact that the greatest exposition ever seen in the South will be opened here in 1895—these things combined have given our people hope and confidence in the continued rapid growth of Atlanta, and the timid have begun to find courage enough to turn their money loose for loans and direct investments in real estate. Indeed, the change for the better has been very perceptible to dealers in the last sixty days. It is not any particular advance in prices which is so marked, because, in this respect there has never been any falling off, but it is the factthat people are beginning to buy at the normal prices. The best prices realized for property at all have been obtained within the past six months.
“Another evidence of returning confidence and activity is found in the desire and willingness of owners to sell their property at auction. We already have a variety of property to be thus sold early this spring. There has been a spirit of fairness and liberality manifested by our citizens, one towards another, in the past year, which is truly commendable; and the result is that creditors basing their security upon real estate have not forced property for sale and broken prices and distressed if not ruined their debtors; but they have exercised a wise forbearance, and will soon be rewarded by full payment of all that is due them, and values have been sustained in Atlanta as in no other city within my knowledge. All signs point to an active spring market, and to the investing here of much outside capital.”
A syndicate of St. Louis people is constructing a suburban residence park at New Orleans. A body of land recently bought for that purpose measures about 700 feet frontage on St. Charles street by 8000 feet deep. The plans call for an ornamental entrance in the middle of the front, and a graveled driveway through the middle of the plat. As projected the entrance will be defended by handsome gates, the carriage opening being about 100 feet wide, and two gates for foot passengers on either side. Electric lights, prettily arranged, will stud the edge of the arch leading to the apex, where an ornamental structure of iron work will support additional bulbs. About 1500 feet of roadway have been built, leading from the gateway back into the grounds, while equal distances of Schillinger pavement have been laid on either side. A plat has been reserved in the middle for shade trees and shrubbery.
The Capital City Real Estate and Investment Company, with a capital stock of $30,000, has been organized at Austin, Texas. H. P. N. Gammel is president.
Daytona, Fla., is rejoicing in much real estate activity.
Two of the most noted stock farms in Kentucky, both near Lexington, have recently been sold. Mr. Jno. T. Hughes, the well-known horseman, has purchased the Prince George place for a reported sum of $60,000. J. R. Keene, the Eastern horseman, has bought the Castleton farm, the property of Colonel Ford, of Virginia. The price is given as $70,000.
The Southern Farm Agency, of Lynchburg, Va., has recently sold some farms to Northern people, and advertises in this issue of theSouthern Statesa number of very fine properties that can be had at very low prices. The Southern Farm Agency, by the way, is one of the most enterprising and progressive real estate concerns in the South.
The president of the Commercial and Industrial Association of Montgomery, Ala., in his last monthly report, says: “The real-estate market of Montgomery shows some evidences of improvement. From returns compiled of this city for the month of January it is shown that the increase of sales is more than 20 per cent. over the corresponding month of last year. The values of desirable business and residence property and also of well situated and improved agricultural lands have remained steady and are firmly held. It is also believed the spring and summer will show still greater activity, with perhaps an increase in values. There are comparatively few vacant houses for a city of Montgomery’s size, but the prospects and building operations will show some falling off the coming year.”
A tract of 1575 acres near Velasco, Texas, has been sold to J. B. Wagoner and J. T. Gould, of Eureka, Ill., for $19,687.
The late S. S. Houghton, a millionaire, and head of the noted Boston dry-goods house of Houghton & Dutton, built a few years ago a magnificent winter residence at Homosassa on the gulf coast of Florida. Mr. Houghton died last spring, and his widow has sold the Homosassa estate to Mr. J. A. Rowell, vice-president of the Merchants’ National Bank, Ocala. The building and grounds are said to have cost $100,000.
The building occupied for nearly thirty years by the People’s Bank in Louisville, Ky., has been sold to the Bank of Commerce, and will in a few weeks be occupied by the last-named institution. The price paid was $27,000.
A delegation of Northern lumbermen, under the charge of E. C. Randall, a real estate operator of Chicago, recently spent some time inspecting timber lands in South Arkansas.
The Little Rock (Ark.) Gazette publishes lists of recent land transfers in that city and in the county, from which it appears that the real-estate business of that locality is not suffering much from the hard times.
The governor of Arkansas and the State Commissioner of mines, manufactures and agriculture have invited the real-estate dealers of the State to file with them descriptions of properties for sale in order that they may have definite information to furnish people who are seeking homes in Arkansas and write to them for information about prices and location of lands.
It is said at Fort Worth, Texas, that there has not been for years such demand and inquiry for property as there is now. The influx of immigration has been unprecedented, especially in North and West Texas, many of the newcomers having located in Tarrant county, in which Fort Worth is situated. Renting agents report that the demand for houses largely exceeds the supply.
The Texas land office has leased 375,000 acres of land to J. S. Daugherty, of Dallas, Texas, for a term of five years. This is said to be the largest amount of land ever leased to any one person by the State. The lease will bring a revenue to the public free school fund of $15,000 annually.
The Southern Farm Agency, of Lynchburg, Va., has just sold to Mr. A. E. Miltimore, of Catskill, N. Y., 2000 acres of land in Appomattox county, on the Norfolk & Western Railroad. Mr. Miltimore has already taken down several carloads of sheep and horses, and intends making it a fine stock farm, for which, in many respects, it is said to be most admirably adapted.
Mr. George H. Zerr, of Reading, Pa., has purchased a fine estate near Morrisville, Fauquier county, Va., and will reside there.
Pittsburg capitalists have bought thirty-two acres of land near Wheeling, W. Va.
Florence, S. C., is having considerable real estate activity.
Mr. W. P. Clyde, of the Clyde Steamship Co., has bought 2000 acres of land on Hilton Head Island, near Beaufort, S. C., at $3.00 an acre. Mr. Clyde was already the owner of a farm on the island.
The annual statement of the Roanoke Development Co. for 1893, recently issued, shows a satisfactory state of affairs. Shareholders have purchased nearly $282,000 worth of the company’s lots, paying for them partly in stock. In addition to this the company sold $14,258 worth of lots to outsiders. Thus far the sales have amounted to $340,428, which is an average price of $2535 per acre. The company still has 1153 acres unsold. The officers of the company are P. L. Terry, president; Malcolm W. Bryan, vice-president; S. W. Jamison, treasurer; L. R. Sollenberger, secretary.
George Logan, of Salem, Va., has just bought a farm of 318 acres adjacent to that town for $9000.
E. F. Porter, one of the leading lumbermen of Kansas City, has been down to inspect with a view to purchasing a tract of 25,000 acres of pine and oak timber land in South Arkansas owned by the land department of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway.
A large tract of land, known as Cliffbourne, at Rock Creek Park, near Washington, D. C., was sold recently to Francis G. Newlands for $185,000.
A farm of 265 acres near Staunton, Va., has been sold by J. B. Smith and H. G. Eichelberger, of Staunton, to a gentleman from Maine, who will move down with his family.
Mr. O. Van Buskirk, of Mt. Sterling, Ohio, has bought 330 acres of land near Florence, Ala., and will move there. Several families besides his own will accompany him.
Mr. R. S. Oglesby, of Lynchburg, Va., recently sold a farm in Bedford county to James W. Dawson, of the John Shillito Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.
The real estate agents in the South who are known in the North and West are receiving constant inquiries about farm lands. The majority of inquiries seem to come from Dakota.
E. Mallen, of Ironwood, Mich., has purchased a farm near Cloverdale, Ala., and is interesting some of his fellow countrymen in Lauderdale county. Mr. Mallen is a Finlander, and has been farming a number of years in the Northwest. A number of his friends expect to buy farms and locate in the same county.
There has been lately a decided improvement in the demand for stores and business places in Richmond, Va. Messrs. J. Thompson Brown & Co. report a number of large leases.
The town of Springfield, Fla., is enjoying a building boom. About thirty dwellings are being erected, and a number of residences and stores are being planned. Real estate business is brisk.
A ranch, in Calhoun Co., Texas, two miles from Port Lavacca, containing 22,000 acres owned by Mr. W. H. Thomas, has been bought by a Northern syndicate for $132,000. It will be cut up into small tracts and colonized. The plans for its development also provide for the building of factories, hotel, &c.
The Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad Co. has sold to Otto Plock, of Paris, France, 7,554 acres of land situated in Ouachita Parish, La. The consideration was $26,440.68 cash. It is said to be the purpose of the purchaser to establish a large colony of Swedes on these lands, selling the lands to them in small lots on easy payments.
Real estate continues active at Fort Worth, Texas. There is a great demand for small houses. “If I had twenty-five such houses today I could rent them all before night,” said Mr. W. R. Sanner, a real estate agent. “I do not know a better investment,” he continued, “than to build such residences, with modern improvements, to cost from $1,000 to $2,500.” Messrs. Huffman & Co. have in hand a trade in adjacent counties, for Ohio parties, which represent the sum of $20,000. California parties are negotiating for pasture land held at $16,000.
Messrs. J. Thompson Brown & Co., Richmond, Va., received recently a letter from Callao, Peru, from a gentleman who wishes to purchase real estate at Richmond. The same firm reports that every mail brings them from two to five letters from parties in the West and Northwest, who write they have decided to settle in Virginia, and want information as to real estate, etc. In the past ten days they have been in negotiation with one or more parties in Ohio, Michigan, New York, Minnesota, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Colorado, St. Paul, Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin, and other points who wish to purchase farms, manufacturing or building sites. From one of the locations named they are trying to locate a colony of fifty families on a tract of 5000 acres.
A dispatch from Rocky Mount, N. C., states that parties from the North are negotiating to purchase 20,000 acres of land in Nash and Halifax counties for development and investment.
The Island City Abstract Co. has been organized at Galveston, Texas, with H. M. Truehart, president; I. A. Harrington, secretary, and Joseph Lobit, treasurer, and $20,000 capital.
“The Real Estate, Title and Guarantee Co.,” has been organized at Newport News, Va., with the following named officers: Carter M. Braxton, president; L. P. Stearns, vice-president; Charles Sheppard, secretary; Arthur Lee, treasurer. The capital is $100,000.
A New York capitalist has just invested $62,500 in real estate in New Orleans. The transaction was made through Messrs. Robinson & Underwood, real estate agents, New Orleans, who state that other purchases will follow this.
Messrs. G. M. Reynolds & Co., of Norfolk, Va., sold recently a number of lots adjacent to Portsmouth, improved and unimproved, for an aggregate of $13,000.
The people of Atlanta are pushing their proposed exposition with the same vigor with which they undertook the preliminary organization. The enthusiasm which has marked every step of progress shows how thoroughly in earnest Atlanta is, and gives promise of what may be expected from the exposition. Director-General Palmer is getting his working force into good shape, and reports that from all sections of the country the most hearty and enthusiastic commendations are being received. If carried out on the scope upon which it has been planned, this exposition will be for the South what the World’s Fair was for Chicago and the country at large. It will centre in the South an amount of interest scarcely appreciated now, but which will mean the investment of many millions and in time of many hundreds of millions of dollars. It will also mean a stimulation of the Southward trend of population, and thousands who are thinking of moving South will be determined by the work of the exposition. Everything indicates that the exposition will be on a scale far surpassing anything that has ever before been seen in the South.
Preparations are being made by Messrs. Ross & Sanford, of Baltimore, to begin the work of deepening and otherwise enlarging what is known as the Dismal Swamp Canal. The canal, which is twenty-two miles long, will be dredged to an average depth of ten feet and widened to sixty feet. This will require the removal of 3,000,000 cubic yards of material. As the capacity of the average dredge is 3000 yards per day, the magnitude of the work can be appreciated. Another important work will be the construction of two main and two secondary locks, the main locks to be 250×40 feet each in the clear. By the lock system the water in the canal level can be raised to a height of thirteen feet. When the work is finished vessels with nine feet draught can pass through the waterway without difficulty. Some of the lumber needed to build the dredges to be employed has already arrived at the scene of operations.
The amount of money to be expended in this work will be fully $1,000,000. This passageway is to be used extensively by lumber barges, fruit and truck steamers and other craft plying between Hampton Roads and North Carolina waters. The improvements will tend to greatly increase the trade between Norfolk, Portsmouth and the tidewater country south of those cities.
The increase in coal business at Pensacola, Fla., is very marked, and an excellent demand is noted for Alabama coal, which thus far has been the only kind sent from that city. The Export Coal Co. reports that it has one contract for 11,000 tons to be delivered at Tampico by March 1, also another for 60,000 tons to be delivered at Vera Cruz and Tampico during 1894. The company also has 30,000 tons to be filled on an order from Galveston by June 1. The exports of Alabama coke are very small as yet, but the indications are that the amount will be greatly increased this year.
Everything seems to be contributing to the building up of a great seaport city at Newport News, Va. The business over the fast freight line established by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis and Chesapeake & Ohio from the West to Newport News is being increased by grain shipments from along the Chicago & Northwestern. A through rate has been made on cereals for export to Liverpool, with the result that the new line is not only securing business from Missouri and Kansas and the country traversed by the “Big Four” system, but the territory in Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa for which the Northwestern is an outlet. As the latter has about 3500 miles of lines in these States, the great advantage of having the Northwestern as a feeder is apparent. The people whoare forwarding the business have very thoroughly examined the facilities at Newport News and were so pleased with them and the way the business has been handled that they intend making more extensive exports by way of that port.
In this connection it is reported that the Vanderbilts have privately secured a larger interest in the Chesapeake & Ohio and in Big Four than they have ever held, and mean to control absolutely that line from Chicago to the seaboard, with the line of steamers from Newport News.
President M. H. Smith, of the Louisville & Nashville, has arranged for a reduction of coal rates from Jellico, which will permit of the introduction of Jellico coal into Chicago and Illinois and Michigan points on the same basis as West Virginia coal. This will, it is reported, also include the Middlesborough district. The reduced rate will doubtless result in a great increase in the Western shipments of Kentucky coal, the superior quality of which has created for it a Western demand, despite high freights.
The extensive coal deposits near the Rio Grande, in Presidio county, Texas, it is stated, are to be opened and mined on an extensive scale by the San Carlos Coal Co., which controls 53,000 acres of land containing veins of semi-bituminous coal forty-one inches thick in some places. President S. A. Johnston, of the company, in a letter to the Manufacturers’ Record, says that his company has made a contract to sell at least 115,000 tons yearly to the Southern Pacific Railroad. The Northern office of the company is at Pittsburg, Pa.
Work is about to begin on a canal in Florida which will be of great importance to the lumbering and agricultural interests of the section through which it is to pass. It will extend from a point in Marion county, at the head of Ratcliff’s prairie to Mill Creek swamp. It will be eleven miles long and thirty feet wide at the bottom. The estimated cost of dredging the canal is $75,000. The object of the canal is to reclaim thousands of acres of submerged swamp lands, covered with rich muck from five to ten feet in depth, with a clay bottom, and to provide transportation for pine and cypress timber.
The syndicate interested has purchased 15,000 acres of land along its line. When the improvements are completed they expect to engage largely in the growing of rice and sugar-cane, and hold out inducements to settlers who desire to buy rich lands cheap. D. D. Rogers, at Ocala, is engineer. Among the capitalists interested is Christian Ax, of the firm of G. W. Gail & Ax, Baltimore.
Following the announcement that the Chesapeake & Ohio is to enter Norfolk comes the statement that the United States Cotton Warehouse & Loan Co. has asked for legislative authority to build wharves, warehouses, elevators and other buildings; also to construct and operate a terminal railway not over five miles in length. It is also to conduct a general wharfage and warehouse business, with a capital of at least $50,000. The main office is to be in Norfolk or Portsmouth. The corporators are Edward A. Pierson, of New York; John H. Dingee, of Philadelphia; J. Andre Mottu, of Norfolk; J. R. McMurran, of St. Paul, Minn.; Heber Alter, of Philadelphia; James Y. Leigh, of Norfolk; S. Henry Norris, of Philadelphia; William Burrington, of Philadelphia; Herman Niemeyer, of Portsmouth; Fergus Reid, of Norfolk; C. W. Murdaugh, Marcellus Miller, of Berkley; Parke Poindexter, of Berkley; William Goddin, of Philadelphia; William Schmoele, Jr., of Portsmouth; John L. Vaughman, O. P. Heath, S. L. Burroughs and Walter S. Taylor. A number of well-known capitalists appear in the list, and the enterprise evidently means much for Norfolk and vicinity.
The Florence Pump Co., of Florence, Ala., has made a contract with a Philadelphia firm to supply $40,000 worth of pumps.
The water works plant at Yorkville, S. C., has been completed, tested and accepted by the town council. The plant consists of about three miles of mains, a stand pipe seventy feet high on a fifty-foot tower, 120 feet in all, with a capacity of 60,000 gallons. The water is forced into the stand pipe by a pump of 500,000 gallons capacity, and the stream which furnishes the water will furnish (estimated) 150,000 gallons a day. There are 800 feet of hose, and the total cost, including hose, was $16,800.
The Shea Plating and Manufacturing Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, has entered into a contract to remove to Macon, Ga., and the work of transferring the plant has begun.
Railroad communication and the building of ice factories on the west coast of Florida, have resulted in the building up of an important fishing industry, which is growing rapidly. St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Dunedin, Ozona, Sea Side and Tarpon Springs are the principal shipping points, and there was forwarded from these ports for 1893 a total of 7,901 barrels.
The Fort Worth Gazette says of Terrell Texas: “Never before in the history of Terrell and vicinity has there been such demand for homes and tillable grounds. Many persons having large pastures are cutting them up in farms, at least a portion, and if the demand increases the large pastures will have to be given up to farming interests instead of grass pastures. Several thousand acres of new land will be put in cultivation this year in this county.”
For several weeks Messrs. Rand, McNally & Co., printers and publishers, have had an agent in the South prospecting for the most suitable place, in point of business and situation, to establish a distributing house, their main houses being in New York and Chicago. Charlotte, N. C., has finally been fixed upon as the most desirable point.
Newport News had the honor of constructing the first iron and steel merchant vessels built in the South, and the largest ever launched in the United States. El Cid, made famous by being turned into a warship for the Brazilian government, enjoys the distinction of having broken all records in the passage between New York and New Orleans. El Norte, El Rio, and El Sud are not far behind her. Following this distinction comes the docking for repairs of the big American liner New York, which was done February 19. The New York is the largest ship ever docked in America. No other yard on this side the Atlantic could do it. The Newport News dock has but one rival in point of size—the government dock, at Brooklyn—and it is doubtful if that is large enough to admit of her entrance. As soon as the big ship touched the dock a force of 1000 men was put to work upon her.
A new manufacturing enterprise of some importance is about to be inaugurated at Bedford City, Va., by Mr. W. B. Dunn, who has organized the Bedford Manufacturing Co., with himself as secretary. The company’s purpose is to manufacture custom-made clothing to be sold at manufacturers’ prices, making a specialty of trousers, using the product of all leading Southern woolen mills, as well as other fine foreign and domestic goods. It is intended to appoint agents in all towns and cities in the South having 4000 inhabitants or more.
The city hall at Richmond, Va., recently completed at a cost of $1,370,000, is one of the finest municipal buildings in the country.
It is announced that the Boston capitalists who have decided to invest about $300,000 in an office-building in Atlanta, Ga., have secured a site and are to have plans prepared at once. Mr. H. M. Atkinson, who is their Atlanta representative, states that the building is to be fire-proof, ten stories high and will contain all the features of the modern structure for offices.
Hon. Jonathan Norcross, of Atlanta, Ga., is having plans prepared for a five-story building for offices to cost several hundred thousand dollars.
The Houston East & West Texas Railroad, running from Houston, Texas, to Shreveport, La., is not very much of a road as to mileage, but there is more hustle about it than most roads of ten times the length exhibit. With only 232 miles of road the company is doing more relatively towards the development of the country it traverses than almost any other road in the country. Recently a development department has been created and put in charge of General John M. Claiborne, an old newspaper man. Among other methods of building up the territory of the road, and besides the usual concessions to settlers in the way of passenger and freight rates, the company has offered to contribute to a common fund an amount equal to all that can be raised by the people of the counties through which the road passes, the money to be spent in getting in settlers. The road promises to locate at least one family for every two dollars the citizens of these counties will raise. The country through which this road passes includes some superb farm and garden lands, and large areas of original forest timber, pine and hard woods, and with the energy and push of the managers of the road it will not be long before immigrants will be pouring into their country.
The officers of the road are E. S. Jemison, president; M. G. Howe, vice-president; M. S. Meldrum, secretary and treasurer, and T. Cronin, superintendent, all of Houston.
The people of Middlesborough, Ky., and Middlesborough property owners living elsewhere are making strenuous efforts to induce the Middlesborough Town Lands Co. to reappoint Mr. A. A. Arthur to the active management of the company’s affairs. Ever since the termination of Mr. Arthur’s management the town has been in a state of virtual stagnation, and it is believed that Mr. Arthur alone can rescue it from collapse and restore it to its former condition of growth and prosperity.
Several delegations of citizens and property owners have called on the company’s present commissioner at Middlesborough, Mr. Lionel H. Graham, of London, and urged him to bring about the appointment of Mr. Arthur. On February 17, a mass meeting was held, at which the following resolutions were adopted:
Resolved, By the people of Middlesborough in mass meeting assembled, that the opportunity presented by Mr. L. H. Graham, who is now in our midst as the representative of the stockholders of the Town Lands Co., seeking information and encouragement for the guidance of his associates, be seized, and that we, the citizens and property owners of Middlesborough, who have borne the brunt of all the troubles of past two and one-half years, and have witnessed and studied both administrations, and who have been with the stockholders in prosperity and adversity, respectfully but emphatically ask a return to the old original plan of administering the affairs of the Town Lands Co.
Resolved, That we know that all the great and valuable resources upon which the city was started still exist; we have seen railroads brought to us and great enterprises created in our midst. The necessities of a city have been established, all legitimate expenditures have been made and nothing now remains to be done to re-establish credit, activity and progress, but the appointment of a leader, a wise and liberal man, one of intelligence, wide experience, integrity and extended connections, one in whom we can place great confidence.
Resolved, That in Mr. A. A. Arthur, creator and projector of Middlesborough and all the adjacent territory, we find such a man. None other has so great an interest. We will stand by him and we believe and know that he alone can pull you, the stockholders, and us, the citizens, out of the abject state in which we now are.
Resolved, That we most heartily ask for and will most cordially approve the reappointment of Mr. A. A. Arthur to the active management of the Middlesborough Town Lands Co.; webelieve that he can rescue this city from ruin, and the sooner the management is placed in his hands the sooner will confidence be restored and values be re-established.
Resolved, That the interests of the Town Lands Co. are alike the interests of the city and the citizens thereof; one cannot prosper without the other, hence the citizens and property owners are profoundly earnest in their desire to see Mr. Arthur restored to power, as they believe that his restoration will give new life not only to Middlesborough but to Southeastern Kentucky as well, and that we will enter upon a career of unexampled prosperity.
The annual fair of the East Carolina Industrial Association was held in New Berne on February 19th to 23d, inclusive, and was formally opened by Gov. Carr with a sterling address, in which he referred to the tidewater region as the garden spot of the continent, enumerating its resources and estimating their economic value, present and prospective. The exhibit, as a whole, was a surprise to home visitors as well as strangers, especially in marine, agricultural and mechanical products. Its mineral exhibit was remarkable in respect to native ores and precious stones. Thirty-one counties in the State are mining gold at a profit. Nuggets were shown which were valued at $52 and upwards. Eighty-five varieties of commercial woods were shown. There was a great variety of building stones. Tomato plants six inches high, garden peas three inches high, and strawberry blossoms were shown. The department of ladies’ work was superlative. Dairy products were meagre, only three samples of butter being shown. There was a great variety of feed in bales—native grasses, stock peas and corn fodder. Fine samples of wool and blankets were exhibited. The same blankets took a premium at Chicago. Some fine Southdown sheep from the Tucker farm near Raleigh were on view. There were some fine Jersey, Devon and Alderney cattle, and superior Berkshire and Red Jersey pigs and fat hogs, running up to 600 pounds in weight.
The fish and oyster exhibit, with the nets and apparatus, is always a prominent feature of the annual expositions, and was well sustained. Roe shad were remarkably fine.
There was an attractive exhibit of live and dead game and fur-bearing animals, and two curious hybrids between turkey, guinea fowl and Plymouth Rock hen. The floral exhibit was simply exquisite, and the colonial relics and old family plate and curios were very interesting. There was never such a poultry show seen on earth for quality and variety. At least two kinds were shown!
In the department of Women’s Work the productions of deft fingers were astonishing in all fabrics, laces, gold embroidery, feathers, flowers, etc., rivaling Japanese art, and causing Valenciennes to blush with jealousy. Altogether, there was a wonderful diversity of industrial products of which the old North State and all her sisters may be proud. New Berne herself has earned honors.
A bill is to be introduced in the legislature of Maryland, which is now in session, enlarging the powers of the chief of the bureau of industrial statistics so as to give him authority to provide for the settlement of immigrants in Maryland. The bill makes it the duty of the chief of the bureau to collect reliable information in every county of the State bearing upon the question of immigration, and authorizes him to appoint a local immigrant commissioner in each county. The local commissioners are to receive $2.50 a day for each day of actual service and personal expenses, the expenses are to be itemized and certified to before a justice of the peace, and $1.00 for each immigrant sixteen years of age and over settled by them in their respective counties. Their duties, under the direction of the chief of the bureau, are to procure the statistics and information necessary to properly set forth the facts, advantages and conditions of the counties, to perform such other duties appertaining to the work of the bureau as may be required and to procure options on farm lands at such prices and upon such terms as will be within the means of the immigrants desiring to locate upon them and to give them such assistance, care and information within their province as may be necessary.
The owners of lands upon which options have been thus secured shall upon the sale of the lands through the agency of the bureau, pay to the chief of the bureau a commission of 5 per cent. upon the gross amount of the sale, the sum thus obtained to be used in defraying the general expenses of the bureau and to be accounted for by the chief of the bureau in the itemized statement of receiptsand expenditures which he is at present required by law to publish in his report and to make to the State comptroller.
The chief of the bureau is authorized to visit such States and countries as in his judgment may be necessary, or to send an authorized agent, for the purpose of securing immigrants, having special regard to the character and responsibility of the immigrants. He is to adopt such means of advertising the State’s advantages as may commend themselves to his judgment, including such maps, charts, &c., as may be best calculated to illustrate the geographical, geological, topographical and physical features of the State, and to make contracts with railroads, steamship and other transportation companies and the masters of sailing vessels to secure a low rate of transportation for immigrants and to make the necessary arrangements for their temporary reception and accommodation upon their arrival until they can be located.
The bill provides the sum of $10,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, in addition to the present annual appropriation of the bureau to carry out the provisions of the law.