bountiful crops, while in ten years its market value increased four hundred per cent.

Northern men, who are thus astonished at the cheapness of these lands, and incredulous as to their value, have overlooked the great underlying fact that the prosperity of these two States has been weighed down by the presence of slavery; that the average value of land in the slave States has uniformly been less than in the free States; that in the former there are no large cities to give value to thousands of surrounding acres, by furnishing markets for their products; that they support no manufactories of their own, but depend almost exclusively on ours; that consumer and producer are everywhere widely separated; that labor, instead of being diversified, is confined principally to agriculture; that instead of being honored, it has been despised; that education and morals have been neglected, and free discussion forbidden. Into communities so governed, Northern men, educated to a higher standard, refused to migrate. It is true, that some were moved to do so, but the census proves that there are more native-born emigrants from the Southern States to the North, than Northerners to the South. Foreigners avoided it for kindred reasons. Thus, with no increase of population from abroad, and with very little at home, it was impossible for land to rise in value. As the West has grown to her colossal proportions by force of immigration, so the South, having none, has failed to increase her numbers to an extent sufficient to enhance the value of her soil.

This unnatural condition of things is now passing away, and a new era is opening on the South. Delaware and Maryland, the two slave States nearest to the North, and, therefore, the most accessible, are already beginning to feel its influence. Slavery removed, they are becoming worthy of Northern attention and enterprise. Delaware is rapidly reviving. Emigration already sets strongly toward her cheap and fertile soil. She is less exhausted than Maryland, and will revive the sooner. An infusion of Northern morals, capital, and enterprise, will regenerate her laws, her institutions, and her habit of thought. Such, also, in the end, will be the happy experience of Maryland. But until the people of the free States enter in by families and colonies, taking possession of the places which nearly two centuries of slavery have made waste, and teaching the inhabitants new thoughts, new habits, and a new civilization, they must remain as they are. Up to this moment they have stood still. If they are to advance, it can only be by help of Northern immigration. As that imperfect form of civilization whose basis was slave labor, has failed to promote State advancement, so the superior one, whose basis has been education and free labor, must be called in to work out in the slave region the only salvation which could prevent it from sinking into a barbarism that was overwhelming the white race as well as the black. Its humanizing influence having been sufficient for itself, it will be found equally potential for others.

CHAPTER X.

Wild Lands of New Jersey-Opening of the first RailroadRapid Improvements-New Towns-Hammonton, Egg Harbor City, Vineland, its history, condition, and future—The Neighboring Lands.

Of all the Middle States, none contain so wide an area of uncultivated land, in proportion to the whole, as New Jersey. By the report of the Geological Survey, made in 1856, it appears that of 4,960,595 acres in the State, 3,192,604 acres were, at that time, entirely uncultivated. In 1855, when a bill was before the Legislature for incorporating a company to construct an air-line railroad leading from New York across the lower section of the State, the condition and extent of that uncultivated region. were often referred to. The Hon. William Parry, Speaker of the House, made the following state

ments:

"The amount of land in West Jersey, including the counties of Ocean and Monmouth, which would be benefited by this road, embraces an area of 2,632,000 acres, and in the same section, according to the census of 1850, there are 600,681 acres of improved land, leaving unimproved, mainly for want of railroad facilities, over 2,000,000 of acres. This large extent of country, up to July, 1854, when the Camden and Atlantic Railroad was opened, had

no railroad except that skirting along the northern border, following the sinuosities of the river, with spurs to Mount Holly and Freehold, located mainly to accommodate the through travel, without reference to the wants of the interior.

"Can any other State show so large a tract of fertile land, so well adapted to cultivation, and so admirably located as this great peninsula, intercepted between the largest city in the Union and the broad Atlantic, fronting hundreds of miles on the great waters connecting us with Europe, with no more railroads than this section has? The Camden and Atlantic Railroad Company have the credit of opening the way through this heretofore uncultivated portion of our State. Cast your eyes along that road, the location of which is not so favorable for reaching the eastern market as this Air Line, and see the magical effect upon the value of property. Thousands of acres of land, which, previous to its construction, were comparatively of little value, although naturally good, the location being so remote that the price obtained for crops in market would not bear the expense of carting them through the sand, have, since the completion of said road, advanced in value, some, one hundred, some five hundred per cent., and some more, according to the location. The wood which covers most of the high table land, and has heretofore been considered an incumbrance in the way of cultivating the soil, now readily commands from three to four dollars per cord on the road."

The testimony of Mr. Parry becomes especially valuable from two facts-he unites in himself the two professions of land surveyor and nurseryman. He has been for many years the successful proprietor of a nursery embracing two hundred acres, in

Burlington county. As surveyor, he necessarily travelled on foot over the land he describes, and therefore had the fullest opportunity of seeing it, while his lifelong occupation of growing trees and plants of all descriptions, qualifies him as a competent witness as to their capabilities. Thus qualified as an impartial judge, Mr. Parry further said:

"Having spent some time during the past summer surveying in that vicinity, I witnessed what would otherwise have seemed almost incredible; one tract of 30,000 acres was purchased a little before the location of said road, at $1 per acre, and sold shortly after at $5 per acre; $30,000 given and $150,000 received by that transaction, which land is now being divided into small farms, and a large portion of it already sold to actual settlers, at $10 per Another tract of between 20,000 and 30,000 acres has, since the opening of said railroad, been divided into lots and farms, and all sold at $10 per acre to over one thousand purchasers.

acre.

"This land has not yet reached one-half its real value, for by this railroad it is brought within one hour's ride of Philadelphia, and it is fertile land, of a sandy loam on the surface, underlaid with clay and gravel, so very essential to retain manures and moisture, and promote the growth of fruit trees, plants and flowers, which flourish remarkably. It is well adapted to raising all kinds of vegetables and grain, which can be taken to market as quick and cheap by railroad as similar articles can in wagons from farms which, owing to their proximity to the city, will bring from $100 to $200 per acre.

"Peaches, which seem to have degenerated in older sections, where the soil has been highly stimulated with artificial manures, there I beheld in a flourishing condition;