Iuka Reporter

HO FOR THE SOUTH,

What are the practical advantages of emigration to the South? Among many I will present the following:

1. The soil quickened and enriched by an abundant, annual rain-fall, is generally of the most fertile character and capable of growing the most exuberant crops (often two in one season), with less labor and greater certainty than elsewhere.

2. The climate, except in low malarial districts, is pleasant, salubrious and healthy, the weather being tempered at all times by gulf, lake, river or mountain breezes. The heat of Cincinnati and Central Ohio, though less continuous, is more oppressive than the heat of Memphis, Mobile or New Orleans.

3. Excepting in a few isolated portions of country, good well or spring water for drinking purposes is abundant.

4. While there is no necessity to feed stock of any kind longer than one month, the winters being mild and the grasses ever green, juicy and succulent, it is necessary in the more rigorous North to feed from six to eight months of the year. This is highly important to stock growers.

5. On account of the numerous navigable streams and lines of railroads, whatever is produced can be easily and cheaply transported, and as a consequence, the markets are excellent.

6. As a general rule, although the average Southern people do not seem to appreciate the fact, the cost of living is less than in the North.

7. Families removing South, unlike those who formerly emigrated to the extreme West can locate in good neighborhoods, where there are churches, schools good society, court houses and where all the machinery of law and good order are in full and successful operation.

8. The families that may settle in the South, will be at all times, by railway or steamer, within cheap, speedy and convenient reach of their Northern friends—much nearer than in Nebraska or Colorado.

9. While farms in the North rate in value from $50 to $150 per acre, according to location, improvements, buildings, etc., the very best of the Southern farms with few exceptions, can be bought at prices ranging from $3 to $15 per acre. Any farmer who understands the value of money will appreciate the difference.

10. The manufacturer can find in the South, iron coal and limestone for making the best qualities of iron and steel; cotton, wool, wheat and cane where they are grown, for running his spindles, loom, burrs and refining apparatus, together with the finest waterpower for propelling engines and machinery, making this, what God intended and destined to be, one of the finest and best paying manufacturing districts of this continent.

11. Summing up the case in a single paragraph, it is my deliberate conviction that there is no territory of equal proportions to that of the 'Sunny South,' that is blessed with so many natural advantages, and that has so many possibilities of material prosperity. But those persons who desire to purchase these wonderful lands at cheap prices must do so quickly. The gigantic Mississippi the great 'Father of Waters,'—through Eads' jetties furnishes unobstructed navigation to the largest steamers from the Mississippi Valley to Liverpool and all parts of the commercial world. She and her numerous tributaries will bear on their broad bosoms the grain, fruits cotton, sugar and manufactures of this immense interior basin much cheaper than is possible to other means of transit. Railroads will multiply rapidly in proportion to demand and supply. The observing enterprising young men of the North and West will do well to prospect in this Southern Eldorado, purchase farms, and manufactories and settle down to business assured that the rich and certain rewards of skill and honest labor in connection with the inevitable rise in the value of lands, will realize wealth independence and happiness of themselves and their posterity.