The Home Journal

From Memphis.

Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi are making active efforts to attract immigration to their borders, and with much success to start with. They are doing no more than they owe to the thousands of people in the colder middle and northern latitudes who are looking for milder climates and more profitable crops. The people of Tennessee should secure much of this influx of population. They should by every fair means induce men with capital and skilled labor to come and establish their manufactories among us, and others to purchase lands and help to bring out our best undeveloped resources; and let them all feel and realize that they shall meet with a cordial, hearty welcome when they come among us to prospect or locate. Our vast mineral wealth needs capital and labor to make it profitable to us and others, whereas it is now almost dead capital. The tide is now turning southward, and we ought to be on the lookout to get a large share of the very best emigrants to settle in Tennessee, who shall bring capital, labor and industry that shall aid in making our whole State prosperous in mining, manufacturing and farming.

An immigration society has been established in Virginia, under the presidency of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, and it promises to be most successful. Tennessee has all the inducements which Virginia can offer immigrants. She can show to the world that her lands are productive, and her climate salubrious. There is no earthly reason why the southern States should not, the facts in the case being properly published, carry the west and south in attracting emigrants from abroad, and draw to their borders every year thousands of eastern farmers, who now go to Colorado, Kansas or California. They possess a fertile soil and a charming climate, land is abundant and cheap; the productions are all staples, and the markets therefor are most accessible. The settler finds himself exposed to none of the perils of frontier life; to none of the destructive phenomena of nature, as plagues of insects, fires or storms; to none of the discomforts or inconveniences that they must experience who venture beyond the bounds of civilization. With all these unquestioned facts it may seem incredible that the south has been so slow to attract the tide of immigration which has rolled over the country to settle in Dakota and Manitoba.

The people of Tennessee are quiet and peaceable. There is no disorder in the State. Indeed no southern State can hold more inducements for immigrants than Tennessee. Our railroads penetrate sections of country rich in all that nature can lavish. For miles and miles these roads furnish an almost uninterrupted view of well cultivated farm lands, dotted with houses and villages, and affording evidence of plenty and content, of morality and education in its churches and school houses, of refinement in the thrifty appearing homes of the people. On the line of these roads are thousands of acres which may be obtained for a moderate amount, compared with what the same sum would command in the east. Our people must arouse themselves and do something to secure that immigration which will find homes in other southern States, not on account of superior advantages, but by superior industry.