Addresses — A Winter Month in Northern Georgia. 193 



people, and lack also the money capital requisite for the proper de- 

 velopment of the great natural resources of their state. 3. They 

 are conscious of their deficiencies, and are anxious for the co- 

 operation of northern energy and capital. Northern men are 

 wanted in Upper Georgia, and will be as cordially welcomed there 

 as in the newer states of the west and northwest. 4. Even with 

 the present disadvantages above mentioned, the people of Georgia 

 have been and are being educated by their changed conditions, and 

 their own necessities, to a more general, varied, and intelligent ac- 

 tivity, and the state is making at the present time, chiefly through 

 its native population, substantial and, I may say, remarkable pro- 

 gress. The system of small farming is taking the place of the old 

 plantation methods. Improved agricultural processes are slowly 

 bringing back fertility to exhausted lands. There is a large and, 

 in the main, intelligent use of natural and artificial fertilizers. 

 There is an increasing demand for good implements. Public in- 

 struction is surely, if slowly, advancing, upon the basis of a state 

 educational system very similar to our own. Its scope embraces 

 impartially both races, although, owing to poverty, sparseness of 

 population, and prejudices against the innovation of local taxation 

 for educating "other peoples' children," neither race as yet has, 

 as a general truth, save in the larger cities, anything like the edu- 

 cational facilities we enjoy and prize at the north. Financially, the 

 state is in excellent condition. The laws appear to be well and im- 

 partially administered. 



In conclusion, what advantages does this region offer to a resi- 

 dent of Wisconsin, inducing him to migrate? I believe it offers 

 few such inducements to one who is fairly settled and at home 

 here. Wisconsin, unlike Vermont, in Douglas' well known charac- 

 terization, is too good a state to move from. The soil here is so 

 good, the air and water so good, schools so good, society so good, 

 the general prospects for the larger future so good, that none but 

 a very wise man or a very foolish man will seek to leave it — a very 

 wise man, who, by his keen sight, has spied out some rare place 

 certainly better, or a very foolish one who simply seeks a change. 

 Yet if the latter is bent on moving, and asks me where to go, west 

 or south? I unhesitatingly say, content yourself with the folly of 

 going south, instead of the greater folly of going to the distant 

 and new west. You pay no more for land in the south; you have a 



