WEST VIRGINIA. 47 



Though the area of the Granite State is but forty per cent, of that of West 

 Vu'giuia, the improved land is equal in extent, while the unimproved farm lands 

 are little more than one-seventh as extensive ; yet the average cash value in 

 the State so generally improved is but $18 58 per acre, against $10 03 per 

 acre in the State which has but one-fiflh of its land under improvement. New 

 Hampshire has, of live stock, fewer horses and mules, cows and young cattle, 

 sheep and swine, but more working oxen. Her excess of working oxen, of 

 higher value than cows and young cattle, in part oflfsets the superior numbers 

 of the horses of West Virginia, so that the proximity of the White mountains 

 to the fine markets of manufacturing cities, and the famed Cambridge market, 

 is really little superior in position to the western slope of the Alleghanies, so 

 accessible to Cincinnati and Louisville on one side, and Baltimore and Wash- 

 ington on the other. New Hampshire has the advantage of quite fifty per cent, 

 in the value of animals slaughtered, but West Virginia can oftset something in 

 her sales of horses. With a smaller number of animals to feed, more than four 

 times as much hay is used by New Hampshire farmers ; and it is not altogether 

 owing to the consumption of a greater amount of corn in feeding stock that so 

 little hay is used by West Virginia farmers, but it is due to the comiDaratively 

 short and mild winters, and the abundance of excellent pasturage. This fact 

 adds greatly to the comparative profit of stock-keeping in the new State, and 

 will eventually add to the market value of her broad acres. 



The bushels of corn and wheat, and other grain, plainly point to the fertility 

 of the soil, having been produced by imperfect and slovenly culture, the blemish 

 and disgrace of southern, western, and, in fact, American farm husbandry. 



The item of a half million dollars of home manufactures is creditable to the 

 habits of rural simplicity and to the self-reliance of the women of West Virginia. 



To show this to be a low estimate of profits to be derived from enhanced 

 values, let the valuation be placed on the basis of that of adjoining States — 

 Pennsylvania and Ohio. In intrinsic wealth of soil and minerals combined, 

 aside from the accidents of settlement or position,. West Virginia can scarcely 

 be said to be inferior to either. The present farm valuation is $87,525,087. 

 At the Ohio valuation, $32 13 per acre, it would amount to $350,101,139 ; at 

 the Pennsylvania valuation, $38 91, it would be $423,978,690. The impetus 

 given to improvement by inaugurating the policy of voluntary labor, Avilh all 

 of its tendencies to material and moral development, is sufiicieut to give instantly 

 one hundred millions of dollars additional value to the farming lands of the 

 State, and when the war is over this enhancement will at once be seen in im- 

 provement in prices. 



FOREST LANDS. 



The following statement of a correspondent, C. S. Richardson, of Briar- 

 port Mines, in the Kanawha valley, illustrates the character of the virgin 

 soil: 



" Comparatively unknown, and seemingly uncared for, there are extensive tracts of rich 

 and fertile lands in the wilderness, whose capability of productiveness, when developed, would 

 astonish the dwellers in the open country if they were made acquainted with the facts. Iso- 

 lated from general view through tlie ubseuce of any roads, the traveller has but little chance 

 of making their acquaintance. The dwellers in these solitudes are not of a very communi- 

 cative disposition ; hence so little is known of their real value. Diuing a series of topo- 

 graphical and geological survej-s on the Elk aiid Coal rivers, my attention was drawn to 

 numerous spots that I conceived would make beautiful farms. Gentle slopes, flat-top ridges, 

 and level dells were frequently met with. These were primitive forests, and a stranger to the 

 woodman's axe or the saw of the lumberman. Being interested in the mineral resources of 

 Kanawha, and having in view one of its fundamental principles of development — population — 

 I deteraiined to try an experiment to ascertain the truth or fallacy of my ideas. With this 

 end before nie, I selected a spot scarcely ever trodden by the toot of man. It is called 

 'Ginseng Hollow,' and lies between the main Briar creek (Coal river) and the Davis creek 

 ridges, in Kanawha."- As an inducement to my first pioueer teuaut. I offered to let him have 

 fifty acres of land, rent free, for five years, and after he had got his log house Dumt, tielda 



