REPORT OP THE STATISTICIAN. 

 Ciutnav ill the value of farm lands from 1860 to 1867. 



147 



As 18G7 was the second year after tlie close of the "war and after its 

 losses had been partially recuperated, the facts did not fully reveal the 

 disasters that had fallen upon the States in rebelhon, but enough was 

 stiU painfully evident to emphasize this great lesson of history. Everjr 

 one of the so-called Confederate States showed great depreciation in 

 farm values, which even the inflated currency of that period did not 

 cover up. The decline was greatest in those States in which slave labor 

 had been pushed to greatest extremes and in which the social ideas 

 based ui)on it still exercised the most influence over the people. In 

 North and South Carolina, Georgia, the Gulf States, and Arkansas the 

 value of lands in 1SG7 was less than half that of 1860. Virginia and 

 Tennessee had received a large class of agricidtural and other immi- 

 grants from the North, and had thus largely rej)atred their losses. 



Texas had suffered very little from actual operations of war and had 

 also received a large accession of industrial population from all parts of 

 tbe country, hence in this State the depreciation of value was much less. 

 Of former slave States adhering to the Union, -Kentucky and Missouri 

 both show a decline in values, which may be accounted for by the de- 

 structive warlike operations within their l3orders. Maryland and Dela- 

 ware showed a mark^l increase in values, both being mostly protected 

 from hostile invasion. All the otlier States show a great advance, es- 

 pecially in the States west of the Mississippi Eiver, whither the tide of 

 settlement had been turned. With the exception of these general facts 

 the information resulting Irom the investigation of 1867 was mostly local 

 and fragmentary. The chaotic condition of the South was evident from 

 the amount of land formerly returned as cultivated land that had been 

 relegated to the class of wild or unimproved land. The resources of the 

 Great West were beginning to be understood, and the old movement of 

 migration to the wilderness still continued. The South, though offering 

 vast areas of wild land, much of it government land at the minimum 

 price, was unable to attract either Northern or foreign immigrants to 

 any great extent. While those old Southern commonwealths were slowly 

 recovering from the wounds and bruises of the great struggle, the West- 

 ern States were filling up their vast unoccupied areas and new States 

 were being erected out of the public domain. The movement of inter- 

 State migration was of the same general character at the close of the 

 war as in previous years. 



The question of inter-State movement has pressed more and more 

 weightily upon the intelligent minds of our people with every year since 



