Tlie Story of Vineland. 343 



and he thinks it quite likely that many persons will quietly smile at his 

 folly, and gently put the idea aside with flippant fingers. " But we shall 

 see," he says. 



He must reach the public. He is wise enough to know that printer's 

 ink is the Archimedean lever. He tells his stor\' ; and multitudes of read- 

 ers, and '* all wanting farms," are invited to address Charles K. Landis, 

 Vineland, Cumberland County, N.J., — a post-office, by the way, w^hich, 

 previous to this time (1861), had not appeared in the director)'. 



In such a world, as Cowper remarks, there are always enough who 

 are wide awake to the newest suggestion, especially if it promise an im- 

 proved condition or a chance for the blessed privilege of independence. 

 Hence letters began to be received at the little one-story house in the 

 forest : further information was asked for, and circulars were distributed 

 describing the locality and the scheme of colonization. Meanwhile the 

 projector was busy in opening up avenues and grading streets, and never 

 paused in his advertising bombardment. Soon carpet-baggers began to 

 arrive. Some w^ere sensible young men from the cities, who wanted 

 breathing-space ; many were brown-faced farmers from the rock-bound 

 neighborhoods of New England. Occasionally there came a wild-e3'ed 

 reformer, who looked seedy, and wore long hair, and thought he discov- 

 ered in the enterprise an embryo Atlantis. Travellers to the new field 

 Gfrew so numerous, that the railroad-managers issued excursion-tickets 

 " From Philadelphia to Vineland, and return." But quite a good many 

 concluded to remain. Dwellings were hastily constructed ; cleared spaces 

 increased in number. Ere long, the head-centre could remark, "We have 

 a hundred inhabitants on the tract." This was seven years ago. To-day 

 there are twelve thousand people in Vineland ; and still the wonder grows. 



And verily it is a wonder. To be sure, other places have worn the 

 se\^en-league boots : but they were located along the margin of the great 

 tide of emigration that flows unceasingly westward ; and they had only to 

 hold out their cups, and find them filled. But the magic town of which we 

 write was entirely outside the influence of the star of empire. Further- 

 more, as has been hinted, the situation lay under ban of deep-seated preju- 

 dice touching the soil ; and the views were certainly not enticing. For 

 generations, the "Jersey Barrens," of which there are still hundreds of 



