424 Transactions of the American Institute. 



amount charged on northern roads. The most remarkable thing 

 which I noticed was the rapid growth of the timber, which has sprung 

 up on all of those gray lands which have not been cultivated since 

 the war. Fruit does well in all of this section. There are large 

 quantities of apple trees that have sprung up on the entrenchments 

 at Spottsylvania Court-house. Some of them are quite large, and 

 produced fruit last year. The State has recently passed a law pro- 

 viding; free schools for the education of both white and black children ; 

 but in a country where the land is held in such large plantations, the 

 population is too small and scattered to have schools convenient to 

 but a small number of families. I think Virginia oilers greater 

 inducements to the emigrant than any other section. Land can be 

 bought there for less money than in any other part of the country, 

 where the soil is equally good and as convenient to all the great mar- 

 kets of the world. The expense of moving to Virginia is small com- 

 pared with the cost of moving to the cheap lands in the west. A 

 family can step on board a steamer in New York, with all of their 

 goods, and be landed in Richmond in a few days, and at a small cost. 

 The way to make a settlement in Virginia pleasant is to form a colony 

 embracing farmers, mechanics and all of the useful professions, witli 

 the dramsellers left out. Let a locating committee be chosen, who 

 shall go on and select a location on the line of some railroad where a 

 station could be established, and let them go on together and unitedly 

 build their roads, school-houses and churches, while they apply the 

 principles of improved culture to the renovation of their lands. In 

 this way all the conveniences of an old settled community might soon 

 be secured, and the lands which can now be bought at from fifteen to 

 thirty dollars per acre, would soon be worth two or three times their 

 present value. I am so well pleased with the country that could I go 

 in this way I would be glad to attempt building me a home in old 



Virginia. 



Adjourned. 



January 23, 1872. 



Nathan C. Ely, Esq., in the chair ; Mr. John W. Chambers, Secretary. 



Windmills. 



Mr. A. Blewett, Brooksville, Miss. — Can windmills be used to run 



the cotton gins on our open prairies, where we have a breeze every 



day ? I considered them the cheapest power we had, until I heard on 



one of our railroads that they had been condemned. Mr. Ely's 



