XV 
BILTMORE AND THE NEW ERA 
SOMEWHAT more than twenty years ago, before 
that phenomenal wave of prosperity, which is 
now sweeping over the South, had started, and while 
the country people were still living essentially as 
they lived when the first pioneers came to the moun- 
tains, there appeared among them, as if by magic, a 
perfect illustration of the advanced cultivation of 
the outer world. 
Unlike the transient and self-centred community 
of Flat Rock, that fell into the wilderness like a jewel, 
and made about as much impression, Biltmore, its 
antithesis, expressing the new era, was not inorganic, 
but living. Its roots were strong and full of sap. 
It had to grow, and the form of growth it took played 
an important part in the development of the moun- 
tains, a development which though just begun is 
rapidly changing the life of this region. 
What the native people, after living a life of stag- 
nation for so long, most needed was an ideal — a 
point, as it were, at which to aim, and a knowledge 
of how to work, and how to care for their lands. 
These Biltmore gave them. It showed them, not 
only perfect results and how those results were ob- 
tained, but, what was of paramount importance, it 
made the people themselves the instruments that 
