83

This section comprises the same varieties of soil, improved
to an equal extent as the best of the famous wheat lands of
Pennsylvania and New York, with all the advantages of a
milder climate and far greater convenience to market. The
Cumberland valley being identical except in locality,
with the Hagerstown valley. It is a region acknowledged by
common consent to be of the " greatest salubrity," with the
best class of soils for the production of all the staple crops
and vegetables, abounding in almost unlimited water-
power, with numerous quarries of granite, marble, limestone,
roofing-slate, soapstone, and other building materials of the
best quality; with large deposits of iron ore, with some good
mines of copper and asbestos, and with chrome mines which
to an almost total extent supply all that is required in com-
merce.

The water-power has been improved by numerous cotton
factories, saw mills, flour mills, furnaces and forges, and al-
most every description of manufactories, which give profita-
ble employment to a vast amount of capital and a large num-
ber of working population. Its contiguity to tide-water gives
it great advantage in the enjoyment of its luxuries and free
access to the commerce of the world, and its artificial means
of transportation, already very extensive, are being rapidly
added to, by the construction of new turnpikes and Railroads.

From its geographical position, the quantity of negro labor
was not so abundant as in the section already described, and
as a consequence, the causes which produce the necessity for
the sale of lands do not here so widely exist, but there is still
in many places, indeed in all, excellent opportunities for safe
and profitable investment in its lands, for they have by no
means attained to a price which their natural advantages
would justify. Lands here of the same degree of fertility as
in Pennsylvania, New York and the Western States, and
with greatly superior natural advantages, can be purchased
at rates from thirty to seventy-five per cent. below those in
these States.

The population are industrious, intelligent, and possess in
a great degree all the virtues of the " Old Maryland Stock."

Soils.—These are of great variety as to productiveness and
vary greatly in price, from ten to two hundred dollars per
acre according to improvements and location.

Formed as .they are originally from the same kind of rocks
as are the soils of the corresponding region east of the moun-
tains in Pennsylvania and New York, they have the great ad-
vantage of being subjected to a much less rigorous climate
than exists in these States, and are thereby far more valuable,
as a longer period of time tor profitable labor is obtained and
a less domestic consumption of material is required, than where
there is a prolonged winter. They are all easily and cheaply