Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/360

344 advantages in the manufacture of her cotton and wood products, where the crop and timber are most convenient, her facilities for the raising of stock of all kinds, in feeding for a less time by several months, owing to milder climate, and the growing of almost every grass suitable for hay and feed all these advantages have been fully demonstrated since 1880. Capitalists in Europe and this country now have no doubt as to the favorable surroundings for investment, and the large development of her newly discovered fields of industry in every line will surpass the sanguine expectations of her most ardent enthusiasts. In the North, owing to an earlier development and diversified industries, her fields are more fully occupied and opportunities for capitalists are not so encouraging or inviting.

It is a fact, too, that nearly all new railroad enterprises are pointing southward. The shipment of grain eastward from Chicago and the West to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltim'ore for water transportation to Europe and South American ports, is about being diverted to south Atlantic and Gulf ports, which will shorten the land transportation and substitute the cheaper water transportation from one-third to one-half the distance. The Illinois Central railroad has erected docks and elevators in New Orleans equaling, if not surpassing, facilities and conveniences in this line at eastern ports, and thousands of carloads of grain have traveled over this road to these elevators. Kansas City, backed by foreign capital, is building a railroad to a gulf port, lessening the rail transportation of grain eastward by 767 miles.

The Mobile & Ohio railroad is now building a line from Columbus, Miss., to Montgomery, Ala., connecting with the great Plant system, giving direct lines to Brunswick, Ga., Jacksonville, Pensacola, and Tampa, Fla. This road now has extensive wharves and elevators in Mobile, Ala. These new lines and connections now being perfected by other roads will be ready for not only transport-