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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
There are two other salient features in Southern industrial life which may not be overlooked, for their importance imperiously and justly clamor for attention. Over a far stretching area of country to the southwest of Norfolk lie a series of highly prosperous truck farms, under the most improved methods of culture, whose varied products furnish the inexhaustible markets of the large cities of the East. Running back from the old and sedate “ City by the Sea,” Charleston, and encased between the broad sweeping waters of the Ashley and the Cooper, extend a succession of truck farms, admirable from the perfected culture.
Passing through the wealthy and prospering State of Georgia, from east to west the traveler’s attention is attracted by the continuous succession of handsome farms which cover the gently undulating lands and form a pleasing and charming panorama; while the orange groves of Florida need no comment to recall their beauty and their moneyed advantages. Nowhere on this continent does truck-farming and fruit-growing offer so uniformly good and profitable results as among the Southern States.
After cotton, the product giving the most lucrative returns to the cultivator is the sugar-cane of Louisiana, whose wealth of vegetation and salubrious climate make it truly the Garden Spot of the South. Grown in rich alluvial soil, in a most healthy region, by a population thoroughly educated concerning its culture, the cane-fields of Louisiana present one of the most beautiful sights in the world. The splendid luxuriance of this crop, the waving grace of its billowy green rows, when swept by the gentle breezes, under the radiant light of a glowing Southern sky, must needs enchant the beholder. The cultivation and manufacture of sugar give remunerative employment to a large and industrious population, and brings millions of dollars annually into the State of Louisiana, which circulates abroad for the perceptible benefit of all.
Through the old and historic states of Virginia and South Carolina, whose annals contain names which will ever adorn American history, down through the prosperous states of Georgia and Alabama, through Louisiana, glorious in her unrivaled fertility, and through the undulating plains and vast expanse of Texas, whose wealth and power in the coming years may not be measured, arise prophetic voices from field, forest, mine and workshop, telling of all that a sagacious and mighty population will accomplish in the near future, when the glorious possibilities of the states of the South will be stirred into life by the gigantic breath of extended commerce, enterprise and capital.
“ These beautiful states of the South,” swept by the ocean and mountain winds, nursed by the glowing sun and gentle rains, what a glorious invitation you grandly tender the stranger to seek rest and contentment amid your fertile plains and teeming valleys; how sublime has been the struggle of your people for what they deemed was their constitutional right! how undaunted their attitude and how unsurpassed their fortitude amid the upheaval of their colossal ruin! And now that the glimmering dawn of a stupendous future is faintly spreading its transcendent glow of prosperity abroad over the great Southern States, the throb of a pulsating triumph beats in the hum of the factory, glows in the smelting furnace, and ascends in the soft twilight hours from the rich furrows of her incomparable fields, while the salt-sea waves, as they rock her shipping and dash against pier and wharf, add their exultant voices in prophecy of the coming prosperity they so plainly foresee.
May the advancing wealth, which will crown with a fitting reward the efforts, ambitions and genius of this people of the South, never diminish those high and true aspirations which have hitherto adorned her annals and made of her citizens, in prosperity and in adversity, a lofty and noble race.
Standing today amid the magnificent achievements of the great Northwest, a visitor to this imposing World’s Fair, in the name of the South I tender the warm hand of her true and steadfast friendship to her noble host, applauding her successful efforts to demonstrate the power and capacity of the American people. And I render heartfelt thanks to this gracious audience for their courteous attention to this most imperfect showing of the grand possibilities of the states of the South.