boro', a gentleman possessing great energy of character, and ample means, caught the spirit which had its birth in Randolph, went to work, erected a steam factory in Greensboro',and realized, as he deserved to do, a handsome fortune. "The ice once broken, more fall into the stream." Encouraged by this example, Colonel Elliott was enabled to procure the help necessary to erect a small cotton-mill at his seat at Cedar Falls, from which small beginning it has grown to its present size.* It may be here worth while, for the information of young readers, and also for future reference, to give some statistics of manufactures in the State. These will be in some degree conjectural, not having at hand the means to state them with entire accuracy. But the aggregates which are given approximate very near the truth.

There are in operation in the State, thirty-three mills for the manufacture of cotton-yarns and sheetings, and one more in the process of erection, on a large scale, on the Catawba River; and three manufactories of woollen goods.

'These cotton factories run 50,000 spindles, 750 looms, employ over 2000 operatives, consume 20,000 bales, or seven millions of pounds of cotton annually, cost in their erection one million and a-half of dollars, and turn out annually manufactured goods of the value of one million and a quarter of dollars. Seven of these factories are in Cumberland county, and five in Randolph. Some of these factories-and all of them in Randolph-employ white operatives exclusively, and in none of them are many slaves employed.

These results, though comparatively small as yet, are gratifying to the heart of every true son of North-Carolina, as giving an earnest of what may and will be done to elevate her, in all the departments of industry and improvement, above the "sneers of the scorner, and the defamation of the witling."

But the struggle for our State's redemption by her noble-hearted sons was long continued and unremitting. Our people seem to have regarded the Mecklenburgh Declaration of Independence as glory enough for one century. Our torpid legislatures had slept over the interests they should have guarded and advanced. They did nothing to disembowel our hills and mountains of their vast mineral treasures; nothing towards building up and sustaining home manufactures; nothing in the way of facilitating domestic intercourse and trade by means of railroads, plank-roads, or river improvements; nothing to educate the masses. Our stagnant policy was a subject of mortification to our public-spirited men, and of reproach by our neighbours. Our young men of promise were

* A large and beautiful manufacturing establishment.-ED.

flying in despair, year after year, from a land seemingly cursed with a predestinated lethargy. Our State was named in derision after a young man who lay down and slept until his hair had grown gray. Old men were taking their sturdy sons from wasted and gullied fields to settle them in lands where the genius of misrule had not set up his throne. North-Carolina was said to be the best State in the Union to move from. While other States were rushing ahead in a glorious career of improvement, we were standing idle, wondering what all this "ado" was about. Ignorant men, who would be popular, and mean demagogues were deterring the people from favouring and authorizing public improvements, by the parrot-like cry of taxes, taxes! No railroad crossed the State to "annihilate space" and bring markets near. No manufacturing establishments arose to convert our own abundant materials into articles for our own use, and for commercial exchange. No common schools were established to educate the ragged urchin, who, from such humble teaching, might one day rise to public usefulness and high position. Appeals were made in vain to our patriotism and our sense of shame-to our interests and cupidity. Even so late as 1833, a committee of an internal improvement convention, in their address, say, "We have nothing that deserves the name of manufactures. No processes for changing the values of the raw materials are in use among us, except those effected by manual labour, or by machinery of the simplest and commonest construction."

About this time, a change began to come over the spirit of our people. They began to take a more intelligent view of their position and interests. Two railroads, the Raleigh and Gaston and the Wilmington roads, were chartered by the legislature, pledging the State to take a large interest in each. The spirit of manufacturing, after the first successful experiment, spread like a contagion; and now railroads, and plank-roads, and river improvements, those arteries of public life, are stretching and winding through the State, infusing new elements of vitality into the body politic, and giving a fresh and untiring vigour to the stalwart arm of labour.

There are names connected with this era in our industrial history, that deserve to become historical remembrances, when the scenes and records of party struggles shall be buried in the rubbish of forgotten things. Among these should be signalized the names of Saunders, Swain, Graves, Morehead, Graham, and Gilmer, as men who have "served their day and generation" faithfully and with a patriotic purpose.

The legislatures of 1840 and 1848 deserve also to be com memorated-the first for an act to establish common schools

and the other for the charters of the North-Carolina Railroad, the Fayetteville and Western Plank-road, the Slackwater Navigation of the Cape-Fear and Deep Rivers, and prospectively of the Yadkin, with a portage railroad connection with Deep River. This General Assembly also made an appropriation for the erection of a lunatic asylum. These are acts which would have conferred honour upon the legislature of any State, but particularly on that of 1848, because it required, from the supposed popular hostility to the policy of committing the State to any schemes of improvement, an unusual amount of intrepidity and patriotic feeling to pass them.

When the light of a 66 common-school" education shall shine into every log-cabin in the State, let the legislature of 1840, and the chairman of the joint-committee on education, (Mr. Worth, of Randolph,) to whose untiring zeal, industry, and abilities, its success is greatly to be attributed, be remembered with praise and gratitude. And when channels of trade and transportation are opened up into the interior of the State, carrying along with them their rich freights of blessings and benefits to the social, agricultural, mechanical, mining, and manufacturing interests of the country, then will the legislature of 1848 be remembered with pride.

There are certain axioms which lie at the foundation of all political as well as mathematical science. Among these, is this one, that for a political community to be independent, it must seek that independence in those elements which alone can command it, the development of its own resources, the manufacture of its own materials, and the encouragement and protection of its own labour, and this other; "which is like unto it,"—that the various productive occupations shall go on harmoniously together. The plough, the loom, and the anvil must be brought into juxtaposition. Too much material goes abroad to be worked up, and too much bread goes with it to feed the worker. The producer of the raw material and the manufacturer of it should live side by side. The cotton-mill should stand by the cotton-field, and the forge by both. There is no political analysis by which agriculture, manufactures, and commerce can be resolved into separate and independent industrial elements. They must co-exist and co-operate, or wither and decay.

But, notwithstanding we have done much, considering the many discouragements besetting us, to advance our great interests, we are yet comparatively in "the day of small things.' The resources of North-Carolina are various and abundant. climate is mild, and soil productive, both in the alluvial and hilly portions. Facilities for manufacturing are numerous, our streams

The

abounding in mill-seats. Our means of cheap and expeditious transportation are multiplying and in process of creation. Our hills teem with mineral riches, our forests with naval stores, our fields with cotton and rice and corn. Let us press on in a career so auspiciously begun. The bounties of nature invite us to perseverance. The bright examples of other States invoke us to honourable competition. The glorious recollections which cluster around our early history bid us press on. We have long enough borne the reproach that we are laggards in the world of progress-that, being among the richest in the gifts of Providence, we are the poorest in all that depends upon exertion and enterprise.

There is a tide in public opinion, which, if taken at the flood, may lead to our redemption. Our fortunes are in our own hands to mar or make them.

"Men at some times are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

SCUPPERNONG GRAPES.

You ask me to state what I know of the "Scoupernong grape." My dear fellow, a volume as large as a Dutch cheese would not convey to others what I know-my full experience, experiments, and expenses in regard to that luxury of the old North State, the unpretending, honest, true, unrepudiating old North State! Why, he who never ate Scuppernong grapes perfectly matured, has no idea of God's blessing, bounty and goodness in the grape "line." Such a grape was never dreamed of in Madeira or sunny Italy; the south of France has nothing to be compared with it; Andalusia has nothing so sweet, so rich, so positively superior to all other productions of the vine.

The first vine of this name was found in Tyrrell county, NorthCarolina, near the banks of Scuppernong River, a small tributary to Albemarle Sound, by some of the party composing the first Anglo-Saxon settlement on Roanoke Island, headed or commanded by Sir Walter Raleigh. One small vine, root and all, was transplanted very soon after on Roanoke Island, where, only a few years since, I saw it, then in a flourishing state, owned by a man named Cuthbert; and was told by old Abraham Baum, then eighty-four years old, that when he was a boy the vine was the largest on the island. It covers nearly half an acre of ground, and bore beautifully to the very extremity of the branches. It continues to grow, and only wants an extension of scaffolding. It should never be pruned; give it room, and let it run. When

too thick, the under small branches die, rot, crumble, and fall down, making a good manure.

This superlative vine will not grow from a cutting one time in a thousand; but it is easily propagated by turning a vine to the earth, doubling it gently, and covering the double carefully, with rich, loose soil. It takes root very soon, and the next season may be severed from the parent branch, transported in earth (the new roots) to any distance, and safely transplanted, which should be in dry, loose, but rich soil. Decomposed shells, and iron-filings, and parings of leather are admirably adapted to hasten the growth. It will bear in three years from the planting, and invariably produces better fruit when near salt water. Alabama Planter.

THE SCUPPERNONG GRAPES.

IN the eastern part of the State of North-Carolina, at the mouth of the Albemarle Sound, is found the Scuppernong grape. It is a native or indigenous fruit, and is and was found growing in the forest on Roanoke Island, and its vicinity, when the English first visited the country.

In the Albemarle Sound, opposite to this creek, is a small island surrounded by tide water, and formed from a sandy marine soil. On this island are also grape-vines, which were in full growth and size when Sir Walter Raleigh first visited the country, then inhabited by the native Indians. The vine on this island bears a white fruit, round, very sweet, and of large size, and the vine has continued to bear since it was first discovered. Indeed, no one knows the age of this vine.

The vine has run across this island in different directions, and I was told, when in the neighbourhood some years since, that the vines leading from the original parent stock had stretched across nine acres of land, from tree to tree.

The Indian name of the creek was Scuppernong, and hence the name of this variety of native grape.

The Scuppernong grape, in its native soil in North-Carolina, yields large quantities of fruit, and of a highly saccharine quality. I was told that, one season, near twenty barrels of wine were made from the original grape-vine, on the island, near the Scuppernong Creek.

The wine made from this grape is highly esteemed in NorthCarolina. I drank some of it at the town of Charlotte, in the south-western part of the State, full three hundred miles across.