University of Virginia Library

Albemarle County.

LYING in the Piedmont section
of Virginia, amid the beautiful
sceneries of the lofty Blue
Ridge mountains is a country
that needs no introduction to the world.

Look at the map of the Mother State
Virginia, right in the heart of this
glorious land you will see Albemarle
county, one of the richest and most
beautiful spots in the world. This
section could be nothing less than rich
and healthful when nature has so
abundantly provided it with natural
blue grass, amid a wealth of springs
and streams containing pure free stone
water, no long seasons of drought, and
through the warm summer days the
refreshing showers never cease to refresh
this thrifty land. And as the
lofty Blue Ridge rises higher and higher
as our Guardian Angel, it never fails
to throw out its great wing to shield
us from the storms and blasts that rage
and roar on the other side, and sloping
down toward the East with the
rising sun of gold shining clear upon
it, gently ends with the rolling plains
of this great and beautiful section.

If the stranger will look at the robust,
rosy, cheeked farmer as he bustles
around in his industrious energetic
manner, he never has to make the inquiry
as to his healthfulness, his
energy and thrift, but looking
around sees his answer written in
the fine fruit, grains, and cattle as they
like himself all abundantly thrive on
the rich soil. This soil is adapted to
the fruits, grains and grasses of the
temperate zone. Farm machinery is
used almost everywhere. In this section
are to be found farmers of great
wisdom and skill, who have made as
much as forty-four bushels of wheat to
the acre over large fields; and from
fifty to seventy-five bushels of corn.
Clover does well, timothy and orchard
grass are also successfully used and,
where time and continued grazing are
given, the land runs into a blue grass
sod. The finest potates are raised, and
tobacco also, though not so much of
the latter as in former times. Winter
oats have been known to yield as much
as 87 1-2 bushels to the acre on hill land.
This section being the greatest fruit
belt in the world and the rosy cheeked
Wine Sap finds sale all over the Earth.
Apples, pears, plums, peaches, quinces,
cherries, bring annually hundreds of
thousands of dollars. One small farmer
might be mentioned who from five
young cherry trees netted $150; others
get from $4,000 to $5,000 for their apples
in the orchard; and yet many persons
looking at these orchards on hill sides
and in mountain hollows, would think
$5,000 a great price for the land, trees
and all. The soil and climate in this
section unite to give the fruit the finest
color and the richest flavor. The Albemarle
Pippin, which requires a special
soil and elevation, has taken the first
premium at the London Pomological
Exhibition as the best apple in the

[ILLUSTRATION]

DR. WILSON C. N. RANDOLPH,
Great Grandson of Thomas Jefferson,
and a resident of Charlottesville.

world. It will bring from $7 to $8 a
barrel in Liverpool when other American
apples are selling for from $3
to $4. The first class of this kind are
all exported, Strawberries, dewberries,
blackberries, and raspberries, grow
wild in the greatest abundance, and for
months form a wholesome arcicle of
diet for rich and poor. The first and last
are also grown in gardens, and bring a
fine price in the markets. A gentleman
last season from a steep corner of
his orchard where he had a patch of
cultivated raspberries sold never less
than one hundred quarts a day at not
lower than ten cents a quart by the
crate. The orchards of this section
bear abundantly and are not sprayed.
It is the home of the various kinds of
fruits. There are many fine vineyards of
table and wine grapes. The Monticello
Wine Company make annually about
120,000 gallons of superior wine.

The soft spring showers bring forth
the golden grains of every description,
wheat, corn, oats, barley and rye.
Life in the heart of Virginia is really
worth living, around you graze, gambol,
and frolic the horses, cows and
sheep on the natural blue grass of this
land.

Here also does the tobacco put forth
its wide spreading leaves, and grows
with strength and rapidity.

Stock raising is one of the most
remunerative employments. Sheep
are protected by a dog law and easily
return 1,000 per cent. They run in the
fields much of the, winter needing little
feed or attention. Lambs ready for
the market in March will bring from $8
to $10 a head; the price falls to about $3
in June. Indeed wherever stock raising
here is intelligently followed and
pursued according to buisness methods,
it is successful, whether the farmer
raises registered stock for the breeder,
or fat cattle, sheep or hogs.

Amid the productions of fruit,
grain, and cattle, there is no reason to
sit down with them all on your hands,
as the Chesapeake & Ohio and Southern
railroads connect you with all the
leading markets of the East. Richmond,
Washington, Baltimore, Chicago,
St. Louis and New York, which
gives us the advantages of the early
spring market. Charlottesville is located
just 90 miles from Richmond, 115
miles from Washington, 155 miles from
Baltimore and only a few hours run
from Chicago, St Louis and New York.
It is very readily seen that with the
Chesapeake & Ohio railroad running
East and West and the Southern traversing
North and South it would not
be very difficult to locate a farm five
miles distant from one or the other.
Schools and churches are so closely
dotted over Albemarle county that no
farm is situated more than two miles
from one of these, thus giving you religious
and educational advantages. Far
beyond the limits of the cities are the
telephone poles standing as watchful
sentinels and girded about from one to
the other in a never-ending chain with
a net work of humming wires reaching
for miles and miles in the distance,
right along with the Rural Free Delivery
mail routes, as if in a co-partnership,
adding to the farmers' joy by giving
him all the city advantages. Charlottesville
the county seat containing
a population of 12,000, is situated at the
foot of the Monticello Mountains amid
the rustic scenery and grandness of
which the little squrrels make their
homes and the birds build there nests
in the trees around the home of one of
the greatest men the world ever knew
whose name will be handed down and
proclaimed from generation to generation,
Thomas Jefferson who wrote the
Declaration of American Independence.
Here too, is situated the widely
famed University of Virginia, a full
account of which will be found in
another column. A few miles west of
this is the Miller Manual Labor School
which educates, boards and clothes
ophan children of Albemarle free of all
cost. The Rawlings Institute for
young ladies, a splendid school, is also
located here. Charlotteville furnishes
a home market for the farmer, and
there has been built a cannery which
greatly increases the demand for the
farmers' products. Here also, is situated
the Charlottesville Woolen Mills,
organized in 1869, whose goods are
shipped all over the United States and
rank at the head of any goods of this
class manufactured, the Monticello
Wine Co., and the Albemarle Soapstone
Co., at Alberine, who employ 800
hands.

Among the other buisness enterprises
of the city are: An overall factory,
a bark and sumac plant, two lumber
companies, electric light and gas
plant, flouring mills, weekly and
two daily papers, four banks, all of
which have large deposits, an elegant
street car service connecting us with
Fry's Spring, two miles to the southwest,
a noted summer resort.