4. But even before the civil war and the liberation of the slaves there were wise men who urged the propriety and profit of cotton mills in the South. Since the war there has been an immense development of this industry, and now the sound of the loom and spindle may be beard throughout the State. Hundreds of persons are employed in a single one of the cotton mills. In this way not only the wealth but the population of the section is increased by bringing in new settlers. The railways find added employment, and in some cases private residences are seen that are rural paradises in the beauty and comfort of their appointments. There is, in some of the western counties, large capital invested in mills for the manufacture of woolen yarns and cloth, from which satisfactory profits are realized. Another one of the important industries of the State is the manufacture of paper. The daily and weekly newspapers of North Carolina are now largely supplied with printing papers by the mills of the State. The first paper mill in North Carolina was erected near Hillsboro, in 1778; the second one was built at Salem, in 1789, by Gotleib Shober. 5. North Carolina has ever been slow to change in the habits of her people. The ways of their forefathers always seem best to most of them until abundant example has shown the wisdom of an innovation. Steam, however, is usurping a place in every species of labor and motion. The great seines of Albemarle Sound, the printing press, the cotton gin and nearly everything else is now obedient to the tireless energies of this great motor. 6. When North Carolina shall have developed her system of transportation so that the coal and iron mines shall be more largely worked, and when, as now in Vermont, not only cotton but woolen factories shall be found in every section where such staples are produced; then, and not until then, will the civilization of the State be complete. They who merely produce raw material will ever be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to others who prepare such things for market. 7. Second alone in importance to the State at large, after the cotton factories, are those devoted to the handling and preparation of tobacco for the market. The western powers of Europe had, for many years, realized immense revenues by means of their imports and monopolies of the Virginia weed, before the government of the United States ever realized a dollar from all the vast production of this crop in the different States. So, too, in North Carolina, enterprise and capital had remained almost completely blind to the possibilities of the situation.