The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and ObservationNordhoff, Charles
History
The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Nordhoff, Charles
Collective settlements -- United States
"These figures speak for themselves, but they are not all. There is a
material and industrial prosperity existing in Vineland which, though I
say it myself, is unexampled in the history of colonization, and must be
due to more than ordinary causes. The influence of temperance upon the
health and industry of her people is no doubt the principal of these
causes. Started when the country was plunged in civil war, its progress
was continually onward. Young as the settlement was, it sent its quota
of men to the field, and has paid over $60,000 of war debts. The
settlement has built twenty fine school-houses, ten churches, and kept
up one of the finest systems of road improvements, covering one hundred
and seventy-eight miles, in this country. There are now some fifteen
manufacturing establishments on the Vineland tract, and they are
constantly increasing in number. Her stores in extent and building will
rival any other place in South Jersey. There are four post-offices on
the tract. The central one did a business last year of $4,800 mail
matter, and a money-order business of $78,922.
"Out of seventy-seven townships in the state, by the census of 1869
Landis Township ranked the fourth from the highest in the agricultural
value of its productions. There are seventeen miles of railroad upon the
tract, embracing six railway stations.
"The result of my project as a land enterprise has been to the interest
of the colonists as well as my own. Town lots that I sold for $150 have
been resold for from $500 to $1500, exclusive of improvements. Land that
I sold for $25 per acre has much of it been resold at from $200 to $500
per acre. This rule will hold good for miles of the territory--all
resulting from the great increase of population and the prosperity of
the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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