FARMERS' REGISTJER 



755 



sandy declivities with little labor, near to which 

 they should be guided for that purpose. 



TOBACCO. 



The extent o(" country yet devoted to the cul- 

 tivation of this plant, entitles it to a place in an 

 agricultural ephemeris, the object of which is, to 

 kill bad habits, and to be killed itself by a complete 

 system. The preservableness of tobacco, endows 

 it with the rare capacity of waiting for a market, 

 and constituted a recommendation which induced 

 me to cultivate it attentively during two years. — 

 Both crops succeeded beyond the medium calcula- 

 tion, and the experiments still exhibited results 

 conclusively proving the propriety of its abandon- 

 ment. These results were all with ease reduced 

 to figures. It was easy to fix the value of labor 

 bestowed on an acre of tobacco, and on its crop 

 after severance ; and on an acre of corn or wheat, 

 with the preparation of its crop also lor market. 

 It was as easy to ascertain the produce of equal 

 soils, and prices were settled by sales. Such esti- 

 mates demonstrated the loss of growing tobacco, 

 merely on the score of annual profit, without 

 taking into the account, the formidable obstacle it 

 constitutes to the improvement of land. 



This objection is not founded upon the erroneous 

 opinion, that it is peculiarly an impoverisher. On 

 the contrary, my impression was, that it was less 

 so, than any other crop I knew of) except cotton 

 and the sweet potato. But upon its enormous 

 consumption of labor, and its diminutive returns 

 of manure. It would startle even an old planter, 

 to see an exact account of the labor devoured by 

 an acre of tobacco, and the preparation of the 

 crop for market. Even supposing that crop to 

 amount to the extraordinary quantity of one thou- 

 sand pounds, he would find it seldom, if ever, 

 producing a profit upon a lair calculation. He 

 would be astonished to discover how often he had 

 passed over the land, and the tobacco, through 

 Lis hands, in fallowing, hillmg, cutting off hills, 

 planting, replantings, toppings, suckerings, weed- 

 ings, cuttings, picking up, removing out of the 

 ground by hand, hanging, striking, stripping, 

 stemming, and prizing, and that the same labor, 

 devoted to almost any other employment, would 

 have produced a better return by ordinary success, 

 than tobacco does by the extravagant crop I have 

 supposed. 



Though its profit is small or nothing, its quality 

 of starving every thing, exceeds that of every 

 other crop. It starves the earth by producing but 

 little litter, and it starves its cultivators, by produ- 

 cing nothing to eat. Whatever plenty or splen- 

 dor it may bestow on its owner, the soil it liieds on 

 must necessarily become cadaverous, and its culti- 

 vators squalid. Nor can it possibly diffuse over 

 the face of the earth, or the faces of its inhabitants, 

 the exuberance which flows from Itjrtilization, nor 

 the happiness which flows from plenty. 



A substitute is the object of inquiry, after we 

 are convinced of the detrimental nature of any 

 crop. When flour sells for as much as tobacco, 

 by the pound, wheat would be a complete one, at 

 any distance from water carriage; but as that is 

 seldom the case, others must be sought alter. 



The extent and population of the country, 



within reach of navigable water, opens to the to- 

 bacco districts a wide market, for the disposal of 

 many better substitutions. Horses, mules, beef 

 and pork, would more than suffice to replace all 

 the advantages lost by relinquishing the culture 

 ol tobacco; and materials for manufiicturing, with 

 manufacturing itself, would amply provide for any 

 possible deficiency. The market for live stock and 

 meat, is so great and valuable in the bread stuff 

 districts of the eastern waters, as to attract sup- 

 plies from quarters (ar beyond the narrow tobacco 

 belt, with which they are immediately surrounded; 

 and if it is a question in the best cultivated coun- 

 tries, whether grazing and breeding live stock, 

 even upon the margin of navigation, is not the 

 most profitable agricultural employment, every 

 doubt vanishes in comparing it with the culture 

 of tobacco, in situations where the capacity of 

 walking to market will create a considerable item 

 of that comparison. 



The system of agriculture, for a bread stuff farm, 

 according to the experience 1 have had, requires 

 live stock sufiicient to consume and reduce to ma- 

 nure every species of provender and litter ; in 

 efiecting which, a sufficiency of meat may be pro- 

 vided for the laborers, either without expense, or 

 even producing a profit. But if I am right in con- 

 cluding that the live stock of such a farm ought to 

 stop at that point, whenever its situation renders 

 the expense of transporting its grain to market 

 trivial, it follows, that a vast market would remain 

 lor the meat and live stock of the tobacco district, 

 consisting of towns, artizans, all who live by pro- 

 fessions and the interest of money ; and of the 

 bread stuff farmers themselves, as to horses and 

 mules, the breeding of which is excluded by this 

 system, and as to pork also, wherever a better 

 mode of raising it than the present shall not be 

 adopted. 



Having had no experience of a farm devoted to 

 raising live stock, my observations are conjectural. 

 It seems to me that manuring might be carried 

 much farther, where the whole produce was con- 

 sumed on the land, than when a part of it was ex- 

 ported ; that the product might be therefore more 

 rapidly increased, and the space cultivated, dimin- 

 ished ; and that the herbaceous and succulent 

 crops would so fiir banish the use of those more 

 exhausting, as greatly to accelerate the improve- 

 ment of the exhausted tobacco district, and to in- 

 sure an immediate or very near return of profit, 

 exclusively of a reiurn of comfort, far exceeding 

 that to which it has been accustomed. 



THE EC01V05IY OF AGRICULTURE. 



There is no subject less understood, nor more 

 generally mistaken than this; nor anymore es- 

 sential to the prosperity of agriculture. Sufficient 

 to afford matter lor an entire treatise, it cannot be 

 embraced by a short chapter. But a short chap- 

 ter may put minds upon the track, able to unlbid 

 its involutions wiih every branch of agriculture, 

 and more specially to disclose its value. 



Diminutions of comforts, necessaries and ex- 

 pense, are too often mistaken for the means of pro- 

 ducing the ends they obsiruct ; and the rapacity 

 which starves, frcqiienlly receives the just retribu- 

 tion of a disappointment, begotten by a vicious 



