8 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



to act dishonestly, to the prejudice of either buyer or seller. Without these 

 neither would agree to the reference. 



At present tobacco is inspected in Baltimore, where tobacco-sellers and buy- 

 ers, or their agents, congregate from all parts of the United States and of Eu- 

 rope. The business is very large, and, as a small compensation for the inspec- 

 tion of each hogshead enables the Inspector to make large wages, the office is 

 very desirable, and is, or may be, filled by men who possess a perfect knowledge 

 of the standard, and whose character places them beyond the suspicion of pri- 

 vate influence ; the consequence of which is that men buy and sell hundreds of 

 hogsheads, relying upon their marks alone. 



Let us now suppose the system of local inspection to be established, and see 

 what would be the result. Every county, and at length every election district, 

 has its Inspector, and twenty, fifty or a hundred difi'erent Inspectors are putting 

 their marks on hogsheads of tobacco. The business of each is, however, small, 

 and will not pay for the time of a man who possesses the knowledge and the 

 honesty that are required. Such men seek larger fields of action. Inferior men 

 now act as Inspectors, and the consequence is that the standard, ceasing to pos- 

 sess uniformity, becomes as various as there are various Inspectors. The In- 

 spector, too, is a neighbor of the tobacco grower, and is unwilling to do him 

 injury by certifying that that which the latter calls No. 1 is really only No. 2. 

 Some have knowledge and perfect integrity ; but some have only one of these 

 qualities, and some may have neither. The buyer is in Baltimore, and he 

 knows nothing of the parties, the consequence of which is that he attaches no 

 value to their marks. He would as readily take the certificate of the grower 

 himself — and even more readily, if he kncAv him to be a man of judgment and 

 undoubted integrity. The result would be that the local inspection would soon 

 cease to exist, as it did heretofore, because valueless, and the buyers and sellers 

 in the great market would unite in appointing a referee — an Inspector — some 

 person that they knew to possess knowledge and integrity, and whose certificate 

 Avould pass current in Europe Avith all who desired to purchase tobacco— and thus 

 the city inspection would be reestablished, without the aid or interference of 

 Government, a consummation, as we think, devoutly to be wished. Under such 

 a system, the very highest degree of knowledge and integrity Avould be required, 

 and would be liberally paid for, with less cost to the parties in whose service it 

 was employed, than at present, and that knowledge and integrity would he as 

 much at the command of the people of Kentucky and Ohio as at that of the peo- 

 ple of Maryland. 



We submit these views tonhe parties engaged in the present movement, and 

 hope they will give them serious consideration. If they wish to put an end to 

 the whole system of State inspection, let them obtain the law they desire, which 

 will result in every man becoming his own inspector, subject to the decision of 

 a city referee ; but if they believe in any advantage to be derived from its con- 

 tinuance, we would advise them to hesitate about pressing the adoption of a 

 measure that can result in nothing but disappointment. They can no more shut 

 western tobacco out of the great market than they can make the earth revolve 

 from east to west. One principal tobacco market there will always be. At 

 present it is in the immediate vicinity of the planters of Maryland, who there- 

 fore have small freight to pay. If they can succeed in driving Avestern tobacco 

 out of that market, and thus prevent the merchant from obtaining therein all the 

 qualities he desires to purchase, they may, perhaps, find themselves obliged to 



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