MANUFACTURE. 45 



and daughters. The high price of tobacco com- 

 mends the idea to domestic economy, and a 

 " Society for the collection and exportation of 

 tobacco- ashes (limited) " would unquestionably 

 be a sound speculation, although it must neces- 

 sarily begin with smoke. 



For want of these mineral salts many planta- 

 tions have gradually become exhausted, incapable 

 of profitable cultivation, and now lie waste and 

 desolate : the fortunes of tobacco-planters, even 

 in naturally favoured regions, have gradually 

 declined with the faihng fertility of their wearing- 

 out plantations. And it is upon the Atlantic 

 borders of the United States of America that the 

 effects of this exhaustion are strikingly found, 

 whilst it is the boast of chemistry that it has as- 

 certained, beyond doubt, what the land loses by 

 every crop of tobacco, or any other vegetable, 

 the cause of its barrenness, the mode of its re- 

 newal, and tells us how fortunes may be extracted 

 from the same old soil with matter hitherto cast 

 away as a nuisance.* 



* In Hungary extensive districts are not uncommon where 

 wheat and tobacco have been grown alternately upon the 



