34 TOBACCO GROWING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



passed many ages since to encourage our 

 tobacco plantations in America, have ceased to 

 cultivate a plant to which our climate seems 

 well adapted, and of Avhich it might now be 

 good policy to promote the cultivation, as we 

 have long since lost the Colonies for the 

 encouragement of which such rigorous laws 

 were enacted," and which now stand on our 

 books the instruments of persecution to the 

 ignorant or unwary, and no longer of supposed 

 public utility." 



In 1782, during the American war, Scotland, 

 which had not been included in the restrictive 

 Acts, commenced growing tobacco. 



The Rev. R. Douglas gives the following 

 account of the proceedings (Agricultural Survey 

 of the Counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk, 1798) : 

 — " Tobacco, during the American war, was 

 cultivated to a considerable extent in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Kelso and Jedburgh, and in some 

 other spots. Its produce was so great that 

 thirteen acres at Crailing fetched £104 sterling, 

 or £8 sterling per acre, at the low i-ate of 4d. 

 per pound, and would have brought more than 

 three times as much had not an Act of Parlia- 

 ment (22 Geo. III. c. 73) obliged the cultivator 

 to dispose of it to Government at that price. 

 This country lost about £1500 sterling by that 



