WHY IT SHOULD BE GROWN. 11 



graph : — " In 1878 Sir Stafford Northcote raised 

 the duty upon unmanufactured leaf from 3s. to 

 Ss. 4(Z. per pound, with, the result that what are 

 called drinking tobaccos .... have superseded 

 the older, dryer, and more fragrant growths. 

 The consequence is, that the j)oor man's pipe, 

 fed by a tobacco more than three-fourths of which 

 are water, retains scarcely any flavour of the 

 nicotian weed. Turning, however, from fiscal 

 considerations to those connected with the depres- 

 sion and distress under which oar agriculturists 

 have laboured so long, we may well ask : ' Is 

 there any reason why they should not be allowed 

 to grow a plant at home from which their pre- 

 decessors used to reap such enormous profits V It is 

 said by experts that no soil and climate in the 

 world are better adapted to grow tobacco of a 

 particular kind than the southern counties of 

 England and the whole of Ireland. The finest leaf 

 for making the cigar wrappers is grown in Con- 

 necticut ; but American planters pronounce, with- 

 out hesitation, that it might he grown still better 

 upon the red soils of Devonshire." 



The average value, mentioned already as being 

 from 4:d. to Is. 6d. per pound, does, in some cases 

 of extraordinary fine tobacco, rise to much more ; 

 for instance^some tobacco grown in North 

 Carolina fetched $2f per pound in the leaf, and 



