AGRICULTURE. 



285 



all parts of Europe where smoking prevails ; it was 

 introduced there, in imitation of the natives of 

 Haiti, toward the close of the sixteenth, and begin- 

 ning of the seventeenth century. At one time it 

 was generally believed, that if the cultivation of 

 tobacco was relieved from all the trammels of an 

 odious monopoly, it would be to Havana the source 

 of a great commerce. The beneficent intentions 

 evinced by the government six years since, in 

 abolishing the monopoly of tobacco culture and 

 sale, have not yet produced to this branch of agri- 

 culture the benefits which might have been expected. 

 The cultivators are poor, the rent of land has 

 increased in an extraordinary degree, and the 

 preference entertained for coffee planting (in 1825), 

 impedes the increase of the tobacco culture. 



The oldest data we possess, relative to the quan- 

 tity of tobacco supplied by Cuba to the factories of 

 the metropolis, are of the year 1748. According to - 

 Raynal, who is a much more exact writer than i3 

 generally believed, the yearly average, from 1748 to 

 1753, was 75,000 arrobes. From 1789 to 1794 the 

 yearly product of the island amounted to 250,000 

 arrobes ; but from that time to 1803, the high price 

 of lands, the preference given to coffee and sugar 

 planting, the vexations arising from the government 

 monopoly of purchase, and the impediments laid 



