Tobacco as a Farm Crop for England. 
215 
such clear answers respecting the effects of the winter of 1885- 
1886, must have shown to many the value of this method as a 
vehicle of information. 
Question. — What made you think of tobacco as an English 
crop ? 
Answer. — In 1884 I was travelling in America, and a farmer 
in Massachusetts told me that it was the only crop from which 
he derived any profit, and the conditions of the soil and climate 
in that district reminded me forcibly of Kent. 
Q. — What induced you to advocate the cultivation of tobacco 
here? Your object could hardly have been profit or pure 
philanthropy ? 
A. — After my return to England I investigated the subject, 
and found from Lobel's ' Novum Stirpium Adversaria,' printed 
in London in 1570, that tobacco, which had been introduced into 
England anterior to that time (not, as popularly supposed, in 
1586 by Sir Walter Raleigh), was then successfully cultivated 
in England and Scotland, and flourished until fines, each heavier 
than the last, and ultimately amounting to 1600/. per acre for the 
grower, with a special fine to be levied on magistrates for not 
informing, put an end to its cultivation in Great Britain. 
The second part of the question is more difficult to answer. 
Possibly both the reasons you suggest induced me to turn my 
attention to tobacco. But it was evident to me that the pioneers 
of a crop requiring such knowledge and skill, even if they 
succeeded in establishing it without aid from the Government, 
must inevitably be considerable losers. I am convinced, 
however, that, in the present extraordinary agricultural depres- 
sion, all crops should at least be attempted which present a 
chance of becoming profitable, and especially all such as would 
provide remunerative employment and increase the intelligence 
of the labourer and his family. 
Q. — Are you then prepared to expend your time and money 
for the purpose of securing employment for the agricultural 
labourer ? 
A. — Certainly ; but not with this object alone, for I am fully 
convinced that where agricultural labour is profitably employed, 
the produce and value of the land and the amount of labour 
required on it increase pro rata; and further, that where the 
labour is employed in the production of luxuries now imported 
from foreign lands, there is a real gain to the country at large. 
Q. — I gather that you are of opinion that the increased 
cultivation of crops that employ a large quantity of profitable 
labour indirectly affects all property ? 
A. — Exactly so ; the working-population are the principal 
