as may be appreciated by one who, having had a friend to
whom he is under obligation, has been led, upon meeting that friend, and
finding him in discredit, to give him the "cold shoulder." It goes hard
with my feeling, if not with my conscience, to speak against tobacco.
Yet whatever virtue the weed itself may possess, it is now almost
universally conceded, that the cultivation of tobacco will ruin a
country. Let any one take a survey of lower Virginia, and he cannot help
coming to the conclusion, that it not only impoverishes the land, but if
followed up for a number of years, will be very apt to impoverish the
children of those who engage in its cultivation. Tobacco, say its
advocates, is a very profitable crop,--if by profit is meant a large
return in money, without reference to any thing else--granted. Much
money has been and will be made by cultivating it, and if the parent, as
the money is received, would safely invest it for the benefit of himself
and children, so that provision would be made for the time when he grows
old and they advance, and the land becomes exhausted and useless, they
will do very well. But few are sufficiently considerate to make this
provision, since it is naturally supposed that a plantation which for a
number of years has yielded a superabundance will not be likely to fail
in the future. They cannot see that year after year, slowly but surely,
the substance of their land is being taken away in the form of tobacco,
and that in the end their plantations will be barren and useless.
Estates comprising thousands of acres of good land yield annually large
incomes, upon which their owners live, with their families, in great
affluence. Surrounded by servants who stand ready to attend to every
want, the children are reared from their infancy with scarcely a wish
ungratified--thereby contracting most expensive habits, and becoming,
through the mistaken kindness and indulgence of their parents,
altogether unfitted for the hardships of life when adversity comes upon
them. It is not, in fact, often the case that parents so situated
remember that a change may take place by which they or their children
may be thrown upon the world and compelled to rely upon their own
exertions for a living. But experience shows that the cultivation of
tobacco tends almost inevitably to this. As year after year passes on,
section after section of productive land is taken up, and that which has
become already exhausted is