WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE BY ASA SMITH, M. D.
The London Examiner, in reviewing Mr. McCulloch's new work on Wages, etc., seems to be displeased that the author should have expressed himself against the cultivation and use of tobacco, using the following language in its defence: "We quarrel," says the Examiner, "with Mr. McCulloch, for bestowing offensive epithets on tobacco, which he is pleased to call 'this filthy and offensive stimulant.' Why it should be more filthy to take a pinch of snuff or a whiff of tobacco smoke, than to swallow a quart of port wine, is not to us intelligible. Of all the stimulants that men have had recourse to, tea and coffee excepted, tobacco is the least pernicious. For the life of you, you cannot get drunk on it, however well disposed, and no man or woman has ever been charged with committing a crime under its influence—save only the factitious crime created by an irrational and excessive duty. For the best part of three centuries, all the nations of the earth have been using tobacco—saint, savage, and sage, being among the consumers."
The Examiner may quarrel with Mr. McCulloch for abusing the "weed," if it pleases, but it is a weak argument, if argument it can be called, to say that because taking a pinch of snuff, or a whiff of tobacco, is no worse than taking a quart of port wine, therefore the use of tobacco is good; or because tobacco is the least pernicious of all the stimulants, therefore it is not objectionable; or because one cannot get drunk on it, (which, by the way, is a great mistake,) or because for the best part of three centuries all the nations of the earth have been using tobacco—saint, savage and sage—therefore it is not a "filthy and offensive stimulant." The real object of the Examiner, however, in defending the cultivation and use of tobacco, will appear by reading a little further. "Of all people," says the reviewer, "we ourselves are the most moderate consumers; yet the 'filthy and offensive stimulant' puts four millions and a half a year into our exchequer. An old financier, like Mr. McCulloch, ought, on this account alone, to have treated the weed with more respect." Here then is the true reason why the London Examiner is disposed to quarrel with that author. Nor can it be a "filthy and offensive stimulant," because, forsooth, it puts four millions and a half a year into England's exchequer! Upon this mode of reasoning, what an inestimable blessing must opium be to the world, and especially to the Chinese! We have only to say, that if tobacco yields this immense revenue annually to England, any one who passes through Eastern Virginia and sees the poverty stricken appearance of the thousands of acres of exhausted useless land which present themselves in every direction, will be able to determine at whose expense this has been, in a great measure. If England has been enriched by the traffic in tobacco, its cultivation has been the ruin of Eastern Virginia, by far the larger portion of which now lies in open uncultivated sterile commons, bleaching in the sun.
Virginia, we are glad to know, is at last awaking to her true condition and interests; the rapid increase of population in the northern and western states, and the proportionate improvement in their arts, sciences and agricultural industry, have excited in the minds of our people, no inconsiderable attention. While it is true of Western Virginia, that if not advancing with a rapidity equalling that of many of the states, she is nevertheless improving, and with her almost inexhaustible mineral wealth, and productiveness of soil, must continue to improve, if the inhabitants persist in declining to cultivate tobacco. It is painfully true of Eastern Virginia—if we except the cities—that if not just at this time retrograding, the change from a retrograde to a stationary condition has been but recent, and some time must necessarily elapse before any marked evidence of an advance will be perceptible. There are even yet to be found, on the borders of James River and in other parts of Virginia, the wealthy, intelligent, and hospitable planter, living in style and entertaining with liberality scarcely unequal to that which distinguished Virginia in bygone days. Such are still to be encountered, though not often. The Virginia gentleman has been elbowed out. Like the Knickerbockers of New York—most of whom have shaken the ashes from their pipes, and gone off—the old Virginia gentleman has disappeared—but been displaced by a different enemy from that which disturbed the cogitations of the honest Dutchman. While Mein Herr, happy and contented, sat in the door of his simple dwelling, enjoying the pleasure of his pipe, he little thought, or if he thought, he little cared perhaps, that the weed which afforded so much comfort to his constitutionally comfortable frame, was drawing forth the substance and exhausting the soil of one of the richest, fairest and most attractive portions of the earth, and would in time cover its surface with a stunted sickly growth of pine, through which the wind might pour her low sad requiem for departed life. The honest Hollander and his good vrow have gone on their journey, exiled by the enterprising Yankee, or by the needy foreigner. The old Virginia gentleman has gone, or is going—finding that his "old fields" are rapidly increasing, and his crop of tobacco year by year diminishing—where no hopes to find a richer soil and a better market.
For some years past, most of the counties in Eastern Virginia have produced very little tobacco—some of them none at all. When we recall to mind that this section of Virginia was once by far the richest part of the state, and not to be surpassed by any soil in the country—that it was celebrated for the large crops and excellent quality of its tobacco—we naturally look for the reasons of this change. Now, although our good friends down below, are very sensitive upon the subject, we have no hesitation in saying that the cause generally assigned is the true one, viz., that the soil is exhausted, worn out, and therefore cannot produce tobacco, or any thing else of consequence. And here let me encroach upon established rules and digress for a few moments, leaving tobacco, to give my reader a little advice to aid him should he ever visit the "Old Dominion." In the first place, if you stop at any point along the shore, and especially should you reach Hampton, never speak of "crabs." If you are fond of them, get them the best way you can; you will have no difficulty in finding them; have them cooked, and eat them; but don't ask for them—don't speak of them. The people of Virginia, like those of most other places, are sensitive on some points; and it would be no less impolite to speak of crabs in Hampton, than it would be to speak of "persimmons" in Fluvanna County.
In the second place, never speak of the ague and fever, especially if you visit on the rivers, unless it be to say, that the place from which you came is very subject to this complaint. If you take this position you are safe, for should you be attacked (cases have been known even in Virginia), why you have only to say you were so unfortunate as not to leave home quite soon enough to avoid the disease. Mind what I, an M.D. of the calomel and quinine school—no Homœopathist, but one of the regular troop—say upon this matter. No false charges, either direct or indirect, no inuendos by look, word, or deed, that you might possibly have taken the ague and fever after your arrival! It would be absurd, at least, in you to say so. Not that the people would lay violent hands upon you—and yet on sober second thoughts I am not so sure of this, if we are to judge from the toast given by a young gentleman who attended the Printers' anniversary celebration of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, at the City Hotel, Richmond, on the night of Saturday, 17th of January: "A ☞ to our friends, and a † for our enemies." This, perhaps, might have been simply to vary the entertainment of the evening. We ought not be hasty in drawing conclusions, for another young citizen, on the same occasion, gave the following: "The first families of Virginia—like stars seen in the ocean, they would not be there but for their bright originals in heaven." It is evident from this, although there is no roundabout tedious effort to prove the thing, that the "first families" of Virginia are not only as the stars of heaven in number—not only as thick as stars, but that like the stars they are absolutely in heaven, and, having carried their family dignity thither, are emitting their light to the benighted angels—occasional sparks sometimes dropping down from them to their numberless descendants, living here upon the shadows of their grandfathers. It may not be amiss, in order to save future digression, to say that the Smith in my name is on the paternal side. Should you come to Virginia, you will hear of the Smiths. You have already beard of Pocahontas. Well, the land on which her father lived was famous for its tobacco: it would now be dear at three dollars per acre. A short time since, while on a visit to and in conversation with one of the most distinguished men of Virginia, who owns and resides on a plantation on the James River, a few miles above Richmond—observing the neatness of every thing around, the superiority of his land and the largeness of his wheat and corn crops, I inquired about his tobacco. "I never cultivate tobacco," said he, "I detest it, for it has been the ruin of the state." This is the testimony of one of Virginia's most prominent and most enlightened sons, a graduate of William and Mary College, and the friend of Bishop Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and most of Virginia's other distinguished men, living in his day—one who, in age, has passed the threescore and ten allotted to mankind, and whose dignified yet gentle bearing tells that he is one of the survivors of a class now nearly extinct, "the Virginia gentleman of the old school."
Pass through almost any part of Eastern Virginia, and wherever you go will be found immense tracts of land, barren and useless, which were once rich and productive, but which have been exhausted in the cultivation of tobacco. And yet—notwithstanding this, and strange as it may appear—there are still to be found among the people of lower Virginia men who deny that the raising of this crop impoverishes the soil, and who on the contrary insist that the culture of tobacco enriches it. They are ready to acknowledge that the land has been exhausted, but contend that it is owing to the cultivation of corn, and not of tobacco. This, it need hardly be said, is maintained only by those who are engaged in raising tobacco. Facts however are stubborn things, and it may be well to present, just at this time, one or two in point.
Virginia, when first settled, possessed a soil far superior to that of any of the Eastern or Middle States. Little or no tobacco has ever been raised in those states, while corn has been one of the chief products. In Virginia, where tobacco has been the principal crop, the land has deteriorated, the rich soil has been exhausted, and become more sterile than were the bleak hills of New England when the Pilgrim reached her shores; while in New England, where corn has been produced in abundance, and but very little tobacco, the soil has been improved until it has become almost or quite as rich as that of Virginia was at any time since its settlement. In this day the most unproductive of the New England states has soil superior to that of Eastern Virginia.
Another fact that cannot be denied is, that wherever tobacco has been raised for any length of time, the result has been invariably the same—without a single exception, the land has been exhausted, and abandoned as useless. A particular portion of a plantation, it is true, has been, and may be again for a time, kept very rich by concentrating upon it all the fertilizing substance produced; but this must of course be at the expense of all other parts of the plantation, and operate eventually to the disadvantage of the small part kept rich at the expense of the whole; for unless there be considerable attention paid to other parts of the land, besides those appropriated to the raising of tobacco, the manure will no longer be found on the plantation, and general exhaustion and sterility must follow.
From what has been said about tobacco the reader will imagine, perhaps, that I am an enemy to the noxious weed. Not altogether so; but the reason, if not precisely similar to that which calls forth the article in the London Examiner, springs from the same impulse: I love a good cigar, and have been in my day an inveterate smoker, but hope, and am now endeavoring, to overcome the useless and enervating habit, more especially since I have seen the poverty and desolation occasioned in Virginia from the cultivation of tobacco. Still I must confess, that even now, like an old war horse when he smells powder, am I, when I come in contact with the odoriferous exhalation of a good cigar. If he with delight snuffs in his expanded nostrils the fumes of saltpetre and charcoal, I, with no less pleasure, inhale the odor of a good Havana. If he chafes and prances to rush into the battle, in me rises an elate spirit, when, in the midst of a band of smokers, I see through the fog, slowly curling and ascending, a miniature gallery of "long nines" issuing from their port-holes, and hear the puffs, and see the smoke. At such a time it is not safe to offer me a cigar, for then I feel like him of the Examiner, that it is not well to be too hard upon an enemy. Snuff I detest, and always have detested, notwithstanding the fact that I once bought a gold snuff-box, upon the lid of which I had my family coat-of-arms engraved.
"Off again! Why don't you keep to the point?" doubtless exclaims the reader. The truth is, my position as an assailant of tobacco is somewhat peculiar, such 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 left to put forth stunted pines, and await the recuperative powers of nature. Thus men live on, with an increasing family and a large and rapidly increasing number of servants to support, until perhaps the head of the house is called away by death, and the estate, if free from incumbrance, is divided among the children. Another generation succeeds, and another division takes place—the soil all this time becoming poor and poorer, and the quantity of land at each subdivision becoming less for every member,—until a general exhaustion is perceived, the land is left a wilderness, and the family scattered over the country; the females, sensitive, well-educated, and spirited, unfitted for contact with the world, and the sons too often branded as spendthrifts because they cannot manage to live upon the land that supported their fathers and their grandfathers.