rs.

The character of the American tobacco has been greatly advanced in
the mercantile world by an ordinance regulating that source of
national wealth. The planters are thereby obligated to deposit their
crops in warehouses, over which sworn inspectors preside, who
rigidly examine every hogshead, and if found to be of mercantile
quality, grant the owner a certificate, by which instrument only he
sells his produce. The purchaser is hereby safe in buying these
certificates. The tobacco to which they refer is delivered to the
holder on presentation to the inspector. I mention this not as
applicable here at present, but it most probably may hereafter.

When the colony is suffering severely for the want of labor, it may
by some be deemed inopportune in offering remarks upon this article
of commerce. To such dissentients I will remark, that a great
portion of the work can be performed by women and children. A moiety
of our anticipated increase of population will be available for this
hitherto mismanaged source of wealth. At present the quantity grown
in the colony is equal to three-fourths of its consumption, and
which production is of a very inferior quality to the imported.
These facts tend to show that my notice of the subject is not
inopportune, and particularly so when the object is to point out
those errors so generally adopted by the tobacco growers here. Years
of practical experience, of personal observation upon the
plantations of North America, and my having been, I believe, the
grower of the greatest quantity of tobacco in the colony, qualify me
to afford instructions thereon; whereby, if attended to, our tobacco
will become fully equal to the American, as was proved to be the
case by the crops I grew here (upwards of 40 tons),[56] which were
sold in Sydney by the Commissariat Department at public auction, at
an advance of twenty per cent. more than the imported leaf. As the
duty on tobacco is about to be reduced, the present production may
fall off, unless an immediate improvement in its quality take place.
Instead of being importers of tobacco, we should, if it was grown
here to perfection, be exporters of it to all our sister colonies;
and in its raw state, also to the European markets. At present, for
home consumption, there is a greater profit to be made by its
cultiv