ut there is little doubt that the sorts would
be more carefully selected, if the trade were not fettered
by the monopoly. Most of the government planters enter into
an arrangement with the small farmers and peasants who have
to grow a certain number of plants, on conditions of handing
over the harvest at a low figure--six to eight dollars per
crop. These _aviados_ receive something in advance, and
their chief profit consists in securing the sand leaf and
the greater part of the after-harvest, which they sell to
the contrabandists. It is indeed allowed to export whatever
remains; but it is attended with so many annoyances from the
authorities, that it is never attempted. The many ships
which enter the Mexican harbor of the east coast with
European manufactures, find no return freight except gold
and silver, cochineal, vanilla, a few drugs and goat skins,
all of which take up very little room in the ships (money is
usually sent off in the English government steamers);
consequently they must either proceed to Laguna to buy
log-wood, or they must take in sugar, coffee, or tobacco, in
a Cuban or Haytian port. As soon as tobacco becomes an
export article, its cultivation must increase immensely in
the Coast States, the Mexican being very partial to this
branch of agriculture, which occupies him part of the year
only."

Mayer also alludes as follows to the same subject:--

"A large portion of the tobacco sold in the republic is
contraband; for the ridiculous and greedy restrictions and
exactions with which a plant of such universal consumption
is surrounded, necessarily disposes the people to violate
laws which they feel were only made to impair their rights
of production and trade under a constitution professing to
be free."

The government planters in the State of Vera Cruz have large, fine
plantations, and the plants are carefully tended and cultivated as in
all countries where tobacco is a government monopoly. On each plant a
certain number of leaves are taken off, including the sand leaf, which
is thrown away, and everything in the way of topping and suckering
performed as carefully as on the tobacco farms in Cuba. The small
farmers who raise only a few thousand plants are not as careful as the
large planters, and are sometimes guilty of planting more than the
number a