After a long talk on matters of no concern to
the reader, during which the general related a number of capital
war-anecdotes, I contrived, as is my wont, to turn the conversation
upon agricultural topics, with the view of imparting to him a modicum
of that consummate farming wisdom which appertains to every thoroughly
conceited scribbler.
"Fine country you have, general."
"Yes: from Lugston to the Tennessee line, two hundred good miles, the
country is as fine as the sun ever shone upon."
"Appears to be thinly settled."
"You may well say so. Between my house and the station there are eight
or nine thousand acres, most of it excellent land, belonging to only
five or six owners."
"Indeed! What are such immense tracts good for now-a-days?"
"Good for grass."
"But they seem to pay little attention to grass."
"True. It is a splendid cheese country, as I have proved, but our
people are not up to that as yet."
"They _will_ grow tobacco. I saw some fine timber sacrificed for the
sake of new-ground tobacco."
"And why not? A man gets tired of paying taxes for twenty or thirty
years on timber which yields him nothing."
I smiled an invisible smile, reverting in my thoughts to an assault
I had made the week before upon my kinsman in Buckingham. "William,"
said I, "why will you Southside people continue to exhaust your land
with tobacco?"
"Dick," he replied, "you are the doggonedest fool out of jail.
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