_You_,
raised in Virginia, and ask a question like that! Wheat is uncertain,
corn doesn't pay, we are too far from market for vegetables, too poor
to put our lands in grass, and tobacco is the only thing that will
fetch money. As for exhausting land, plenty of tobacco is raised in
Ohio and Connecticut, and you never hear anybody talk about exhausting
land there."
"Yes, but there they manure heavily, giving back to the land as much
as they take, or more."
"Well, old-field pine is good enough manure for a man who has plenty
of land and can take his time."
Thus in two instances my anti-tobacco wisdom turned out to be about
as profitable as King James's memorable _Counterblast_ against the
beloved weed of Virginia.
"But, general," said I, "surely your neighbors don't want to retain
such vast tracts of land."
"Certainly not. Men do not like to part with good land, and if my
friends could set their farms well in grass, so that a few hands could
attend to them, they would only sell at very high figures; but being
unable to do this, they are willing, and many of them anxious, to sell
on most reasonable terms."
"What is the trouble, then?"
"The trouble is about houses."
"Explain."
"Wealthy people seldom emigrate. The men who leave home have generally
but limited means, and coming here they find just the soil and climate
they desire, but no place to lay their heads; and few if any of them
can afford to buy land and build houses at the same time.
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