New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-06-02
LABOR AND GOVERNMENT,

with regard especially to the promotion of
Science and Art and the encouragement of
Industry. Our current politics, in their
more digniied and honorable aspects,
hinge essentially on this question.
Yet why should it be a question! A
Government may act unwisely, prodigally,
dishonesty, in the direction of any duty;
it may waste the national treasure in
building fortress where none is needed
but would it be well therefore to deny it
the right to erect Notifications 1t may
levy taxes unwisely and oppressively; but
would this Justify denial Of the taxing
powerl
During the last winter, Mr.. Francis
Bonynge has been in our City, where he
has published remarkable book entitled
1.-THE Future Wealth of America" Dir.
B. claims to have been for fourteen years
a resident of India and Western China,
where he was intimately conversant with
the Agriculture of that vast, prolific region,
many of whose staples, be is confident,
could be cultivated in this country with
immense profits to all concerned. OF the
verify of his statements we here express
no opinion. We are not qualified to settle
the points raised by him, nor can any
editor be expected to devote years to an
adequate invest CATION of such subjects.
But whether it be or be not true that Tea,
Coffee, the Dee, and many other Fruits,
Shrubs, Veg, sables and Grasses of the
farthest East could be easily naturalized
and acclimated in this country, is a ques-
ton immensely more important than any
likely to be decided by our pending Presi-
Dental Election.
All who have travelled through the
South must have remarked the extreme
scarcity of Grasses throughout that region.
Cattle are few and poor; consequently
cream, fresh butter, &C., are in many Sec
tons rare Injuries. The plains of Mary
land and Virginia, naturally fertile and
productive, look barren and brown in sum
mer, and seem almost ready to assume the
condition of sandy deserts; yet there doubt
less exists in the world shrubs and grasses
precisely adapted to their soil and climate,
which would draw more nutriment from the
atmosphere than they would exhale, living
or dead, and would necessarily add to the
fertility of their SOIL instead of continually
abstracting from it. One such Grass, thor
oughly naturalized and cOmprehended,
would be worth more to the South than all
the politicians whose eloquent breath has
mingled with and agitated her air since
Washington. Such grasses might doubt
less be found; but whose duty is it to seek
them Who ought to incur the expense
and trouble, when all mustreap the benefit T!
So with regard to Tea. We pay seve-
raj millions of dollars per annum for this
article, and bring it from the ends Of the
earth, while we possess all the climates in
which it is grown, and might favorably
grow it for half the cost of its importation.
But its proper introduction and naturaliza-
ton could not be expected to cost less than
$780, 900, and who can fairly be expected
to incur this for an object not at all per-
sonal, and the benefits of which could not
be monopolized! Mr.. Junius Smith, we
know, is now attempting this in the hill
country of South Carolina. He may pos
sibly succeed course Of time, at heavy
cost to himself; but his success will only
prove the practicability of growing Tea at
a single point, while the experiment ought
to be proceeding in every State of the
Union, and under such varieties of circum-
stances as wouldrender the test convincing.
Now, twenty failures may take place with
out throwing the needed light on theircause
or causes, since no means exist of accurate
observation and comparison. Very often
an exotic refuses to thrive where, after
few years aeclimation, ID grows hardly
and luxuriously. Time, Patience, Labor,
Science and Money are all essential to its
naturalization, bat it is often worth many
thousand times Its cost. The Silk Culture
was long unknown to Europe, while the In
dian Corn and Potatoes which now form
so large a share of the food of her people
were taken thither from America long
since the age of Columbus.
If any Hindoo nabob or petty prince had
come among US, though VIGOROUSLY desti-
tute OF morals, character and brains. he
would have been the coveted guest of our
fashionables, bored with invitations 70