Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1859-01-13
From the American Farmer.
SHALL WE GROW MORE ToBACCo?

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There is a great disposition at this time, we
find, in sections where tobacco growing has been
heretofore unknown, and among persons entire
ly unacquainted with it's culture and manage
ment, to undertake the cultivation of the crop
Our advice has been sought, as to the policy
of doing SO, and few words on the subject may
not be useless to number of our readers.
In the first place, let us say, then, that the
profits of tobacco culture have been very much
exaggerated by the publication of prices obtain
ed, within the two years past, for very extra
small parcels. These reported prices are no in
dcation at all of the general market Never
theless, it is true that the prices of 1857 were
very remunerating and the prices ofthe past year,
though much smaller, were very fair In con-
sequence of these prices, the culture has already
been very much increased, withouta correspond
ing increase in consumption, and the stimulus
given to the production of the crop all over the
country it is easy to foresee, will result, in few
years, in very low prices.
1t is very bad policy generally, an account of
the failure for year of two of any staple, or
temporary depression of price, to change ones
plans. The best rule is, to hold on steadily and
diligently to whatever crops you have prudeut
ly determined upon, and wait patiently for a
favorable change 1t is no argument that the
crop of wheat will fail next year because it fail
ed last year, and the very inclination so common
now, to abandon wheat or corn, in a measure
and adopt tobacco, is tending at once to raise
the price Of the former, and depress the latter
SO that the new tobacco planter, by the time he
gets his houses built, and himself and his farm
hands sufficiently familiar with a crop which re-
quires much experience to manage to advantage,
may find the price again at very low figure.
Tobacco culture while it is not so directly ex-
hausting to the land as is generally represented,
so engrosses the labor of the farm as to interfere
seriously with improvement. We recommend
its culture, therefore, only to those, whose farms,
fences, &C., may be in good condition. and who
may have labor at command to which they can
not give otherwise profitable employment.
In connection with our own remarks we give
the following from an intelligent correspondent.
in one of the Southern counties of Maryland:
81 do not think it iudicious to advise any one
to enter into its cultivation. except in a small
way. as from my present information, there are
so many going at it another year, if there should
be large crop, the prices will be likely to de-
cline to something like they were in '46 and Al,
when l sold tobacco for $3.50 per hundred
(aUerage.) / do not consider it a paying crop
at less average than Sc, and that has been a.
bout the average price obtained this year, in our
neighborhood. / think shall continue to make
small crops Of it hereafter. but it is only because
of the fear Of failure in wheat, in which case to-
bacco may "help the lame dog over the style"
[ started into an exclusive grain culture, four
years ago, with the conviction that tobacco had
well nigh ruined our section, and would ulti-
mately do it, if persevered in. This conviction
is still impressed upon me, if its cultivation is
continued under the old three field system, where
the same piece Of land in it's rotation is put into
tobacco with all the manure that can be raked
and scraped from all sources of the farm, with
out giving particle to the poor corn knobs and
barren flats