Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-03-30
VIRGINIA LETTER.

A HARD WINTER-WHEAT SOMEWHAT DAM.
AGED-ToBACco AND THE NEW TAx-SEcEs-
SION BELIEVED IN AS PRINCIPLE But NOT AS
POLICY.
DANvILLE, Va March %, IS
To tie Editor Of the KenneJec Journal:
To the people of Maine it may seem a little out
of place to talk of cold weather in the genial cline
of the cold Dominion" so celebrated for
flowers and fruitage, where natures snowy man
tie seldom furnishes the merry lads an opportunity
of coastng adown the hill-slopes, hangs its lit
tie faky emblems of purity as festoons 10
every tree and shrub, and yet we are emerging
from one Of the coolest and most disagreeable sea-
sons which that time-honoled gentleman, "the old
est man living" Goo tften with short memory
seems to have passed through Frequent storms
of rain and sleet alternating with spells of severe
cold and days of sunshine, have made it even
more disagreeable and damaging to health than
continuous cold would have been. These changes
have been prolific cause Of colds, pneumonia and
other diseases, resulting in many cases in death.
The poor especially have known this 10 be a
'time which tried mems souls" and some have
seen the teeth of the wolf. They do not 'get
ready for winter" in the South. The houses are
not frightened. There is no laying by supply of
fuel, nor furnishing the wardrobe with thick warm
garme nts for any emergency. Thick soled boots
are neglected and gums are not provided, and as
the common and poorer classes whose bread comes
'by the sweat of their brow" must turn out at all
seasons it is too often with poor protection
through slop and mud, to their great discomfort
and hazard of life and health.
A. ur,o% in fho Ion pf
spring" we congratulate ourselves that his icy
fingers have been unclinched and that "the rain
is over and gone" and we shall soon bask in the
balmy air of spring, laden with the fragrance of
blossom and flowers"
Reports from different sections Of the country
represent the wheat as somewhat damaged by the
cold and wet, particularly on fiat lands, and farm
ers will hardly expect to harvest an average yield.
In this section of Virginia tobacco is the staple pro-
duct, and as the plants are sensitive to cold, they
are not "set" until the weather becomes warm and
frosts are supposed to be past. They are then set
out like cabbage and other plants, In little raised
hillocks. Farmers speaks of their crops not by
the acre but by so many hundred or thousand
hills. In this city there not less than thirty
warehouses and factories where this staple is sold
and manufactured, and when all these are in full
blast Danville presents the appearance of place
of wonderful commercial and manufacturing en-
terprse, paying at twenty-four cents per pound on
all manufactured tobacco,-a handsome revenue
towards oiling the wheels Of the government ma.
chinery. Since the recent act Of Congress fixing
the tax at twenty-four instead Of twenty cents
per pound, there has been little quivering among
the dealers in the "leaf and they have not bitten
so sharply
Very little is said now in Virginia about "the lost
cause" people seeming disposed to make the best
of their condition and set about retrieving their
wasted fortunes and developing the resources Of
their war-tried and stricken country, believing
rather in the principle than the policy of sunderng
the Union. As a confederate Colonel who had
been badly shot up said to me on one occasion 81
believe in the principle Of secession but not in the
erpedisncy Of it," A. H..