In the year 1758 we exported seventy thousand hogsheads of tobacco, which was the greatest quantity ever produced in this country in one year. But its culture was fast declining at the commencement of this war, and that of wheat taking its place: and it must continue to decline on the return of peace. I suspect that the change in the temperature of our climate has become sensible to that plant, which, to be good, requires an extraordinary degree of heat. But it requires still more indispensably an uncommon fertility of soil: and the price which it commands at market will not enable the planter to produce this by manure. Was the supply still to depend on Virginia and Maryland alone, as its culture becomes more difficult, the price would rise, so as to enable the planter to surmount those difficulties and to live. But the western country on the Missisipi, and the midlands of Georgia, having fresh and fertile lands in abundance, and a hotter. sun, will be able to undersell these two states, and will oblige them to abandon the raising of tobacco altogether. And a happy obligation for them it will be. It is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness. [307] Those employed in it are in a continual state of exertion beyond the power of nature to support. Little food of any kind is raised by them; so that the men and animals on these farms are illy fed, and the earth is rapidly impoverished. The cultivation of wheat is the reverse in every circumstance. Besides cloathing the earth with herbage, and preserving its fertility, it feeds the labourers plentifully, requires from them only a moderate toil, except in the season of harvest, raises great numbers of animals for food and service, and diffuses plenty and happiness among the whole. We find it easier to make an hundred bushels of wheat than a thousand weight of tobacco, and they are worth more when made. The weavil indeed is a formidable obstacle to the cultivation of this grain with us. But principles are already known which must lead to a remedy. Thus a certain degree of heat, to wit, that of the common air in summer, is necessary to hatch the eggs. If subterranean granaries, or others, therefore, can be contrived below that temperature, the evil will be cured by cold. A degree of heat beyond that which hatches the egg we know will [308] kill it. But in aiming at this we easily run into that which produced putrefaction. To produce putre faction, however, three agents are requisite, heat, moisture, and the external air. If the absence of any one of these be secured, the other two may safely be admitted. Heat is the one we want. Moisture then, or external air, must be excluded. The former has been done by exposing the grain in kilns to the action of fire, which produces heat, and extracts moisture at the same time: the latter, by putting the grain into hogsheads, covering it with a coating of lime, and heading it up. In this situation its bulk produced a heat sufficient to kill the egg; the moisture is suffered to remain indeed, but the external air is excluded. A nicer operation yet has been attempted; that is, to produce an intermediate temperature of heat between that which kills the egg, and that which produces putrefaction. The threshing the grain as soon as it is cut, and laying it in its chaff in large heaps, has been found very nearly to hit this temperature, though not perfectly, nor always. The heap generates heat sufficient to kill most of the eggs, whilst the chaff commonly restrains it from rising into putrefaction. But all these [309] methods abridge too much the quantity which the farmer can manage, and enable other countries to undersell him, which are not infested with this insect. There is still a desideratum then to give with us decisive triumph to this branch of agriculture over that of tobacco.-The culture of wheat by enlarging our pasture, will render the Arabian horse an article of very considerable profit. Experience has shown that ours is the particular climate of America where he may be raised without degeneracy. Southwardly the heat of the sun occasions a deficiency of pasture, and northwardly the winters are too cold for the short and fine hair, the particular sensibility and constitution of that race. Animals transplanted into unfriendly climates, either change their nature and acquire new senses against the new difficulties in which they are placed, or they multiply poorly and become extinct. A good foundation is laid for their propagation here by our possessing already great numbers of horses of that blood, and by a decided taste and preference for them established among the people. Their patience of heat without injury, their superior wind, fit them better in this and the more southern climates even for the drudge[310] ries of the plough and wagon. Northwardly they will become an object only to persons of taste and fortune, for the saddle and light carriages. To these, and for these uses, their fleetness and beauty will recommend them.-Besides these there will be other valuable substitutes when the cultivation of tobacco shall be discontinued, such as cotton in the eastern parts of the state, and hemp and flax in the western. It is not easy to say what are the articles either of necessity, comfort, or luxury, which we cannot raise, and which we therefore shall be under a necessity of importing from abroad, as everything hardier than the olive, and as hardy as the fig, may be raised here in the open air. Sugar, coffee and tea, indeed, are not between these limits; and habit having placed them among the necessaries of life with the wealthy part of our citizens, as long as these habits remain we must go for them to those countries which are able to furnish them. [311] QUERY XXI. The weights, measures and the currency of the hard money? Some details relating to exchange with Europe? Our weights and measures are the same which are fixed by acts of parliament in England.-How it has happened that in this as well as the other American States the nominal value of coin was made to differ from what it was in the country we had left, and to differ among ourselves too, I am not able to say with certainty. I find that in 1631 our house of burgesses desired of the privy council in England, a coin debased to twenty-five per cent that in 1645 they forbid dealing by barter for tobacco, and established the Spanish piece of eight at six shillings, as the standard of their currency: that in 1655 they changed it to five shillings sterling. In 1680 they sent an address to the king, in consequence of which, by proclamation in 1683, he fixed the value of French crowns, rixdollars, and pieces of eight, at six shillings, and the coin of New England at one shilling. That in 1710, 1714, 1727, and 1762 other regulations were made, which will be better presented to the eye stated in the form of a table as follows: [312] VOL. III.-18 1 In the edition of 1853, the following footnote is added: "In the States the Dollar is valued at 6s., the coincidence of their currency with the Greek and Roman moneys is so singular as to be worthy of notice, and to found a suspicion that this object may have had some influence in fixing our moneys at this particular point, at a time when the value of Greek and Roman learning was more justly estimated than at this day. The Penny Lawful is precisely the Roman As, which was their unit; 10 of which, equal to Ten Pence Lawful, made the Attic Drachma, according to Pliny, L. 21, c. 33. In the latter ages of their history the moneys of these two people were interwoven so as to make parts of the same series, which were in some degree decimal. The As (L. at first Libralis, but latterly an ounce of copper, and called Libella = Id. lawful. IO As made the Denarius (X.,) or Attic Drachm = 10d. 100 Denarii made the Mina or Pondo 1,000d. ; or £4 3s. 4d. The Denarius having been divided into fourths of 24 As each, the fourth was called A Sestertius or Nummus, (LLS., or HS) = 2. 100 Sesterces made an Aureus latterly 250d., £1 os. 10d. 1,000 Sesterces made the Sestertium = £10 8s. 4d. = The Libra 96X. = £4 lawful The Talent of Silver = 60 Mina = £250. The Talent of Gold was the decuple of the talent of silver, at the proportion of 10 for I, as among the Romans = £2,500. And was the Military of the Libra, if valued at 16 for 1, as among moderns = 1,000 Libra = £4,000. "It is understood that the Attic Drachm of silver was exactly our Drachm Troy of 60 grains; The Denarius of the Romans was the 7th part of their Ounce, which is supposed to have been exactly our Avoirdupois Ounce; but this is of 437 grains Troy, which would make the Roman Denarius 62 grains; and consequently more than the Attic Drachm, contrary to the testimony of antiquity, that the Denarius and Drachm were equal. We may very probably conjecture that our Troy weight is taken from the Grecians, from whom The first symptom of the depreciation of our present papermoney, was that of silver dollars selling at six shillings, which had before been worth but five shilling and ninepence. The assembly thereupon raised them by law to six shillings. As the dollar is now likely to become the money-unit of America, as it passes at this rate in some of our sister-states, and as it facilitates their computation in pounds and shillings, &c e converso, this seems to be more convenient than its former denomination. But as this particular coin now stands higher than any other in the proportion of 1331 to 125, or 16 to 15, it will be necessary to raise the others in proportion. our physicians derive their science, and, in copying their receipts, would, of course preserve their weights, which fix the quantum and proportion of ingredients. We may as probably affirm that our Avoirdupois weight is taken from the Romans, from whom, through their colonies and conquests in France, Spain, Germany, Britain, we derive our agriculture and commerce. Accordingly we observe that, while we weigh our physic by the Troy or Grecian weights, we use the Avoirdupois or Roman for the productions of agriculture and general articles of commerce; and since antiquity affirms that these two series were united by the equality of the Drachm and Denarius, we must conclude that in progress of time they have become a little separated in use with us, to wit, part as before noted. "But the point at which their separation has been arrested and fixed is a very remarkable one: 1,000 ounces avoirdupois make exactly a cubic foot of water. This integral, decimal, and cubical relation induces a presumption, that while deciding amongst the varieties and uncertainties which, during the ruder ages of arts, we know had crept into the weights and measures of England, they had adopted for their standard those which stood so conveniently connected through the medium of a natural element, always at hand to be appealed to. "The ounce Avoirdupois being thus fixed at the thousandth part of a cubic foot of water, the Winchester bushel, of 2,150.4 cubic inches, filled with water, would weigh 77.7 lb Avoirdupois, and, filled with wheat of statute quality, weighed 64 lb. Amidst the varieties discovered between the standard weights, Avoirdupois and Troy, in their different depositories, it would be discovered that all of them were a little over or under this proportion; and this would suffice to give this proportion the preference, and to fix the standard relation between the Avoirdupois and Troy pounds at that which Nature has established between the weights of water and wheat; and the Troy grain, 5,760 of which make the pound Troy, would be so adjusted as that 7,000 of them would make the pound Avoirdupois-for 7,000: 5,760: 77.7: 64. Exactly the same proportion is known to exist between the dry and liquid measures-for the corn gallon contains 272 cubic inches, and the ancient liquid gallon of Guildhall 224 cubic inches-so that the system of weights and measures, Avoirdupois and : |