TOBACCO-GROWING IN BRITAIN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1414, 21 December 1887, Page 5

TOBACCO-GROWING IN BRITAIN.

| There cannot be any -pretence (wrote a well- informed; correspondent) that the experiment of growing tobacco in Great Britain has not had a fair trial this. year. The crop has been grown, or attempted, to be.grQwttyak' far-north as Elgin,, as far,south as Cornwall, in Boston in the east,' arid in Cardiff in the west. Forty-five growers made the statutory declaration of their intention to grow tobacco j about twenty .acres being the J-otal area of the, .plots, as compared . with live , acres last year. Tbe season has. been far more favourable to the maturing of the crop than can be expected generally ; so that, if tobacco of good quality can be produced in Britain it should be forthcoming when the present gpowjfch has been cured. Last year's* experiments cannot be said to have been brilliantly successful. According 1o the report of the Commissioners for Inland Eevenue, tobacco was grown by twentyfour persons in fourteen counties, and attained maturity in twenty ihstanpes In only six cases, however, was the produce gopd enojigh for. duty to be paid on it ; that of the other fourteen growers- being destroyed. The aggregate produce of the successful growers was 2331 by on which the duty was charged,; though it { appears, to. have beep .paid", only 84& amounting to £1$ when the ; ,b4aflfie. ( Bhqeji[ for .1886-87 was made, up. On the very liberal aesumptjou that the tobacco ib worth

Is a pound in excess of the 6s duty, the returns to the six successful

growers will be £11 12s altogether, or less than £2 eacb — probably not a tenth part of the expenditure. At this rate agricultural depression will not be greatly relieved by tobacco-growing. No doubt, allowances must be made for a first attempt. But by this time growers have had ample opportunities of learning their new business ; and, if there should be anything like a repetition of last year's failure, the revenue officials can scarcely be asked to undertake for a third time the great amount of extra work which the experiments have put upon them.