be numerous and representative of every shade of character and disposition, but they would also be bound together by ties of blood and marriage as well as of interest and mutual affection.  Similar tasks and relaxations create in them a similarity of tastes.  The social position of all is identical, for there are no classes among them, the only line of social division being drawn upon differences of age; and they are paid the same wages and possess the same small amount of property.  They are attached to the soil by like local associations, which vary as much as the plantation varies in surface here and there.  Each plantation of any great extent is like that part of the country, both in its general aspect and its leading features, just as the employments and amusements of its population, if numerous, are found reflected in the social life of the whole of the same section.

The particular plantation to which I shall so often allude in this article as the scene of the observations here recorded, like most of the tobacco-plantations in Virginia, covers a broad expanse of land, including in one body many thousand acres, remarkable for many differences of soil and for a varied configuration.  It is partly made up of steep hills that roll upon each other in close succession, partly it is high and level upland that sweeps back to the wooded horizon from the open low-grounds contiguous to the river that winds along its southern border.  At least one-half of it is in forest, in which oak, cedar, poplar, and hickory grow in abundance and reach a great height and size.  The soil of the lowlands is very fertile, for it is enriched every few years by an inundation that leaves behind a heavy deposit; that of the uplands, on the other hand, is comparatively poor, but it is fertilized annually with the droppings of the stables and pens.  Patches of new grounds are opened every year in the woods, the timber being cleared away for the purpose of planting tobacco in the mould of the decayed leaves, while many old fields are abandoned to pine and broom-straw or turned into pastures for cattle.

The principal crops are tobacco, wheat, corn, and hay, but the first is by far the most important, both from its quantity and its value.  Everything else is really subordinate to it.  The soils of the uplands and lowlands are adapted to very different varieties of this staple.  That which grows in the rich loam of the bottoms is known as “shipping tobacco,” because it is chiefly consumed abroad, as it bears transportation in the rough state without injury to its quality.  “Working tobacco” is the name which is given to the variety that flourishes on the hills; and this is used in the manufacture of brands of chewing- and smoking-tobacco to meet the domestic as well as the foreign demand.  There is a third variety which grows in small quantities on the plantation,—­namely, “yellow tobacco,” so called from the golden color of the plant as it approaches ripeness; and this tint is not only retained, but also heightened, when it has been cured, at which time it is as light in weight as so much snuff.  This variety is principally used as a wrapper for bundles of the inferior kinds, and is prepared for the market by a very tedious and expensive process; but the trouble thus entailed and the money spent have their compensation in the very high prices which it always brings in the market.