"From observation and experience, I am inclined to think that a company might be profitably established, here or at the Cape, for cultivating the vine in the colony, and importing its produce to Europe; but they must send out their own labourers and superintendents, carefully selected from the best vineyards in Germany or France; take care to adopt the Madeira plan of gathering the grapes; agitate for a reduction of the duty on the wine, which is too high; and do all they can to get rid of their greatest obstacle--a bad name in the market." Disguised as sherry or Madeira, who can tell how much Cape he annually swallows? Port wine, too, is adulterated with a red Cape called Pontac. Were the cultivation of the African wines improved, and the best qualities imported, there is no reason why we should despise, in its neat dress, that which we have so often accepted under Spanish or Portuguese colours. And certainly it would be more satisfactory to drink the produce of a British colony than that of countries who show so little disposition to reciprocate the liberality of our tariffs, and our immense consumption of articles of their growth. Nor is the vine the only plant which, with proper care and encouragement, might, in Mr Cole's opinion, and with every appearance of probability, be raised at the Cape, to an extent that would greatly diminish the necessity we are now under of purchasing from the thankless foreigner. "On the very spot where the village of Somerset now stands, TOBACCO was first raised in the colony, under the care of a Dr Makrill. Like almost everything else, it grew and flourished admirably in a Cape soil, and is now raised in considerable quantities in various parts of the colony. It is called Boer's tobacco, to distinguish it from the various species of the imported weed. Here, again, the want of proper energy, so constantly observable in the colonists, whether Dutch or English, is displayed. Every man smokes--and immense numbers also chew--tobacco. The Hottentots of both sexes take heaps of snuff--not, by the way, up their nostrils, but in their mouths!--and yet tobacco has to be imported to a considerable extent into a country which might not only grow enough for its own wants, but sufficient to supply half the world besides. Every one admits the fact; but the answer is, 'Want of labour,' that eternal complaint of South Africa. There is much truth in it; but there is a considerable 'want of energy' also."