Tobacco, like some other things we have tried--hops, castor-oil, spices, drugs, and so on--needs cheap labour for picking. That is the _sine quâ non_ to success in these things. And for cheap labour we must wait, I suppose, till we are able to marry, and to rear those very extensive families of children, which are one of the special products of this fruitful country, and which are also such aids to the pioneer in getting on.
Take it altogether, we--the pioneers of Te Pahi--are of opinion that pioneer-farming here is a decided success. We are satisfied that it yields, and will yield, a fair return for the labour we have invested in it. We think that we are in better case, on the whole, than we should have been after eight years' work at other avocations in the old country. Putting aside the question of the magnificent health we enjoy--and that is no small thing--we are on the high road to a degree of competence we might never have attained to in England. Not that we wish to decry England; on the contrary, we would like to return there. But for a visit, merely. Here is our home, now. The young country that is growing out of its swaddling clothes, and that we hope, and we know, will one day be a Brighter Britain in deed and in truth.
We have a show-place, and one of which we are excessively proud. It is not a castle, a baronial hall, or ruined abbey, as one would expect a properly constituted show-place to be--at "home." In this new country, it is needless to say, we have no antiquities of that sort. Yet this place, of which we are so proud, and that it delights us to extol to strangers, has a history that renders its singular picturesqueness additionally striking.
Mere scenery is never so effective if it has no story to tell. There must be something, be it fact or fiction, to attach to a place before its beauties can be fully appreciated. The charm of poetry and romance is a very real one, and can add much to one's enjoyment of a particular view. I suppose that something is needed to interest and attract the intelligence, at the same moment that the sense of sight is captivated, so that a double result is produced.
Scotland is one fair example of this. Fine as the scenery there may be, is it to be supposed that alone would attract such hordes of tourists every summer? Certainly not; it is the history associated with each spot that throws a glamour over it. Much magnificence of nature is passed by unheeded in Scotland, because history or tradition has conferred a higher title to regard upon some less picturesque place beyond. The fiction and poetry of Scott, and of Burns and others in less degree, have clothed the mountains and the glens with a splendid lustre, that causes people to view their natural beauties through a mental magnifying glass. Nature unadorned seldom gets the admiration bestowed on it that it does when added to by art.