BUREAU OF SOILS. 179 



the Department of Agriculture, 35.88 acres of whicli were planted to 

 Sumatra and the rest to the ordinary Connecticut Havana seed tobacco. 

 The expenses of this work, amounting on an average to about 1657 

 per acre, were borne by the farmers, the Department of Agriculture 

 exercising supervision over the work and directing all the operations. 

 The Department also reserved the right to offer the tobacco for sale, 

 for the purpose of obtaining official information as to the commercial 

 value of the product, which it would have been impossible to obtain 

 if the tobacco had been disposed of at private sale. Accordingly, 

 after it had been carefully cured and assorted under the direction of 

 the Department's experts, the tobacco was catalogued and offered for 

 sale at public auction at Hartford, Conn., on May 1, in accordance 

 with the wishes of the various growers. A committee of tobacco 

 brokers, with Hon. E. Stevens Henry, Congressman from the First 

 district of Connecticut, as chairman, was invited to cooperate with 

 the Department in the management of this sale. The committee con- 

 sisted of Messrs. M. E. Flaherty, New York; Steven G. Ruth, New 

 York; S. M. Sej'mour, New York; Capt. Darius Ferry, New York; 

 James Ertheiler, New York; and Herman G. Vetterlein, Philadelphia. 



The committee took a great deal of interest in the work and rendered 

 very efficient services in the matter. Credit is due them for the time 

 and expense which they personally contributed in the interest of this 

 investigation and of the Connecticut growers. 



The tobacco was offered for sale at public auction from sworn sam- 

 ples. As each grower wanted to sell his crop independently of the 

 others, many of the bales had mixed sizes and even mixed grades. 

 Furthermore, the leaf had not been tried by the manufacturers, and 

 there was some hesitancy in bidding on this account. This accounts 

 for the considerable variation in the price. It is estimated by the 

 Department's experts, as stated in Bulletin No. 20 of the Bureau of 

 Soils, that the tobacco cost on an average, baled and readj^ for mar- 

 ket, about 51^ cents a pound The ordinary tobacco grown in the open 

 fields in Connecticut brings on an average from 18 to 20 cents a pound. 

 The average price paid for the shade-grown tobacco was $1.20 a pound, 

 the price varying from $2.80 per pound for the best to 25 cents a 

 pound for some of the mixed bales. The crop that brought the best 

 price sold for $1.63 per pound on the average. 



On the whole, it is believed that the auction sale was very satisfac- 

 tory, but it is thought that the i^rices for this year's crop will be even 

 higher, as indicated by the gTcat demands for the product and by the 

 favorable reports that are coming in from the cigar manufacturers 

 who have used this leaf. The aggregate of the prices obtained at the 

 auction show a very handsome financial transaction. 



The total area cultivated in Sumatra tobacco in 1901 was 35.88 

 acres. There were produced 51,308 pounds of cured tobacco, and 

 actually baled 41,046 pounds, the difference being the loss on account 

 of fermentation, trash, and filler leaves. The total cost of produc- 

 tion, estimated at $657.17 per acre, was $23,579.26. The total value, 

 estimated at $1.20 per pound, the average price obtained at the sale, 

 was $49,255.20. This gave a net profit to the growers of $25,675.94, 

 or 108.8 per cent. This does not include the cost of the land, barns, 

 or warehouses, nor the interest on the investment so represented, but 

 does include the whole cost of the shade, the framcAvork of which is 

 expected to last for from five to eight years. The profits per acre were 

 as follows : Of baled tobacco, exclusive of trash, there was obtained 



