566 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
in the general shrinkage of all values, in the widespread financial dis- 
tress which for five weary years has covered, as with a pall, the entire 
country, amid “the wreck of matter and the crush of”’—fortunes, tobacco 
alone should prove an exception to an inflexible rule. Something, too, 
of the low price is, unquestionably, due to the agitation of the greatly 
vexed tax question—to its agitation rather than to the tax itself; and in 
proof of this last assertion we would point to the fact that in 1867, when 
the tax amounted to about 83 cents per pound against 24 cents in 1878, — 
the average price of tobacco, on the farm, was somewhat more than 13 
cents per pound against the present rate, alittlemore than 54 cents. Now, 
at the former date, there was no agitation and no thought of agitation 
relative to the tax. The higher tax was quietly acquiesced in; the gov- 
ernment had no unusual trouble in collecting it; and the planter him- 
self was contented and prosperous in the handsome price he received. 
We must, then, lock behind this question of tax if we would find the 
true cause of existing trouble. And, so looking, what is the most strik- 
ing fact observed; what the most obvious conclusion to which we must 
come? The fact that in 1869 the crop of the United States amounted 
to but about 324,000,000 pounds against, in round numbers, 412,000,000 
in 1870; 410,000,000 in 1871; 505,000,000 in 1872; 502,000,000 in 
1873; 358,000,000 in 1874; 520,000,000 in 1875 ; 482,000,000 in 1876; and 
581,500,000 in 1877*—the conclusion that year by year, with slight varia- 
tion, the planters have gone on increasing the crop until they have glutted 
the markets of the world. 
Being, to many, as we have observed, the only “money” crop, there 
was a strong temptation to the gradual overproduction, which culmi- 
nated in the enormous crop of 1877, and has carried the price down, year 
by year, until it has fallen to-day below the probable cost of production. 
We say, then, and are confident in the assertion, that overpro- 
duction (which means in this case, as we shall presently show, the pro- 
duction of poor tobacco) is the controlling cause of the unhappy condi- 
tion in which the tobacco-planters of the United States now find them- 
selves. 
Bad under any combination of circumstances, overproduction is made 
incomparably worse when the article produced is of inferior quality. In- 
feriority, it is universally admitted, has marked the character of our to- 
baccos for several years. A good article of any description of tobacco 
*It will be seen that the “product” of the country here given for the years 1869 
and 1877 inclusive, differs materially from that hitherto published in the reports of 
this department. 
These discrepancies, arising, no doubt, from inaccurate data in making previous es- 
timates, are much to be regretted; but the department would be doing the nation and 
itself injustice to perpetuate error in order that its reports should be consistent with 
each other rather than with the facts. 
Of the material correctness of the above statement, made up chiefly from data fur- 
nished in the reports of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and of the Bureau of Statis- 
tics of the Treasury Department, we are fully satisfied. It is evident that the amount 
of leaf tobacco exported and the amount of leaf represented in manufactured tobacco 
of all kinds annually, when added together, will represent the annnal crop produced, 
less the percentage consumed on the farm and otherwise evading the tax; and that, 
whilst this sum, from the “lapping over” of a part of one year’s crop into another, may 
not show the exact product of any given year, yet, in a series of years, the result will 
be almost mathematically correct. 
In special report No. 10 of the current serics we stated ‘‘the total amount exported 
and manufactured” as being ‘a little more than 463,000,000 ponnds.” As to the fiscal 
year, this was correct. But further examination has satisfied us that we shall ap- 
proximate nearer to tke crop of 1877 by taking as a basis of calculation the amount ex- 
ported and mannfuctured for the calendar year ending December 31, i878. We have 
accordingly adopted this method, both for 1878 and fox the preceding eight years, with 
the result shown. 
