TOBACCO. | 567 
has, in truth, not shared in the general depression of prices. It is the 
heavy weight of the enormous bulk of “nondescript,” ¢. ¢., eorthless, to- 
bacco that has toppled the whole fabric. 
The production of good tobacco, of whatever kind, has never been 
too large. itis the production of poor tobaceo—of what in reality is 
but a base imitation—that has caused the mischief. Like every other 
farm product of poor quality, whether poor cotton, poor rice, poor wheat, 
er poor corn, poor tobacco has a long and weary way to travel in finding 
a purchaser. Lacking purchasers,it is self-evident that all sorts of 
stocks, tobacce being no exception, soon gain immense and unwieldy 
proportions. In Liverpool, London, Bremen, New Orleans, Baltimore, 
and New York, alone, the stock had accumulated, November 1, 1878, to 
159,761 hogsheads against 89,606 hogsheads the same day of 1875. 
if we seek further for the cause of this large increase of stocks we shall 
find it readily and unmistakably m the inferiority of a great part of the 
tobacco now on hand. Itis an open secret that much of the tobacco 
now held in foreign markets is “funked”—vile stuff, fit for manure only. 
And yet, month after month, and year after year, this is heralded in 
trade reports, swelling stocks, and so bearing the tobacco markets of 
the world. And here we may remark, parenthetically, that in consid- 
ering means of relief to the well-nigh ruined planter attention might, 
very properly, be directed to the development of a pian for burning 
this worse than worthless surplusage, as in colonial times.. 
But if this be the proximate cause of much of the depression of this 
indusiry, it is no less certain that the greater share of that depression 
is traceable to the very door of the pianter himself. In his neglect— 
whether from overcrepping or otherwise—of the crop in the field, or his 
equally fatal neglect or ignorance in “handling” it after being housed, 
may be found the “ direful source of woes unnumbered,” not to him only, 
but to the trade and to the country. 
Il—THE WAY OF ESCAPE. 
So manifestly dees this lie in the reduction of the area of the erop 
and in increased attention thereto, ‘from the plant-bed to market,” that 
“the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein.” The planter 
who may chance to read these pages should not fail to note the words 
“reduction of area” as contradistinguished from reduction of crop. 
The terms are not convertible. Reduction of area does not mean reduc- 
tion of crop. On the contrary, it may mean, and should mean, an in- 
crease of crop. No; we do not advocate a reduction in the production 
of tobacco, but a reduction, nay, the complete abandonment of the pro- 
duction of inferior tobacco, or what is only a pretense of tobacco. We 
are firm in the opinion, before expressed, that no crop of really first- 
class tobacco is likely ever to be too large. The appetite which loathes 
with increasing force that which is repulsive becomes often a passion- 
ate desire when fed on dainties. As the production of choice, high- 
grade tobaccos is increased, a correspondingly increased taste and desire 
will be developed and cultivated, and corresponding wants be multi- 
plied and enlarged, pari passu, to utilize and consume them. 
We need have no fear, then, of the overproduction of good tobacco. It 
is the production at all of the low grades, or more properly no grades, 
that is to be guarded against. And here, in the inflexible adherence to 
this policy and to this practice is to be found the remedy, the only sure 
remedy, tor ‘‘the ills we bear.” It were no argument against the value 
of this remedy to point to the fact that the crop of 1867, though poor 
