10 TOBACCO LEAF. 



believed that the home market for domestic-grown cigar 

 wrappers will once more make this branch of the tobacco 

 industry as prosperous as the culture of the leaf in other 

 States for other purposes. 



The rise and progress of the yellow tobacco interest 

 in the Piedmont regions of Virginia and North Carolina, 

 and especially in the latter State, show one of the most 

 abnormal developments in agriculture that the world 

 has ever known. This leaf is mainly used for wrappers, 

 chewing plugs, and also for making "fine cut" tobacco 

 and cigarettes. About the year 1852, two brothers, Eli 

 and Elisha Slade, owned farms which, in part, occupied 

 poor ridge lying between two tributaries of the Dan river, 



in Caswell coun- 

 ty, North Caro- 

 lina. Upon this 

 ridge, during the 

 year mentioned, 

 they planted to- 

 bacco, and cured 



FIG. 7. MOUND BUILDERS' PIPES FOUND IN ft w j^ fi reg 

 ROSS COUNTY, OHIO, U. S. A. , 



From Smithsonian Report, 1848. Of Charcoal, TCg- 



ulated in a definite manner. They succeeded, by this 

 means, in giving to it a beautiful lemon-yellow color. 

 Their neighbors caught the infection, and soon the to- 

 bacco from Caswell county began to arrest the attention 

 of the tobacco dealers by reason of its superior beauty 

 and sweetness. High prices were paid for it. During 

 the Civil war very little of this high-grade tobacco was 

 produced, but between 1870 and 1880 its production was 

 revived, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it did 

 more to build up the prosperity of North Carolina than 

 all other agencies combined. Old fields, that had been 

 abandoned because of their sterility, became the most 

 profitable farming lands in the State. Poverty in the 

 soil, for once, became the first principle of agriculture. 



