OBIGIN AND SPREAD. 13 



and grew with the usual appearance of healthy plants, 

 except in one particular spot, where they had a whitish, 

 sickly look, so much so that they were left in the bed 

 for a time. In setting out his crop, however, Mr. Webb 

 found that he lacked plants enough of a healthy charac- 

 ter to finish his planting, so he drew the whitish looking 

 ones and set them out. For two or three weeks the 

 whitish plants grew but little, but after they became 

 well rooted they advanced with great rapidity, retaining 

 their creamy richness of color, and ripening two weeks 

 earlier than any other plants in the field. 



When cured by atmospheric influences, the same 

 process used in curing the Bed Burley, the underside of 

 the cured leaves was 

 of a whitish tinge, 

 while the upper side 

 was of a beautiful 

 golden hue. Some 

 of these plants, when 

 cured, measured six 

 feet in length, and 



were so handsome in Fm w TKAN8PORTING TOBACCO THE 

 appearance, and the OLDEN TIMKS. 



tissue of the leaves was so fine, .that Mr. Webb placed 

 them on exhibition in the Bodeman warehouse in Cin- 

 cinnati. Intelligent buyers gave encouragement for its 

 further cultivation, and the next year Mr. Webb, fortu- 

 nately having saved some seed, planted ten acres of it, 

 which yielded 11,000 pounds of tobacco, very handsome 

 and silky, with all the characteristic coloring which the 

 sample of the previous year displayed. When offered in 

 the market it brought from twenty-five to forty-five 

 cents per pound, and a premium of three hundred dol- 

 lars, in addition, was awarded to the grower. From this 

 "sport," which originated so unaccountably, there has 

 been developed an impetus in tobacco culture in southern 



