14 TOBACCO LEAF. 



Ohio and northern Kentucky as great as in the yellow- 

 tobacco regions of North Carolina and Virginia. This 

 class or type of tobacco was found to be more suited for 

 manufacturing purposes and to the tastes of the Amer- 

 ican tobacco chewers than any other. It is very mild, 

 with a small content of nicotine, and its absorbent capac- 

 ity is greater than that of any tobacco hitherto grown. 

 For many years the demand for it far exceeded the sup- 

 ply. The prices paid for the most trashy leaves ex- 

 ceeded the prices paid for the best crops of heavy ship- 

 ping tobacco. It soon invaded the famous blue grass 

 regions of Kentucky. Stock farms were converted into 

 tobacco farms. Blue grass pastures that had been the 

 ornaments of the farms and the pride and glory of many 

 generations of stock breeders, were plowed up and 

 planted in White Burley tobacco. Experiments were 

 made in its culture in every part of the tobacco-growing 

 area of the United States, but it was soon found, as it 

 was with the growth of yellow tobacco, that it may be 

 produced in its perfection only upon the soils adapted to 

 it. The blue limestone regions of Kentucky and the 

 drift soils of southern Ohio have almost a monopoly of 

 its culture, as the light, sandy regions and whitish, clayey 

 districts have the monopoly of the growth of the yellow 

 tobacco. 



Within three hundred and seventy years the culti- 

 vation of tobacco has extended from the streets of 

 Jamestown to e^ery quarter of the globe. Population 

 has moved westward, tobacco eastward. Of all the 

 stimulants and narcotics used by man, it is probably the 

 least injurious in its effects upon the human system. 

 Yet it may be injurious, and often is, so much so that its 

 culture and use has ever been bitterly contested. In 

 spite of all this, tobacco grows on every land and is used 

 by every people. From New England to Louisiana, 

 from Virginia to the prairies of the West, from the 



