THE USE OF THE WEED. 17 



represent the average wholesale market price of Ameri- 

 can tobacco in leaf during the year 1860, its value for 

 1891 averaged 140 in the United States, in England 

 163, and at Hamburg, Germany, 85 (see table in Ap- 

 pendix). The advance noted in America and Great 

 Britain is partly due to the improvement in quality, 

 only the better grades being included in the quotations 

 averaged, while the decline observed at Hamburg may 

 be ascribed to the bulk of low-grade leaf imported, in- 

 cluding, of late years, increasing quantities from new 

 centers of production south of the equator. 



The advance of 40 per cent in market value of the 

 better grades of American leaf is all the more remark- 

 able because of an average decline of 12 per cent in the 

 value of wheat during the period under review, a decline 

 in wool of 25 per cent, and of cotton 20 per cent. The 

 general average for all farm products shows a decline of 

 three per cent (see table in Appendix). In other 

 words, tobacco alone, of all the great staples, maintained 

 an advance in value in the three decades since the war. 

 Nearly all values have declined since the exhaustive 

 study of prices was made, in 1891-3, by the finance com- 

 mittee of the United States Senate, but the general av- 

 erage for tobacco shows a less falling off than most other 

 crops, except in the more speculative cigar wrapper leaf. 

 The tables of quotations in the Appendix, upon the 

 standard grades of leaf in the principal home and for- 

 eign markets, confirm the foregoing. 



Increased production in the United States, of leaf 

 and of cigars, cigarettes and manufactured tobacco, has 

 fully kept pace with increased consumption and export. 

 The United States now devotes over 700,000 acres to this 

 crop annually, about one-third more than forty years 

 ago, with a crop twice as large as then, for it exceeds 

 500,000,000 pounds in a year of average production. 

 Nearly 300,000,000 pounds are manufactured for chew- 

 2 



