CHAPTER XV. 



YELLOW TOBACCO. 



The most astonishing fact about the development 

 of this industry, described in Chapter I, is that it has 

 made the abandoned soils in the midland districts of 

 North Carolina and Virginia the most valuable for 

 agricultural purposes. The excellence of yellow leaf 

 seems to depend upon the poverty of the soil, as well as 

 its color. 



This leaf grows at all altitudes from 50 to 2500 feet, 

 and under isothermals from 60 down to 54, from the 

 coast to the western North Carolina mountains, along 

 the French Broad river and beyond in Tennessee, 

 between the Little Pedee, Santee and Wateree rivers in 

 South Carolina, in more than a dozen counties of south- 

 ern Virginia, also in West Virginia, southern Ohio, a 

 few points in Kentucky, eastern Missouri and Arkansas. 

 Indeed, this tobacco will probably be tried wherever the 

 soil seems adapted. The State experiment stations, or 

 private individuals, are testing this variety in Louisiana, 

 Georgia, Arkansas and elsewhere, and in some cases 

 with promising results, where the soils are most like the 

 typical yellow tobacco soils named below. 



The quantity of yellow tobacco produced was erro- 

 neously stated by the census of 1890. Mr. W. W. 

 Wood has shown that for 1891, the North Carolina prod- 

 uct of tobacco was probably 85,000,000 pounds, while 

 the 1895 crop is returned by the United States depart- 

 ment of agriculture as nearly 115,000,000 pounds. The 

 yield per acre, under proper culture, varies from 600 to 

 353 



