CONSIDERATIONS OF CIGAR LEAP. 389 



25 per cent seconds and balance fillers. A poor crop, 

 from the same township the same year, may not yield 

 more than 10 to 25 per cent wrappers, and these will be 

 inferior compared to the fine crop. The proportion of 

 wrappers in New England and Pennsylvania leaf is 

 usually larger than in New York, Ohio, or Wisconsin 

 crops. 



To successfully raise, cure and market cigar wrap- 

 per tobacco of the finest quality is, therefore, a business 

 of great care and involves constant attention to every 

 detail of management at the different stages. The 

 importance of attention to these details is of greater 

 consequence in this crop than in almost any other that 

 is generally grown. To successfully grow the crop, in 

 the first place, is a difficult matter, to cure it properly 

 is of almost equal importance. A thorough knowledge 

 of every phase of culture and curing is essential to suc- 

 cess, and it is difficult to say that one is of more conse- 

 quence than the other, but if such a comparison were 

 made, the preference would be given to culture; for, 

 although a finely grown crop may be injured by careless 

 curing, no skill in curing can make a first-class product 

 of a poorly grown leaf. 



The distribution of the cigar-leaf crop has been 

 closely studied by the New England Homestead, whose 

 reports upon it are the accepted authority. Its latest 

 data is as follows, comparing the "boom year" of 1892 

 with some later crops : 



