266 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



TOBACCO GROWING IN THE CONNECTICUT RIYER 

 VALLEY. 



LESLIE R. SMITH, HADLEY, MASSACHUSETTS. 



[According to the latest census reports the Connecticut river towns in 

 Massachusetts produce about a million and a half dollars worth of tobacco 

 annually. As the last definite enumeration was the Federal Census of 

 1910, which reported the 1909 crop, these figures are now six years old. 

 The increase since that year has been steady, and it is safe to say that 

 the annual value of the crop in this State at present is not far from 

 $2,000,000. 



The tobacco towns of Massachusetts are entirely in Franklin, Hamp- 

 shire and Hampden counties. By the latest available figures Hatfield is 

 the banner tobacco town of the State, with a production valued at $301,- 

 204; Hadley, second, $192,258; and then come Agawam, Whately, Deer- 

 field, Southwick, Westfield and Sunderland in the order named. Hatfield 

 alone has 17 tobacco storehouses, and 425 freight cars are needed to ship 

 the tobacco crop from this one town. — Editor.] 



Tobacco has been grown in the Connecticut valley since 

 about 1840, and while the crop has had its ups and downs it 

 may be said to have steadily increased in acreage since that 

 time. The past fifteen years have seen by far the greatest 

 percentage of increase, and the end is not yet. Every grower 

 is growing all the tobacco that he can hang in his curing sheds, 

 and so new sheds are the very best indication of an increase in 

 acreage. The increase of 1915 over the 1914 acreage w^as 

 around 25 per cent. This crop is by far the most important 

 money crop grown in this section, and represents extensive 

 and intensive agriculture of the highest order. 



The rapid increase of the past fifteen or twenty years may be 

 explained by improved machinery, more abundant help, and, 

 most important of all, the fact that in recent years the crop 

 has brought prices that enable the grower to make expenses 



