No. 4.] TOBACCO CULTURE. 355 



moist air of night or the drier air in the day must be ad- 

 mitted to the sheds or excluded as the case may demand. 

 Yet, with all the care and watchfulness we may bestow, 

 often disappointment is the lot of the grower, and liis visions 

 of profit are overborne by the present consciousness of loss. 

 But growers who have been struggling unaided in the past 

 arc now beo;inning to receive that aid from science so long 

 desired, which we hope will soon enable us to produce with 

 more certainty the kind and quality of leaf we seek. 



While the growing and using of tobacco has been carried 

 on in this country since its first discovery by Columbus in 

 1492, yet its systematic culture was not begun until 1612, 

 and from that time until the present it has been one of the 

 industrial products of this country in increasing cjuantities, 

 until at the present time it is one of our great staple pro- 

 ductions. 



I shall not attempt in this brief paper to give a complete 

 history of this large industry, or treat of its cultivation ex- 

 cept so far as may concern its culture in New England. 



In the earlier days of tobacco culture in New England 

 nothing appears to have been known of its proper prepara- 

 tion for market, and, indeed, it is related that the process 

 of sweatino; out the rank flavor and the starting of the in- 

 dustry in this section were by a Suffield (Conn.) merchant, 

 who, having taken a lot of tobacco to cancel a bad debt, 

 packed it in boxes so as to economize in room, where it re- 

 mained a year or two, when, being in New York, he traded 

 it for groceries as the boys used to swap jack-knives — 

 " sight unseen" — at what he called a good price, about five 

 or six cents a pound, and thankful he was well rid of bad 

 assets. What was his surprise a time after to receive a re- 

 quest from his customer in New York for some more of that 

 " same kind" of tobacco, and inquiring the name of it. Of 

 course, the shrewd Connecticut Yankee gave it a name, which 

 was Connecticut Seed, and placed himself in a situation to 

 continue the trade so accidentally commenced. This was pre- 

 vious to or about 1825, and from this time more attention 

 was paid to its cultivation, and as a knowledge of its prep- 

 aration for market and growing increased, its merits as a 

 cigar wrapper became better known, the demand became 



