TOBACCO GROWING IN THE CONNECTICUT 

 EIVER VALLEY. 



LESLIE R. SMITH, HADLEY, MASSACHUSETTS. 



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 was 

 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 

 and have something left over for his labor and as a profit for 

 his operations. 



The successful tobacco grower is a specialist, as no crop 

 grown calls for more scientific knowledge or the application of 

 more common sense. In the growing, harvesting and curing 

 of the crop the grower has to know something of practical 

 chemistry, physics and biology. 



But after all is said and done, the weather is the dominant 

 factor. The history of the good or poor tobacco crop tells the 

 story of the weather, — as in 1893 when the crop was largely 

 a failure on account of drought, and in 1897 again a failure on 

 account of excessive rain. Late frosts in the spring, early frost 

 in the fall, the hail and windstorms, periods of excessive mois- 

 ture or too dry weather at curing time, all show how the grower 



