TOBACCO AND ITS CULTURE. 163 



quality of tobacco was introduced into this market than was 

 introduced during the entire year 1881, so that the very 

 rapid progress of this trade is at once evident to everybody. 

 It comes in under the demand from the manufacturers that 

 arose about the time that a five-cent cigar became so very 

 important and the demand for it became so great. It became 

 necessary that something should be used for the wrapper 

 that would wrap more cigars in proportion to the weight than 

 could be done by the old seed-leaf tobacco. A case of that 

 tobacco, weighing 400 pounds, will wrap, usually, about 

 20,000 cigars, whereas three or four pounds of Sumatra 

 tobacco will wrap a thousand cigars. It makes a very nice, 

 pleasant-looking wrapper, one that is very tough, and it is 

 always the same. It can always be used up entire. There 

 is no loss, and the manufacturer who buys a poimd of 

 Sumatra tobacco knows exactly what he is going to do with 

 it. Now, what is to be done ? The interests of the Con- 

 necticut Valley, of the State of Connecticut, of the State 

 of Wisconsin, of the State of Pennsylvania, and of the 

 State of Ohio (for all these sections of the country raise 

 wrapper-leaf) , demand that there should be protection given 

 them precisely as is given the manufacturer against cheap 

 labor, and against a competition from outside that would be 

 ruinous ; for, of course, the raising of tobacco depends 

 entirely upon the number of wrappers that a man raises, ^ 

 and not upon the number of binders or fillers. No man can 

 raise tobacco simply as binders or fillers, because the wrapper 

 sells for about three times as much per pound as the binder, j 

 and about five times as much as the filler. Therefore, if the -/ 

 Sumatra tobacco takes possession of the market and 

 furnishes wrappers, all the tobacco that is raised in this 

 valley can be used for no other purpose than to furnish 

 either binders or fillers. 



This, gentlemen, is a matter of a great deal of importance 

 to the tobacco raisers of this valley, and not only that, but I 

 regard it as a matter of vital importance. I have a great 

 deal of confidence in the position taken by the farmer who 

 said, that although the simple, unsupported petition of fiirm- 

 ers might fail if it was presented to Congress, if each farmer, 

 as he put down his name, would deposit five dollars to see 



