No. 4.] THE TOBACCO TRADE. 157 



KEQUIEEMENTS OF THE TOBACCO TRADE, AND HOW 

 CAN THE GROWER MEET THEM? 



BY DR. E. H. JENKINS, NEW HAVEN, CONN. 



We consider, of course, only the trade in, cigar wrapper 

 leaf. As that is the only kind of tobacco which the New 

 England States at present produce at a profit, no other 

 branch of tobacco growing concerns or interests us much as 

 growers. 



There is a general feeling just now that, as regards this 

 industry, the times are out of joint. Things are going on 

 which we do not fully understand. Trash tobacco, which 

 the grower who sorted his own crop had often in former 

 times thrown into his pig pen as Avorthless, sold readily last 

 fall at 5 cents and from that up to 8 and even 10 cents a 

 pound. At the same time, light wrappers — of poor quality, 

 to be sure — were dead, and could not be sold at any living 

 price. 



The crop of 1906 is moving into dealers' hands at fair 

 prices, but it is generally regarded as a crop of superior 

 excellence, which ought, under ordinary conditions, to bring 

 higher prices than it does. Sumatra leaf has for years been 

 a thorn in our flesh, and it wraps more than one-third of all 

 the cigars made in the United States, in spite of an import 

 duty of $1.85 per pound. 



But now, if reports are not exaggerated, our business 

 enemies are of our own household. Florida and southern 

 Georgia are again becoming a great tobacco-growing region, 

 and, while at present its output wraps only about one-tenth 

 of the cigars of this country, the business, because of its ap- 

 parent success, is likely to grow to an extent which we can- 

 not foresee. At present Florida has the call on the market. 



