CULTURE AND CURING IN FLORIDA. 2i> 



TLe crop of 1877 was the largest that has beeii produced for years, but it was of inferior quality, being coarse 

 and bony. The crop of 1879 was uot so good, however, as that of 1878, being affected by dry weather ; but in 1876 

 it was about of the same character as the crop of 1879, with a fair proportion of yellow wrappers and smokers. 



Nothing can be more deceptive, without proper explanation, than the table given above. The amount of tobacco 

 grown in the state for market is very small, and the comparatively large amount produced for home consumption 

 reduces the average very low. Benton, which sends more tobacco to market than all the other counties together r 

 reports an average yield per acre of 724 pounds a third greater yield than is reported for the whole state, and 

 equal to that reported in some of the best tobacco districts in the South. Bradley county reports a yield of less- 

 than 100 pounds to the acre, and many others report between 300 and 400 pounds per acre. 



CHAPTER IV. 

 CULTURE AND CURING OF TOBACCO IN FLORIDA. 



The quantity of tobacco grown in Florida would not of itself justify an extended notice of the state as a tobacco- 

 growing region. The article produced, however, more nearly than any other grown in the United States, resembles 

 that produced in Cuba. No other portion of the United States so nearly resembles Cuba in the character of its- 

 flora, the equableness of its temperature, or the variety of its marketable productions. 



CLIMATE. 



In the latitude of Jacksonville, 30 15' north, recent observations by the signal officer of the United States give 

 a yearly mean average of G9.6 degrees, and the yearly range of the thermometer, as made up from the daily mean, 

 to be 30.7 degrees. The rainfall for ten years averages 48 inches. 



PROGRESS OF TOBACCO CULTURE. 



Tobacco was first cultivated for market in Florida in 1829, in Gadsden county. A Virginia gentleman made 

 it profitable on account of the silky texture of the leaf and the large amount that could be produced to the acre. 

 The census of 1840 showed a total production for the state of 75,274 pounds, of which Gadsden county produced 

 66,324 pounds. In the census of 1850 the state reported 998,614 pounds, and of this Gadsden county was credited 

 with 776,170 pounds and Marion county with 109,000. During the decade between 1840 and 1850 its culture 

 extended into Calhoun, Leon, and Jefferson counties, adjoining Gadsden, and into Marion, near the center of the 

 peninsula. 



Between 1850 and I860 the highest point of production was reached, and for several years the annual sales- 

 varied from 3,000 to 4,000 boxes of 400 pounds each. In 1860, owing to the -increasing efforts made to raise sugar,, 

 and to the high price of sea-island cotton (to the production of which the earnest attention of the planters had 

 been directed), the reported production of tobacco declined to 828,815 pounds for the state, of which Gadsden 

 county raised 553,701 pounds; Washington, 36,680; Calhoun, 119,800; and Liberty, 34,900. Jefferson and Marion 

 had abandoned its culture. The total production reported in 1870 was 157,405 pounds, and nearly every county, 

 except Gadsdeu, ceased to raise tobacco for market. In that year Gadsden county produced 118,799 pounds;. 

 Calhoun, 13,822 pounds; and Washington, 7,590 pounds. A few other counties reported a small quantity, the 

 largest being Jackson, producing 4,202 pounds scarcely enough for home consumption. The product in 1870 was 

 onJy 19 per cent, of the amount produced in 1860. The enumerators' returns for 1880 show the production to have 

 fallen to 21,182 pounds, grown on 90 acres, with an average yield per acre of 235 pounds, the lowest yield reported 

 for any state or territory, except Maine and New Mexico. The crop of 1879 amounts to but 14 per cent, of that 

 of 1869. 



This decrease in production has been attributed to a multiplicity of causes, among them the want of confidence 

 in the constancy of the labor in the state, tobacco requiring the most assiduous attention from the time it is planted 

 until it is harvested. The petty thieving which prevails among certain classes in the tobacco-growing region had 

 a depressing effect also. Hundreds of pounds were often carried off from the open sheds in a single night. Moreover, 

 the hummock lands in the center of the tobacco-growing area have been very generally opened, and experience 

 has demonstrated that in Florida the soils which produce the highest-priced seed-leaf tobacco must be fresh. 

 When grown upon soils long opened it is thick and leathery. 



The gray and mulatto hummock lands, slightly rolling and freshly cleared, are preferred for tobacco. If planted 

 upon lands having a putty-like subsoil, the plants will grow well until the tap-roots come in contact with the 

 impervious clay beneath, when they wither and scald if the sun should be hot. This is especially the case during 

 a rainy reason. This bluish clay is highly retentive of moisture, and an excess of water in either the soil or the 

 subsoil is fatal to the tobacco plant. This subsoil has precisely the same effect upon the orange trees, the foliage 

 of which becomes yellow when an orchard is established on such soils. 



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