76 



TOBACCO PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Mason comity, -which has been celebrated for fifty years for the delicacy and fineness of its tobacco, reports : 

 Oak lands produce the finest quality, commanding the highest prices, especially that raised on fresh or newly-cleared lands. By 

 "finest quality" is meant a product showing great silkiuess of leaf, brightness of color, exceedingly soft to the feel, smooth, lustrous, and 

 elastic, fine in grain and texture. This stylo of tobacco will bring $5 per hundred more than that grown on beech lands. 



One schedule from Bracken county says: 



On new or fresh lands the color is brighter, but the product is not so heavy as ou old, strong lands. It cures np a rich, golden color, 

 while that grown on old land is red in color, but with better body. The soil being the same, that grown on southern hillsides is finer and 

 cures up brighter in color. 



All the other counties in the district report substantially the same in relation to influences of soil upon quality,. 



GRADES OF PRODUCT. 



These vary greatly in the different counties of the district, 

 different grades as reported from the typical counties : 



The following table will show the proportion of 



Taking the average of the whole district, and the proportion would be about as follows: Dark shipping, 10 

 per cent.; tillers, 30 per cent.; bright smokers and wrappers, 20 per cent.; cutting, 35 per cent.; nondescript, 5 per 

 cent. The scarcity of the latter grade is due to the fact that the colors of the White Burley are exceedingly 

 uniform, and the inferior grades are put in the smoking grade. The only nondescript in the district comes from 

 the attempt to grow White Burley upon soils unsuited for it, and the product from such soils is known in the 

 market as Bastard Burley, and is deficient incolor and other desirable qualities. Much of this, however, is used 

 for plug fillers. 



SOILS BEST SUITED FOR WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO. 



It is considered by all correspondents that the finest tobacco is grown upon rolling lands, with a good clay 

 subsoil aud a timber growth of hickory, white oak, tulip-tree, beech, walnut, hackberry, black locust, and ash. 

 Wherever the white-oak tree grows in any quantity the soil is called oak soil. While a few planters prefer old 

 land, because the yield is much larger, a large majority prefer freshly-cleared oak lands upon the southern and 

 eastern sides of hills. On the undulating lands, where the soil is derived from the crumbling of the highly 

 calcareous, sandy, blue limestones, and where blue grass has formed a sod for many years, a very useful quality 

 of tobacco is produced for manufacturing purposes, and these are preferred next to the freshly-cleared oak 

 lands. All the soils of the district have more or less imbedded gravel. One correspondent says: " For quality, oak 

 lands; for quantity, fat, rich, calcareous soils, with a mixture of walnut and burr oak." The soils preferred vary 

 somewhat in ditt'ereut counties. In Owen county, for example, the soils are classified in the o:der of preference as 

 Nos. 1, 2, and 3. No. 1 supports a growth of sugar-tree, beech, tulip-tree, hackberry, and white walnut. This 

 approximates the typical blue-grass soil. No. 2 has a growth of white oak and other associate trees, and has more 

 clay in its composition, is not so fertile, does not yield so many pounds per acre as No. 1, but makes a good, rich- 

 colored tobacco. No. 3 has a tree-covering of ash, locust, tulip-tree, and some others. The soil resembles river 

 and creek bottoms, and, like the latter, grows a coarse, rough, bony tobacco, used more for plug than for cutting. 

 The eastern exposure in newly-cleared lands always makes the most salable tobacco. Level lands grow tobacco 

 much like that grown on river bottoms, coarse aud harsh, but leafy. 



The soils in nearly every part of the district are very durable. Wlien apparently worn out and exhausted, 

 if turned out, and a sufficient time is allowed to permit fresh assimilable elements to be unlocked by disintegration 

 from the underlying shales and limestones, they become as fertile as ever. 



It is thought that in quality tobacco has improved fully 25 per cent, within the past decade. Even the 

 tendency of the White Burley to revert to the characteristics of its parentage, of which mention has been made, 

 and which by some is called a deterioration, has been to the advantage of the planters, and a most extraordinary 

 demand has been created for the product of the reverting variety. It approaches the true ideal of a filler. The 

 color is good; it has large drinking capacity; is mild in its effects; has a delicate flavor and good body, and is 

 popular with consumers. Ten years ago a very inconsiderable portion of the tobacco of this district went into 

 plug; now fully one-half of it is worked into plug and smokers for domestic use. 



G70 



