CULTURE AND CURING IN MARYLAND 



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OTHEE TOBACCO. 



The growing of Cuba tobacco has been frequently tried on the gray soil along the river banks, but with indifferent 

 success. Grown from seed imported from Havana or Vuelta de Abajo, it emits a pleasant odor while growing, and 

 when properly cured the first year from the seed is no mean substitute for the Cuba-grown tobacco; but each 

 succeeding year it shows a gradual decline in fineness of texture and sweetness of llavor, until it approximates in size 

 and general appearance the Perique tobacco, but never attains the peculiar spirituous flavor of that variety. The 

 difficulty of procuring fresh seed from Cuba every year, and the inexperience of the planters in handling and curing 

 the Cuba tobacco, together with the 'want of an established market for home-grown Cuba, have repressed its 

 cultivation. 



PRODUCTION OF TOBACCO. 



Assuming that three-fourths of the product of the state is raised for sale and the remainder for the individual 

 consumption of the producers, the latter being generally a fixed quantity, the following statement will give, 

 approximately, the production, acreage, and yield for the several crops grown from 1876 to 1879, inclusive, the 

 figures for 1879 being taken from the census returns : 



The price of tobacco grown in Louisiana is so irregular that it is impossible to arrive at anything like a 

 satisfactory result as to values. When put up in carottes, the price ranges, without the tax, from. 20 to 60 cents per 

 pound ; in the leaf it sells from 5 to 20 cents per pound. A considerable part of the product is consumed by the 

 producer, so that any attempt to fix the value would be deceptive, although some dealers estimate that 18 cents 

 per pound would probably approximate the average value for all grades. 



CHAPTER IX. 

 CULTURE AND CURING OF TOBACCO IN MARYLAND. 



We have no historical account of the precise date of the introduction of tobacco into Maryland, nor of its first 

 culture by that colony. It is probable that the first planters were William Claiborne and his associates, who emigrated 

 from Virginia and made the first settlement in the state on Kent island (now a portion of Queen Anne county) in 

 1031, just one year before the charter under which Maryland was permanently established was granted by James I 

 to Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore. 



For a long time in Maryland, as in Virginia, excessive efforts to produce large crops of tobacco and the neglect 

 of home supplies brought scarcity, and consequent distress. 



The culture of tobacco at an early period extended over eastern and southern Maryland, and for a long series 

 of years the counties on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake bay were large producers. As late as 1849 Queen 

 Anne county raised 8,380,851 pounds, and Somerset county 1,763,822 pounds. In 1869 Queen Anne raised none, 

 and Somerset 14 pounds. No other county on the eastern shore raised any tobacco in 1869, except Wicomico, 370 

 pounds, making the product of this district of the state 384 pounds, where more than 10,000,000 pounds had formerly 

 been raised. Other crops, giving quicker and better returns, have completely ousted tobacco from this portion of 

 the state, which is so admirably adapted to truck farming that it will probably not produce tobacco again as a 

 staple crop. 



The amount produced in Maryland has fluctuated widely. Before the Revolutionary War it rose to 20,000 

 hogsheads; at the end of that war it did not exceed 10,000 hogsheads, since which time it reached 51,000 hogsheads 

 in I860, descended to 27,064 in 1868, and rose to 27,782 in 1869. 



The peculiar characteristics of nearly all Maryland tobacco afford it only a limited field of consumption. It is 

 used only by smokers of the pipe, who are contented with a cheap article, and is consumed chiefly by the peasantry 

 of Germany and Holland, who cannot afford to pay for a richer tobacco, and who would smoke their home-grown* 

 weed were not the Maryland leaf the cheaper of the two. A marked characteristic of Maryland tobacco is its 

 mildness. 



There are some fine Bay, Burley, and cigar-leaf tobaccos raised in Maryland. The soils are capable of producing 

 a much larger proportion of the finer types than has generally been grown, requiring, of course, a change of varieties 

 and appropriate management. 



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