CULTURE AND CURING IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



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The cost of production decreases going west, and this may be regarded as about the average cost of growing 

 tobacco in North Carolina. An account of sales of a small crop is given, which shows the proportion of grades, 

 range of prices, and cost of marketing flue tobacco in this county: 



152 pounds, at 1U| cents $15 96 



224 pounds, at 12 cents 26 88 



280 pounds, at 30 cents 85 80 



37 pounds, at 53 cents 



609 148 25 



Charges: 



Warehouse W 70 



Auction fees - -- - 5 



Commission, 2^ per cent 3 70 



Net proceeds . 



5 25 

 143 00 



The following statement shows the production, acreage, yield per acre, value of the crop in farmers' hands or in 

 primary markets, value per pound, and value per acre of the tobacco crops of North Carolina for the years 1876 to 

 1879, inclusive, only the figures for 1879 being from the census returns : 



It will be observed that the quantity produced each year varies less than in most of the states producing tobacco. 

 This is due, in part, to the practice among farmers of making artificial "seasons" by watering the hills when the 

 weather continues dry at planting time. In this way they never fail to get a crop planted. 



It will also be observed that the value per acre is very low. This arises from the fact that fully three-fifths of 

 the product is of a very inferior brown nondescript leaf, bringing very low prices. No idea can be gained from 

 this tabular statement of the profits of growing yellow tobacco on soils well adapted to its production. The value 

 of the product upon suitable soils often reaches $250 to $400 per acre. 



It is possible that the average price returned in the schedules is too high; but the average of all grades in the 

 market at Danville for the year ending September 30, 1880, was $11 38 per hundred pounds, and it is generally 

 conceded that the finest tobacco, and that which brings the highest prices in that market, is grown in North Carolina. 

 It is therefore believed that the prices given in the schedules are very nearly correct. 



GEOLOGY AND SOILS OF THE TOBACCO EEGION. 



The appended report, by the state geologist of North Carolina, discusses fully the geology and the soils of the 

 tobacco regions of the state. 



REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY AND THE SOILS OF THE TOBACCO REGION OF NORTH CAROLINA, BY PROFESSOR 



KERR, STATE GEOLOGIST. 



Until very recently the area of bright-tobacco production was confined to less than half a dozen counties 

 Granville, Person, and Caswell, in North Carolina, and Pittsylvania and Halifax, in Virginia and in these counties 

 the industry was limited to a few supposed favored spots or patches of a few farms, or, at most, to a few square miles 

 of territory here and there. But within half a dozen years it has been ascertained that the area of soils capable 

 of producing it under proper management embraces not only a considerable portion of the territory of the counties 

 above named, but also includes two or three tiers of counties in North Carolina and two in Virginia, and in the 

 former state it has pushed up under the flanks of the Blue ridge and crossed over and occupied several counties 

 on the French Broad and Noliclmcky rivers. Beside this rapid lengthening and widening of the territory proper, 

 experiments set on foot within one, two, and three years in the heart of the cotton section, and in several counties 

 within a hundred miles of the sea, have demonstrated that nearly the whole of that section of the state is equally 

 adapted to this industry, so that now this tobacco is actually produced this year through a range of territory 

 more than 250 miles long and nearly 100 in width, including thirty counties in North -Carolina (nearly one-third 

 of the whole) and five in Virginia. While the experiments made in the middle of the eastern (cotton) section 

 have shown that the cotton soils generally of that region are adapted to the production of the bright tobacco, the 

 experiments made on a much larger scale in the Midland, Piedmont, and Mountain sections have demonstrated the 



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