136 TOBACCO PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



this department, called the Graham. This has a good body, but on account of its narrow leaf is not so much 

 liked by the manufacturers. By the farmers, however, it is regarded with much favor, because it will bear rough 

 handling, wilts quickly when cut, and is not so liable to house-burn or pole-sweat. Little Dutch, a sweet-scented 

 variety, grown principally around Miamisburg, was introduced into the valley by Mr. Eayendorf, who brought the 

 seed from Germany. It has a narrow leaf, grows small and short, but is very popular with cigar manufacturers 

 for fillers and binders, making a cigar with a flavor highly pleasant and odorous, resembling the Yarrow more than 

 any other tobacco grown in the United States, and usually commands a very high price, selling for nearly one-third 

 more per pound than the other varieties. The yield is not so great as that of the Baltimore Cuba by one-half. 

 The chief reason assigned for raising it is that it is always in active demand. It requires great care in sweating, 

 the leaf being very thin and easily damaged by that process. The production does not exceed 500 cases. There 

 are probably thirty or forty local names produced by the interfertilization of these leading varieties, but they all 

 resemble the parent plants in some leading characteristic. The most noted of these sub- varieties is known as the 

 Black Leaf, but within the past two or three years the Spanish variety has been introduced from Wisconsin, and 

 promises well. 



Nearly all the tobacco grown in the Miami, Maumee, and Chippewa valleys is employed in the manufacture of 

 cigars, and a considerable proportion is exported to Bremen and to Amsterdam, it being preferred to any other seed- 

 leaf tobacco grown in the United States for exportation, because it retains a smaller proportion of water in its 

 composition, and will bear the ocean sweat with less injury. 



PEEFEEEED TOBACCO SOILS. 



Tobacco grown upon the sandy soils of the first bottoms will attain fine size, but the leaves are rough and 

 wanting in tenacity and fineness. Nor does it sweat well, coming out of that trying process brittle, with a dead 

 lifeless appearance. When grown upon second bottoms or upon the yellow uplands it attains its highest perfection, 

 being tine fibered, well bodied, elastic, and with good sweating qualities. It is exceedingly important that the 

 soil be warm, dry, and well drained. Where it is very fertile, black, and charged with organic matter, tobacco 

 sometimes fires, especially in a dry summer, and is apt to be coarse. There must be a fair proportion of clay in the 

 composition of the soil, enough to give a certain degree of plasticity. This gives fineness to the tobacco. The soil 

 preferred is a clayey loam, mulatto or yellowish in color, either upon the second bottoms or upon the uplands, where the 

 original forest growth was, in the main, sugar-tree, walnut, and tulip-tree. When grown upon freshly-cleared lauds, 

 before the vegetable matter has been thoroughly incorporated with the soil, tobacco is fine but flimsy, and wanting 

 in gum and toughness. Herein appears the difference in soil required for the best Barley tobacco and for the best 

 seed-leaf. New soils, other things being equal, will always produce tobacco that will cure of a brighter color than 

 that grown on old. The ping manufacturers usiug the Burley type demand a bright leaf, with but little substance, 

 and the grower selects new land as best adapted to meet the wants of his customers ; but the cigar manufacturer 

 requires a leaf dark in color and strong enough to withstand the strain of rolling. The farmer, to supply this 

 want, must take old land, clayey loam, highly manured if possible, and the larger the application of manure 

 the better the seed-leaf becomes adapted to the purposes for which it is grown. 



Rolling lands grow a finer leaf than level lands, for the latter, having oftentimes tenacious clays, are compacted 

 by heavy rains to such a degree as to check the growth of the plant. 



In the best seed-leaf crops grown there will be about two-thirds wrappers and one third fillers and binders ; 

 but these proportions vary greatly with the variety planted. 



Whether the quality of the tobacco produced now is equal to what it was twenty years ago is a mooted question 

 among dealers and planters, and some believe that the quality has deteriorated in consequence of planting the same 

 land so often in the crop. This has caused a decrease in the amount of gum, and a consequent want of body ; so 

 that the transfusion of the juices through the pores of the leaves is not so perfect as formerly, and the glossiness, 

 suppleness, and finish of leaf have given place to a harsher, " shucky " feel. There is, in other words, a comparative 

 lack of oily substance in its composition. In its greatest perfection the seed-leaf has the appearance of a 

 dark-colored sand-paper, the minute pellicles covering thickly the entire upper surface. These globulous pellicles 

 are charged with the gums and oils that give pliability, glossiness, "stretchiuess," and life to the leaf. When these 

 are imperfectly developed, or where they are wanting in resinous compounds, the tobacco becomes brittle, and cannot 

 withstand the heat of the sweating process. Others among the growers and dealers of the valley maintain with 

 a considerable show of reason that the quality has been gradually improving ; that there has been no deterioration 

 of quality, but that the sharp competition has raised the standard. They assert that every appliance for the handling 

 of tobacco is better than it was twenty years ago ; the barns are better ; the varieties grown are better ; the fanners 

 better understand its culture and management ; and that, so far as the soil is concerned, though the amount produced 

 per acre may not be increasing, the virgin soils, which were then chiefly planted in tobacco, were so rank that the 

 product was large, coarse, and bony. It is probable that the real truth lies between the two. In some sections of 

 the valley \ery little attention is paid to fertilizing tobacco lands, and each successive, crop shows a deterioration 

 in quality. 

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