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TOBACCO PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



In Viuton county, where good tobacco soils, that will make from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds to the acre without manure, 

 taay be bought for $25 per acre, the cost may come within the estimate made by Mr. J. N. Eandall, of McArthur, of 

 from $2 to $3 per hundred pounds. 



The estimated cost of production for newly-cleared lands is from $5 to $7 per hundred. This arises from the 

 fact that, independent of the cost of clearing, which should not be charged alone to the first crop grown, the labor 

 of preparing the laud for planting is greatly increased. There is a compensation, however, in the larger proportion 

 of high grades in such a crop. 



WAGES. 



Men are hired at $15 per mouth and board from spring until autumn; sometimes the price is as high as $20 or 

 as low as $12. In harvesting tobacco boys are paid from 50 to 75 cents per day for plucking off the green leaves, 

 and girls are paid half a cent per stick for stringing them. It is considered a fair day's work to string 100 sticks. 

 Dealers pay for assorting and tying 50 cents per hundred pounds, and the price paid for receiving, weighing, "ordering," 

 packing in hogsheads, and pressing varies from 37 to 40 cents per hundred pounds. Packers are sometimes paid 

 $1 per day. Itenters furnish tools and teams, and pay to the landlord from one-third to two-fifths of the product, 

 delivered in market. 



The dealers are generally provided with comfortable rooms, in which the work of assorting, tying, and bulking 

 goes on all winter. About the 1st of March the packing season begins, and continues until the whole amount in 

 the dealers' hands is pressed and shipped or sold. 



One item in relation to the method of bulking deserves notice. In bulking seed-leaf, shipping leaf, and almost 

 every other leading type grown in the United States the bundles are passed through the hands and made cylindrical 

 in shape. Those of leading grades in this district are flattened out when bulked, and even when packed in 

 hogsheads, so that when drawn they are fan-shaped, and this form displays all the gaudy colors peculiar to the 

 tobacco. 



The farmers of the Eastern Ohio district raise a great diversity of crops, so that a failure in the tobacco crop 

 is not felt to the same degree as in some other tobacco districts. It is rather an extra crop, and extra hands are 

 employed to work it. Frequently a farmer having in his employ two grown men, with families of children, will plant 

 8 or 10 acres in tobacco. The wives and daughters are employed in stringing the leaves for a month or two vi the 

 summer, and the small boys strip the leaves from the stalks. When plucked from the stalks, they are put in bunches 

 in the middle of the rows. These are gathered up by other boys and put on sleds or wagons, and are taken to 

 the barns and strung in the manner already described. So the raising of tobacco may be considered profitable 

 in so far as it furnishes a certain class with employment who otherwise would probably be idle. 



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

 primary markets, value per pound, and value per acre of the tobacco crops of the Eastern Ohio (Spangled) district 

 for the four years from 1876 to 1879, inclusive. One hundred and twenty thousand pounds of seed-leaf tobacco, grown 

 upon 143 acres in this district, are not included in this statement, having been already embraced in the statement for 

 the Seed-Leaf district. Only the figures for 1879 are from census returns : 



INSECT ENEMIES AND DISEASES. 



The horn-worms are more numerous some seasons than others, and in 1877 and 1878 about one-third of the crop 

 was very much damaged by them. Tobacco-growers, especially those of the Miami valley, are usually industrious 

 and energetic enough to prevent serious injury to their crops, but now and then their vigilance is severely taxed. 



In the Burley district seed-beds are protected from the flea-beetle by covering with canvas, and plants are 

 rarely wanting to set out the crop in good time. 



" Trenching" occurs during wet seasons in crops planted on cold, stiff uplands, having a stiff clay subsoil. 



" Bed speck " or field-fire prevails on the black lands of the Miami valley during hot, dry weather, and " white 

 speck" or "frog-eye" appears occasionally, but the injury from this cause is small. 



"Walloon " is of very common occurrence. The best preventive for this disease is good drainage of both soil 

 and subsoil. 



" Scab ", or "brown rust", said to be produced by hot weather, at certain stages of the growth of the plant is 

 reported as sometimes appearing in the White Burley district. This appears to be the result of soil and atmospheric 

 conditions acting unfavorably at the same time. 

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