CULTURE AND CURING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 



147 



" Frog-eye" or " white speck" sometimes occurs iii tobacco thoroughly ripe. This disease is, however, much 

 less injurious than " scab ". No " flre " or " white speck " is reported from the Eastern Ohio district. 



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 Ohio for the four years from 1876 to 

 1879, inclusive. The figures for the first three years are made up from the most reliable data to be obtained, and 

 are believed to approximate the actual results very closely. For 1879 the statement is made up from the returns 

 of the census enumerators : 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 CULTURE AND CURING OF TOBACCO IN PENNSYLVANIA. 



ITS CULTIVATION IN COLONIAL TIMES. 



The colonists brought over by Peuu early engaged in tobacco culture, and as early as 1089, only seven years 

 after the proprietor came over, no less than fourteen cargoes of tobacco were exported from the colony to the mother 

 country. It is impossible to say what the tonnage of the vessels was, or how many pounds of tobacco were grown 

 in the youthful colony, but we may safely conclude it was no inconsiderable amount. 



In time, however, tobacco ceased to be extensively grown in Pennsylvania. Some doubtless was grown for 

 home consumption, but not as an article of export. 



ITS CULTIVATION IN EECENT YEARS. 



There are men still living who grew tobacco as early as 1828 in Lancaster county, in the vicinity of Ephrata. 

 An old grower asserts that it was planted in those days about the season of haymaking, or about the middle of 

 June. The ground was prepared very much as it is now, and a second crop was sometimes raised when the season 

 was favorable, the later product being exclusively used as fillers. The planters had a portion of it made up into 

 cigars for their own use, and if there was a surplus the cigars they were sold or exchanged at the country stores, as 

 was the practice also in Connecticut. These cigars were of a very common kind, and were generally retailed at the 

 rate of four and five for a cent. 



In 1840 the total production returned for the state was 325,018 pounds, of which York county produced 162,748 

 pounds, Lancaster county 48,800 pounds, and Dauphin county 40,730 pounds. 



The culture began to extend more rapidly in 1845, but the occurrence of the Mexican war the following year 

 made the production of wheat far more remunerative, while the prices for tobacco declined, until it was no longer a 

 profitable crop. The census of 1850 did not report a pound for Lancaster county. The amount grown for the state 

 reached 912,051 pounds; a result due, no doubt, to the partial inflation of prices immediately after the close of the 

 Mexican war. York county took the lead in the census of 1850, reporting its production at 418,555 pounds, or over 45 

 per cent, of the whole. Lawrence county is credited with 378,050 pounds, and Dauphin county with 50,200 pounds. 



A very rapid increase in production took place between 1849 and 1859, the returns for the latter year showing 

 for the state 3,181,580 pounds, or an increase of over 248 per cent, in ten years, while Lancaster county rose from 

 nothing in 1849 to 2,001,547 in 1859, making about 63 per cent, of the whole production of the state. In the same 

 year York county produced 095,405 pounds, each of the other counties in the state falling below a production of 

 40,000 pounds. 



The next ten years show an inconsiderable increase, due to two causes mainly : the high prices which prevailed 

 for breadstuff's and provisions, and the heavy draft made upon the laboring population for ariny purposes. The 

 increase in production was very rapid from I860 to 1870, the amount reported in the census of 1870 exceeding that 

 reported in any previous year, reaching for the state 3,407,539 pounds; for Lancaster county, 2,692,584 pounds; for 

 York, 527,808 pounds; and for Bucks, 151,372 pounds. 



Since 1870 the acreage has gradually increased, and the limits of tobacco culture have extended until nearly 

 half the counties now grow it as a staple crop. All varieties have been abandoned for the seed-leaf and domestic 

 Havana, and Pennsylvania has reached the third rank as a tobacco-producing state. 



The census of 1880 shows a production of 36,943,272 pounds, an iucrease of 965 per cent, in ten years. 



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