CULTURE AND CURING IN VIRGINIA. 



221 



DR. 



ONE HOGSHEAD OF TOBACCO, (a) 



. . d. 

 Old subsidy of 739 pounds tobacco, at . Id. 



per pound, 25 per cent, deducted 2 6 2 



Custom, at Od. , one-third per pound, 15 per 



cent. off... 13 19 2 



16 5 4 



Entry, land waiters and bill money 010 



Freight 200 



Primage and petty charges 022 



Cooperage and porterage 026 



Cartage home 009 



Warehouse rent 2 (i 



Brokerage 020 



Impost and cocket 030 



Cutting 020 



Commissions, at 2| per cent 096 



19 10 9 



. 



Sold: Pounds. 



Snttle 812 



Tare 86 



Damage 30 



Draught and sample ... 8 



Tret 26 



150 



662 net, at6f<J.. 18 12 



By the ship f r 40 pounds damage 5 



Certificate for allowance on do. at one-half 



peimy per pound 1 



CR. 



. d. 



The planter in debt upon balance . 



.8 19 

 11 9 



19 10 9 



Aii additional example is given, in which the net proceeds of six hogsheads of tobacco were only 15 2s. 8d., (b> 

 and it is stated that from "an Account of the year 1694 * * * * all the small Charges upon a Hogshead of 

 Tobacco amounted to no more than 3s. Gd.'\ and that " in all the Accounts of a Gentleman about Ten years ago 

 [1719] no more than 7s. 8d." was "charged besides Bill Money", (c) The rate of interest charged the planters was 

 seven per cent, (d) The practices cited continued until the Revolution, for in an account of sales in our possession, 

 rendered in December, 1776, by John Norton & Son, of London, of twenty hogsheads of tobacco, for Savage & Norton, 

 of Virginia, the charges and duties were 579 17s. Id. and the commissions, etc., 87 12s. od., making a total of 667 

 10s., while the net proceeds were less than one-third of the amount, being only 207 Gs. 4<7. Of these practices 

 Keith says : 



As to the British merchants and the planters' interests, with respect to their conduct and management in carrying on the tobacco 

 trade, they have each of them taken great pains to pursue that business in such a mysterious way as it is not easy for those who are not 

 immediately concerned therein to trace ; and in truth it must be owned that the multiplicity of duties, drawbacks, bonds, and other 

 regulai ions of the customs wherewith the trade is perplexed, luis, in a great manner, forced the merchputs into many contrivances, which 

 in all probability would otherwise never have been thought of. History of I'irginia, by Sir William Keith, London, 1738, p. 184. 



The first manufactory of tobacco in Virginia of which we have found mention was that of a Major Woodford, 

 on the Kappahannock river, described by Colonel Byrd, in his Progress to the Mines in 1732, as follows : 



Major Woodford manufactures 60 hogsheads yearly, for which he gets llrf. a pound. * * * * The tobacco he cuts is long Green, 

 which, according to its name, bears a very long leaf, and consequently each plant is heavier than common sweet-scented or Towusend 

 tobacco. The worst of it is thatthe veins of the leaf are very large, so that it loses a great deal of its weight by stemming. This kind 

 of tobacco is much the fashion in these parts, and Jonathan Forward (who has great interest here) gives a good price for it. This sort 

 tin; Major cuts up. * * * The Tobacco is stemmed clean in the first place, and then laid straight in a box, and pressed down hard 

 by a press that goes with a Nut. This Box is shov'd forward towards the Knife by a screw receiving its motion from a Treadle, that the 

 Engineer sets a going with his foot. Each motion pushes the Box the exact length which the Tobacco ought to be of, according to the 

 saffron or oblong cut, which it seems to yield one penny in pound more at London than the square cut, tho' at Bristol they are both of 

 equal price * * * * After the Tobacco is cut, it is sifted through a Sand Riddle and then thro' a Dust Riddle, till 'tis perfectly 

 clean. Then 'tis put into a t ight Hogshead and prest under tho Nut, till it weighs about a Thousand Neat. One considerable benefit from 

 planting long Green Tobacco is, that 'tis much hardyer and less subject to tire than other sweet-scented, tho' it smells not altogether so 

 fragrant. Ifeatonr 1'apcrs, Wynne's Edition, Richmond, IHIili, ii, pp. 76-77. 



Another manufactory, on a smaller scale, of no little note in its day, was set up by Colonel Cabaniss, of 

 Mecklenburg county, about, or before, 1769^ Mr. Custis, of Arlington, who has recorded this fact, professes to have 

 divulged the before secret mode of management which gave its extraordinary popularity to "the weed " as it came 

 from this first tobacco factory on the south side of the James river, where they are so numerous, (e) In 1731 

 there were owned in the province of Maryland sixty vessels of 2,000 tons burden, manned by 480 sailors, and by 

 Great Britain one hundred and eighty more, of 10,000 tons burden, employing 3,000 men, which were employed 

 in the tobacco trade. (/) 



In 1732 tobacco was made a legal tender in Maryland at Id. a pound, and in March of the same year it is recited 

 in an act : 



As' by inspection tobacco is deemed one-fourth better than tobacco before the inspection took place, I 1 .'*, (id: is now the rule and 

 standard for the 100 pounds of tobacco. 



In the following year, in the same province, all " trash tobacco " was ordered to be burned, and the tax upon 

 every hogshead of tobacco was Is. 3d. (g) 



c Ibid., p. 50. 



a Case of the Planters, etc., pp. 40, 41. b Ibid., pp. 42, 43. 



d Ibid., p. 56; afterward reduced to five percent, by some merchants at least. 



e N. F. Cabell, in his Early History of Agriculture in Virginia, p. 21, quoting from The Southern Planter, iv, p. 165. 

 / Scharf's History of Maryland, ii, p. 14. 



g Bisset's Abridgment of the Laws of Maryland, 1759, p. 159. Systematic inspection of tobacco was not provided in Maryland until 1748. 



815 



