CULTURE AND CURING IN WEST VIRGINIA. 225 



We have now brought our iiarnitive to the period of the first natioual census, aud our task has been, as it 

 were, over a tangled and uugarnered field. With the limits as to length, scarce more than a bare recital of facts 

 was admissible. We have been careful to omit nothing within the range of our acquirement which seemed essential, 

 the authority for the statements being given in every instance. The matter presented lias been laboriously gleaned 

 from diverse, obscure, and unpublished sources, in some instances from manuscripts of which but single copies 

 are in existence. The thorough aud extended investigation already made secures a basis of reference that will be 

 helpful to those who, in future years, may be able to extend the work to greater and more minute completeness. 

 Tobacco has ever been the staple product of Virginia (the first settled of the English colonies in America) and its 

 chief source of wealth. It is now one of the most prolific factors in the revenue of the general government. As 

 has been demonstrated, it once permeated the entire fabric of society in Virginia. It directed the colonial laws, 

 which consisted chiefly of regulations for its culture, quality, and, sale. An attempt to make it yield a revenue for 

 the sustenance of the postal service led to an expression of defiance anterior to the resistance to the stamp act by 

 more than half a century. For two hundred and fifty years it was the principal currency of the colony and the 

 basis of all values, and from its paramount profit its culture engrossed the attention of the colonists, and thus 

 subordinated the entire remaining agricultural and manufacturing interests of Virginia. 



Upon a careful examination of the whole subject, there is observed a kind of periodical fluctuation in the annual 

 shipment of tobacco to foreign countries, as it appears that, when our exports of leaf tobacco for two or three 

 successive years much exceed 100,000,000 pounds, for some succeeding years they are proportionately reduced 

 below that standard. It is evident that the revolutionary war gave a check to the exportation of leaf tobacco 

 from which it has never recovered; until that period the annual average exportations increased regularly aud 

 steadily. In other words, for the thirty-one years immediately preceding the Revolution our export of leaf tobacco 

 annually increased, and for the sixty years since that period it has remained stationary, except when interrupted 

 by wars or other commercial embarrassments. The reason is apparent. Before the Eevolution all Europe depended 

 on us for supplies of the article ; but being cut off by the war, Europeans turned their attention to growing tobacco 

 for themselves, and have continued to cultivate it all over the continent, while they have checked its consumption 

 by the onerous taxation above indicated, (a) 



Acccordiug to the diary of Colonel William Cabell, senior, of Union Hill, tobacco in 1794 was worth in Richmond, 

 Virginia, from 20. to 24s. per hundred-weight. It appears also, from the same authority, that " Swan creek" tobacco 

 of his section commonly commanded Is. per hundred-weight more than that grown in other sections of Virginia. 



According to the diary of Thomas Rutherford, an old and highly-respected merchant of Richmond, shipments 

 of tobacco before the commencement of the war, and until 1814, in which he was interested, sold at that time in 

 Dublin for 15d. per pound. 



It will be remembered, in comparison of the tobacco production of recent years and the tobacco production of 

 early years, that the Virginia of the early days included West Virginia, now erected into a separate state. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

 CULTURE AND CURING OF TOBACCO IN WEST VIRGINIA. 



Tobacco has been raised in West Virginia to a limited extent for more than a half century, and in 1869 the 

 whole product of the state was only 2,046,452 pounds, many things having heretofore contributed to prevent large 

 plantings of tobacco, the most important of which was the lack of facilities for transportation. This industry is 

 growing rapidly of later years, as cheaper and quicker means of reaching market are afforded and the capabilities 

 of the lands are becoming better known. 



Formerly the bulk of the crop was produced in a few counties in the Great Kanawha valley and on the Ohio 

 river, and was sold principally in Louisville and Baltimore; but Cincinnati is now the market for the greater part of 

 this crop, which is mainly dark shipping tobacco. 



Before 1853. and for some time afterward, the product of what is now West Virginia was all classed as " Western", 

 aud it has not yet received any distinctive name, the bright tobaccos being classed with the Virginia, and the dark 

 with the Ohio crop. 



QUALITY OF TOBACCO. 



The tobacco produced in West Virginia may be divided into Dark Shipping, Red and Spangled, Bright Yellow, 

 and White Burley, some counties producing two or more of these; but in the following description of the districts 

 each county is classed according to the predominant quality of its crop, Tyler county, for instance, producing some 

 of all four grades, and being classed in the Red and Spangled district. 



DAKK SHIPPING is produced in Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason counties, in the Great Kanawha valley; also 

 in Jackson, Cabell, Wayne, and Wood counties, lying along the Ohio river. 



a De Bow, iii, pp. 349-350. 



