GENERAL INFORMATION. 



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Details of the manner of purchasing tobacco for stemming purposes, the types used, and the method of assorting, 

 preparing, and putting up strips for export, will be found in the special reports upon the states of Indiana, Kentucky, 

 and Virginia. 



Of the crop of 1879 there were put up during the fall and spring of 1879-'80, as nearly as can be ascertained, 

 17,315 hogsheads of strips; or, assuming the average net weight at 1,200 pounds per hogshead, 20,778,000 pounds, 

 requiring about 31,000,000 pounds of leaf. 



The estimated make of strips from the crops of 1876 to 1879, inclusive, were as follows : 



Of the strips made in 1879-'80 there were put up at 



A small quantity of White Burley strips was put up on the Ohio river below Cincinnati as an experiment; also 

 about 500 cases of seed-leaf at Miamisburg, Ohio. 



The preparation of strips for export is a business of considerable importance in a few cities and towns, as in 

 Henderson, Oweusboro', and Louisville, Kentucky; Richmond and Lynchburg, Virginia; Clarksville and Paris, 

 Tennessee, and Bopneville, Indiana. In these places a large capital is invested in warehouses and the necessary 

 appliances for handling large quantities of tobacco. This branch of industry can, however, be successfully and 

 profitably managed oil a small scale, and there seems to be an increasing disposition to carry it on in close proximity 

 to the districts which produce the types best fitted for the purpose. The saving in cost of handling, transportation, 

 etc., of over 30 per cent, of weight has assumed more importance since there is no longer a profitable market for 

 the stems and other waste of the factories. 



CONCLUSION. 



The tobacco plant exhibits a facility for adapting itself to diverse conditions, rivaling that of Indian corn, and 

 excelling that of the potato. All three are plants thriving best upon soils rich in the salts of potassium. In all 

 sections of the Union any well-drained soil capable of producing Indian corn will produce tobacco, the latter 

 exhibiting, however, much more strongly marked diversity of characteristic qualities, as affected by variations of 

 soils and of climatic conditions. 



The best types of fine tobacco in the southern states are grown upon soils poorly supplied with vegetable matter 

 and are poor in albumen, although sufficiently rich in nicotine, while the best types of the northern tobacco districts 

 are grown upon lauds purposely enriched with nitrogenous manures, to promote rapid growth and early maturity, 

 and are also poor in albumen, burning freely without disagreeable odor, and are at the same time fairly supplied 

 with nicotine. That these similar results should follow unlike conditions of fertility of soil can be attributed alone 

 to difference of climate. 



The special reports herewith submitted present another apparent anomaly. In the southern tobacco-growing 

 sections the use of commercial fertilizers, while generally increasing the yield of pounds, has not resulted in an 

 improvement of quality; and, per contra, in the northern states these fertilizers have almost always bettered the 

 quality of the product. 



Both north and south, on the Atlantic border and in the far interior, the surest reliance for an increased yield 

 is the free use of composted or well-rotted farm-yard and stable manures, and these are almost invariably accompanied 

 by a parallel improvement in quality. 



It is asserted, with some show of reason, that the color of the cured leaf is correlative to the color of the soil 

 upon which the plant is grown; and it is certain that upon dark-colored soils, and especially upon those containing 

 a large proportion of clay, the stronger, heavier, and darker types are produced. Although the seed-leaf varieties 



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