R 



oots in the soil 



By 1774 the first permanent settlement in Kentucky 

 had been made at llarrodstown (later, Harrodsburg). 

 A year after that, Daniel Boone, under the auspices of 

 the Transylvania Company, had established a village, 

 Boonesboro, on the south side of the Kentucky River. In 

 consequence of the Company's interest, Boonesboro for 

 a while became colonial headquarters but by 1810 it was 

 all but abandoned. 



Settlers began to flock in, all eager to work the soil, to 

 plant tobacco and wheat, and to produce hemp. The 

 newcomers had bought tobacco seeds of the same varie- 

 ties as those grown in the colonies from which they had 

 migrated: Sweet-scented and Orinoco. The new soil pro- 

 duced tobacco of good weight and fair quality but 

 curing was, for some time, rather haphazard. Planters 

 maintained the procedures in culture and barn manage- 

 ment they had learned back home. Some leaf was air- 

 cured, chiefly for local use, but the general pattern was 

 curing by smoky fire. There was a well-established mar- 

 ket in various European countries for the heavy, dark- 

 fired type— and the farmers of Kentucky hoped to reach 

 that market. The belief was firmly held in the early years 

 that good tobacco could come only from virgin soil. Each 

 year, therefore, seedlings were set in newly cleared fields. 



J-obacco economy 



Specific Acts of the Virginia Assembly, from 1783 on, 

 had brought the erection of warehouses on the Kentucky 

 and other rivers. They were, at first, crude log cabins. 

 Appointed ofTicials inspected the leaf, ordered any of 

 inferior (pialitN burricd, and issued receipts for accepted 



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