tobacco. These were used in payment of public debts 

 and taxes, at 20 shillings the hundred weight. Inspectors 

 charged 10 shillings per hogshead for examination and 

 storage. A warehouse had been erected at Louisville by 

 a Colonel Campbell as early as 1783. 



The rich, phosphatic, limestone soil of Kentucky was 

 ripe for tobacco and other commodities. It was reported 

 around 1789, in the Louisville area, that 



Three times the quantity of tobacco and corn 

 can be raised on an acre here than can be 

 within the settlements on the east side of the 

 mountains, and with less cultivation. 

 In the communities from which the settlers had come, 

 tobacco had been a cash crop. A man could depend 

 upon it, to some degree, as part of his livelihood until 

 the soil "wore out." But geographic and political condi- 

 tions were curbing the interest of farmers in growing 

 tobacco. For a time it seemed that the only reason for 

 continuing the agriculture was to produce for taxes. 



J-lie Spanish curtain 



The diflBculty lay entirely in the hard fact that there 

 was no way in which the yields of numerous tobacco 

 farms could be delivered to markets. The long water 

 route to the East, via the Ohio, was impossible, the land 

 routes impassable, and the Spanish had a tight hold on 

 the logical market, at the throat of the Mississippi. What 

 was needed at this juncture was a merchandising genius, 

 a master distributor, a brilliant sales promotion man. 



E 



nter General Wilkinson 



He turned up, unexpectedly, in the person of James 

 Wilkinson. At first glance he hardly seemed the right 



26 



