Orleans where it sold for low prices. Some was taken to 

 markets twenty miles away and disposed of to local 

 buyers. Other growers who had too great a distance to 

 go for a navigable waterway manufactured their own 

 cured leaf. The product then went to Russellville, to 

 Nashville, Tennessee, or to other not-too-distant markets. 



K 



arm economy 



What gave the greatest impetus to increased produc- 

 tion was the exceptional price brought at New Orleans 

 in 1817 for Adair County tobacco. Leaf had been selling 

 for as little as 75 cents to $2.50 per hundredweight at the 

 great Mississippi port. The superior produce of Adair 

 County brought about $8.00 per hundredweight. 



The buyer had been the agent of the French state 

 monopoly, and prices for the same type, so suitable to 

 French tastes, went even higher in succeeding seasons. 

 Within the next few years the production of tobacco had 

 been firmly established in the counties of Logan, Adair, 

 Christian, and Barren and had become the most valuable 

 of their cash crops. 



M 



arkets at liome and abroad 



There were three tobacco factories in Lexington in 

 1817 with a total capital of about $57,000. A small one 

 had opened at Ilopkinsville in 1818 to supply local de- 

 mand. Louisville, whose population was just about to 

 reach 4,000, had a number of manufacturing plants, 

 since before 1819. Tliat ri\er town was still some years 

 away from the time when it would become the major 

 shipping center for tobacco. Only about 500 hogsheads 

 were received there annually in the 1815 to 1820 period. 



39 



