cigars, chiefly in the 8-15 cents retail class. Other plants 

 turned out more than 2.4 million pounds of chewing 

 tobacco and over 8.5 million pounds of snuff. 



The value added to tobacco products through manu- 

 facture, according to the latest available report, was 

 $12,132,000. This is the adjusted value of products 

 shipped, less cost of contract work, materials, fuel, elec- 

 tric energy and other production-cost factors. 



.obacco in early Illinois 



The growing of tobacco in Illinois was an old agricul- 

 ture by the time the first settlers, chiefly Frenchmen, 

 reached the territory. Native Indians in the area were 

 members of the Illinois Confederacy, one of the oldest 

 and most important of American tribal associations. Male 

 Indians, who were noted for their stalwart physiques— 

 they called themselves "Iliniweck," that is, "superior 

 men"— were ardent smokers. 



Tobacco was, as elsewhere in North America, part of 

 their mythology and their rituals. When one of their 

 number died, his spirit was helped on the journey to the 

 "land beyond the milky way" by sufficient smoking 

 tobacco and, frequently, a calumet pipe. 



The native tobacco was not a type that white settlers 

 enjoyed. For their own use they brought in seeds of the 

 good tobacco growing in Virginia, Louisiana and other 

 parts of the South. After a few harvests of the imported 



