This “yellow tobacco belt”? extends from the 
coast across to the North Carolina Mountains, 
through Tennessee and South Carolina, South- 
ern Virginia, Southern Ohio, a few parts of 
Kentucky, some of Eastern Missouri and Ar- 
kansas. The best soils are those which are of 
a light sandy or sandy clay nature and they 
need not be deep or rich. In this region the 
very finest pipe-smoking tobaccos are raised. 
Whilst the U. S. has not been able to produce a 
cigar wrapper tobacco equal in quality to the 
Cuban or Sumatran, in pipe-smoking and cigar- 
ette tobaccos she stands without a rival. 
There are about 100 different varieties of 
tobacco grown in the U. S., many of these being 
approximately the same and are synonymous. 
Subvarieties are easily obtained by crossing. 
Cross-fertilization easily takes place where dif- 
ferent strains are produced in the same locality. 
On this account when it is desired to keep a 
variety pure, care must be exerted to see that 
seed is collected from pure strains. On the 
other hand, the ease of producing new varieties 
gives opportunity to the various State Agri- 
cultural Experimental Stations to try out new 
strains for desirable qualities. ‘The enumera- 
tion of the differences between the various varie- 
ties would be tiresome for the reader, yet it will be 
well for the user of tobacco to know some of these 
46 
