NEW ENGLAND TOBACCO. 4” 
used solely for smoking. About 1835 the plant received 
more attention from the farmers living in the Connecticut 
valley containing some of the finest tobacco land in the coun- 
try. They found by repeated trials that the soil was well 
adapted to the production of a finer leaf tobacco than any 
they had ever seen. At this time Kentucky and Havana 
tobacco were used in the manufacture of cigars, but on testing 
American tobacco or as it is now known * Canmentient seed 
leaf” it was found to make the finest wrappers yet produced, 
and consequently the best looking cigars. From that time 
its reputation has kept pace with its cultivation, until it now 
enjoys a world wide popularity. As a wrapping tobacco it 
towers far above the seed products of other states and can 
never have a successful competitor in the other varieties now 
cultivated in the Middle and Western States. Doubtless 
America furnishes the finest varieties of the plant now culti- 
vated, suited for all kinds of manufacturing, and adapted to 
all the various forms in which it is used. 
The great diversity of soil and climate renders this prob- 
able while actual experiments and improved methods of cul- 
ture have demonstrated it to a certainty. Thousands of 
hogsheads, cases, and bales are annually shipped to all parts 
of the world and the demand for American tobacco is greater 
than for the varieties grown in the Old World. More than 
two hundred and fifty years have passed since the London 
and Plymouth Companies began its cultivation in the Old 
Dominion, and on the same soil where the red man grew his 
“uppowac.” Virginia leaf still continues to flourish, and 
to-day it is the great agricultural product of the State. 
From a small beginning, like the plant itself it has 
developed into a great and increasing industry and its culture 
become a source of wealth unprecedented in agricultural 
history. Could the sapient James I. and his successors the 
Stuarts, now look upon this cherished production of. the 
world, they would discover a commercial prosperity connected 
with those nations which have fostered and encouraged its 
growth far in advance of those who have frowned upon the 
